Objects in Motion: The Circulation of Religion and Sacred Objects in the Late Antique and Byzantine World 9781407308111, 9781407338026

Table of contents :
09.pdf
Untitled
Front Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures
Abbreviations
Contributors
Introduction
I. Becoming Holy
Christianizing Constantine: Eusebius’ Vita Constantini as a Late Antique Social Canvas
The Portable Altar in Christian Tradition and Practice
II. Holiness in Circulation
Telling Jerusalem: Miracles and the Moveable Past in Late Antique Christianity
The Matter of Ivory and the Movement of Ideas: Thoughts on some Christian Diptychs of Late Antiquity
The Art and Ritual of Manichaean Magic: Text, Object and Image from the Mediterranean to Central Asia
The Narrative Fabric of the Genoese Pallio and the Silken Diplomacy of Michael VIII Palaiologos
Conclusion
Bibliography

Citation preview

BAR S2247 2011

Objects in Motion: The Circulation of Religion and Sacred Objects in the Late Antique and Byzantine World Edited by

MEREDITH

Hallie G. Meredith

OBJECTS IN MOTION

B A R

BAR International Series 2247 2011

Objects in Motion: The Circulation of Religion and Sacred Objects in the Late Antique and Byzantine World Edited by

Hallie G. Meredith

BAR International Series 2247 2011

Published in 2016 by BAR Publishing, Oxford BAR International Series 2247 Objects in Motion: The Circulation of Religion and Sacred Objects in the Late Antique and Byzantine World © The editors and contributors severally and the Publisher 2011 COVER IMAGE

Holy Man Reading, photograph taken by Carmen Taha Jarrah in April 2011 during a visit to India The authors' moral rights under the 1988 UK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act are hereby expressly asserted. All rights reserved. No part of this work may be copied, reproduced, stored, sold, distributed, scanned, saved in any form of digital format or transmitted in any form digitally, without the written permission of the Publisher. ISBN 9781407308111 paperback ISBN 9781407338026 e-format DOI https://doi.org/10.30861/9781407308111 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library BAR Publishing is the trading name of British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd. British Archaeological Reports was first incorporated in 1974 to publish the BAR Series, International and British. In 1992 Hadrian Books Ltd became part of the BAR group. This volume was originally published by Archaeopress in conjunction with British Archaeological Reports (Oxford) Ltd / Hadrian Books Ltd, the Series principal publisher, in 2011. This present volume is published by BAR Publishing, 2016.

BAR PUBLISHING BAR titles are available from:

E MAIL P HONE F AX

BAR Publishing 122 Banbury Rd, Oxford, OX2 7BP, UK [email protected] +44 (0)1865 310431 +44 (0)1865 316916 www.barpublishing.com

Table of Contents Acknowledgements ………………………...……………………………………………………….. List of Figures ……………………………………………………………………………………………………..… Abbreviations ………………………………………………………………………………………………………... Contributors ……………………………………………………………………………………………………........

ii iii vi viii

Introduction by Hallie G. Meredith …………………………………………………………………………….....

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I. BECOMING HOLY Hallie G. Meredith (University of Colorado, Boulder) …….………………………………………… 7 “Christianizing Constantine: Eusebius’ Vita Constantini as a Late Antique Social Canvas” Crispin Paine (University College London) …..………………...…………………………………... 25 “The Portable Altar in Christian Tradition and Practice”

II. HOLINESS IN CIRCULATION Georgia Frank (Colgate University) …………………………………………………………………………… 49 “Telling Jerusalem: Miracles and the Moveable Past in Late Antique Christianity” Anthony Cutler (Pennsylvania State University) ……..………………………………………………………... “The Matter of Ivory and the Movement of Ideas: Thoughts on some Christian Diptychs of Late Antiquity” 57 Matthew P. Canepa (University of Minnesota) ……….……………………………………………………….. 73 “The Art and Ritual of Manichaean Magic: Text, Object and Image from the Mediterranean to Central Asia” Ida Toth (University of Oxford) ………………………………………………………………………………… 91 “The Narrative Fabric of the Genoese Pallio and the Silken Diplomacy of Michael VIII Palaiologos”

Conclusion by Henry Maguire (Johns Hopkins University) ……………………………………………………….. 111 Bibliography …...…………………………………………………………………………………... 117

Acknowledgements The editor and contributors wish to acknowledge the help and advice of David Davison for facilitating the publication of this volume; his encouragement and advice have been invaluable. Many of the papers in this volume had their origins in a symposium convened whilst the editor was a Research Fellow at the Bard Graduate Center for Decorative Arts, Design History, Material Culture, New York, New York in May, 2008. The editor would like to thank the Bard Graduate Center for providing the facilities and resources with which to invite and host the speakers. I am grateful for their generous support. Finally, the editor wishes to thank the contributors for their responsiveness to my questions and comments. The editor hopes that this volume has risen to the level of their scholarship.

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List of Figures HALLIE G. MEREDITH: “Christianizing Constantine: Eusebius’ Vita Constantini as a Late Antique Social Canvas” FIGURE 1. FIGURE 2.

Evidence of Constantine’s Battle Standard as a Late Antique Social Canvas Diagram of Constantine’s Saving Sign according to Eusebius’ Vita Constantini

CRISPIN PAINE: “The Portable Altar in Christian Tradition and Practice” FIGURE 1.

A modern altar is consecrated. The Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Bishop of Aosta, consecrates a new altar in Canterbury Cathedral by pouring on holy oil, 2006. (Photo: Canterbury Cathedral). Antimension in use in the church of St Herman of Alaska, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The antimension FIGURE 2. is brought to the altar, wrapped in the silk iliton, in a decorated folder. (Photos: Reiner Loewan, through the kindness of the church and of Prof. David Goa of the University of Alberta). The antimension is slowly opened. FIGURE 3. As the antimension is opened, the name of the consecrating bishop, written in ink on the back, is revealed: FIGURE 4. ‘The Unworthy Seraphim, Bishop of Ottawa’. Antimension one-third open, with the inscription at the bottom showing: ‘The blessing of Holy Synod of FIGURE 5. the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America consecrated by the Unworthy Seraphim, Bishop of Ottawa and Canada in 2002 of the Incarnation of the Son of God, the month of May the 11th day. Given for the celebration of the Divine sacrifice in the Church of Saint Herman of Alaska, Edmonton, Alberta’. When it is opened to this position prayers of blessing are said for the hierarchs of the Church and the cloth is kissed by the celebrant. Note the reliquary pocket with the inscription ‘By Grace of God’. The relic sewn into this pocket is of Saint Herman of Alaska, to whom the church is dedicated. Antimension fully opened at the Prayers for the Catechumens. The bread and wine are placed on it FIGURE 6. following the Great Entrance, and are consecrated. Note in the corner the sponge that is also wrapped within the folded antimension and used during the FIGURE 7. preparation of the gifts on the Holy Table. The central image shows the burial of Christ surrounded by the women, including his mother and Mary of Magdalene and the other Marys. The Gospel writers are in each corner of the cloth; Saints Basil the Great and John Chrysostom are also shown. A modern Coptic muqaddas (Photo: Fr Gregory Tillett). FIGURE 8. St Cuthbert’s portable altar, probably of c. 660 - the oldest portable altar known. (Drawing by S. M. FIGURE 9. Waterhouse from Radford 1956, 328). FIGURE 10. Tablitho of 709-10 from Takrit – the second oldest portable altar known. (Drawn from Harrak 2001, 34). FIGURE 11. A modern Roman Catholic altar stone, let into a wooden altar. Marble, with five inscribed crosses and a small circular plug concealing relics. it is normally hidden by the altar cloth. (Photo: author, by kind permission of St Agnes’s Church, Liss, Hampshire). FIGURE 12. A twelfth century portable altar of porphyry, framed in wood, with plates of gilt copper, probably made for the Cathedral of Hildesheim since St Godehard, Bishop of Hildesheim appears prominently. Hildesheim in Lower Saxony was a crucially important centre of medieval ecclesiastical patronage in an area renowned particularly for its metalworking skill. (Photo and information: V&A). FIGURE 13. Portable altar of St Arnulf. (Photo: Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser, Gärten und Seen). FIGURE 14. The inscribed underside of a small 1728 black marble portable altar in the museum of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland. c. 6 ins X 5 ins. It has no wooden frame. (Photo: Niall McKeith). FIGURE 15. A bishop consecrating a portable altar. He is vested simply in an alb and stole, holding a bunch of hyssop, to be used as an aspergillum, in his hands. An illuminated initial from the office for the consecration of a portable altar, from a Pontifical made in central France about 1470. (Photo by kind permission of Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Manuscripts). FIGURE 16. An antimension is consecrated at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in London, 2007. (Photo: Russian Orthodox Church in London). FIGURE 17. Portable Altar of walrus ivory, made in Cologne c. 1200-1220. (Photo: Cleveland Museum of Art). FIGURE 18. Late eighth century portable altar from Adelhausen. 377 X 133 mm. (Photo: Archiv der Stiftungsverwaltung Freiburg i.Br.). FIGURE 19. Shrine and portable altar of St Andrew’s sandal, c. 980. (Photo: Cathedral Information Office Trier). FIGURE 20A. A portable altar of about 1200, from Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany. (Information and photos  The Trustees of the British Museum). iii

FIGURE 20B. The underside is inscribed with the names of forty saints in whose honour it was dedicated. In a cavity beneath the stone slab are relics of these saints, wrapped in textiles and labelled. Analysis has shown that the oldest textiles are likely to date from the ninth or tenth century, whereas the most recent may date from as late as the nineteenth. The relics themselves have been examined and consist mainly of bone but with hair (labelled as coming from St John the Evangelist) and semi-precious stones (associated with St Christopher). FIGURE 21. The back of St Cuthbert’s portable altar, showing the remains of the ninth century silver ‘shrine’ work. (Photo: Durham Cathedral Library). FIGURE 22. The top of the portable altar of Stavelot. (Photo: Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels). FIGURE 23A. Portable altar from the collection of the Victorian antiquary Daniel Rock. Made in the Rhineland around 1200, it was bequeathed in 1472 by Cardinal Bessarion to the Abbey of Avellana in Gubio. In the eighteenth century it was in the possession of Count Cigognora; Rock acquired it sometime between 1825 and 1849, when he published this engraving in his Church of our Fathers. It is now preserved at St. John’s Seminary, Wonersh, Surrey, UK. (Information from a note by the Victoria & Albert Museum, dated 1971, at St John’s Seminary. Images from Rock 1905, 204). FIGURE 23B. The top of Dnaiel Rock’s portable altar. FIGURE 24. Antimension of Bishop Afanasii Puzyna of Luts’k and Ostrih, Ukraine, 1633, bearing the ‘Man of Sorrows’ image. (Photo: National Museum in L’viv). FIGURE 25. Antimension of Bishop Antonii Vynnyts’kyi of Peremyshl’ and Sambir, Ukraine, 1650. (Photo: National Museum in L’viv). FIGURE 26. Wolfram’s Holy Grail? The ‘Paradise’ portable altar in Bamberg Diocesan Museum. (Photo: Henricus, Wikimedia Commons). FIGURE 27. Tabotat being carried in procession under ceremonial umbrellas, in a témqät (Epiphany) ceremony at Gondar, Ethiopia. (Photo: Jialiang Gao www.peace-on-earth.org). ANTHONY CUTLER: “The Matter of Ivory and the Movement of Ideas: Thoughts on some Christian Diptychs of Late Antiquity” FIGURE 1A. FIGURE 1B. FIGURE 1C. FIGURE 1D.

Florence, Bargello. Carrand diptych, Adam leaf Florence, Bargello. Carrand diptych, Paul leaf Florence, Bargello. Carrand diptych, Adam leaf, detail Florence, Bargello. Carrand diptych, Paul leaf, detail

FIGURE 2A. Ravenna, Museo Nazionale. Murano diptych, Christ leaf FIGURE 2B. Manchester, John Rylands Library. Murano diptych, Virgin leaf, Magi and Nativity FIGURE 2C. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Murano diptych, Virgin leaf, plaque; Annunciation, Trial by Water, Journey to Bethlehem FIGURE 2D. St. Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum. Murano diptych, Virgin leaf, plaque, Annunciation to Anne FIGURE 3A. FIGURE 3B. FIGURE 3C. FIGURE 3D. FIGURE 3E.

Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Christ leaf Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Virgin leaf Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Virgin leaf, detail, Journey to Bethlehem Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Christ leaf, detail, Healing of the Paralytic Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Virgin leaf, detail, wreath-holding angel

FIGURE 4A. FIGURE 4B. FIGURE 4C. FIGURE 4D.

Paris, BnF. Saint-Lupicin diptych, Christ leaf Paris, BnF. Saint-Lupicin diptych, Virgin leaf Paris, BnF. Saint-Lupicin diptych, Christ leaf, detail, Healing of the Blind Man Paris, BnF. Saint-Lupicin diptych, Virgin leaf, detail, Trial by Water

FIGURE 5A. Athens, Benaki Museum. Comb, Roma FIGURE 5B. Athens, Benaki Museum. Comb, Constantinopolis FIGURE 6A. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. The Women at the Tomb; Christ’s Ascension FIGURE 6B. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. The Women at the Tomb; Christ’s Ascension, detail, the Ascension FIGURE 6C. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. The Women at the Tomb; Christ’s Ascension, detail, the Women at the Tomb

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IDA TOTH: “The Narrative Fabric of the Genoese Pallio and the Silken Diplomacy of Michael VIII Palaiologos” FIGURE 1. FIGURE 2. FIGURE 3. FIGURE 4. FIGURE 5. FIGURE 6. FIGURE 7. FIGURE 8. FIGURE 9. FIGURE 10.

The Genoese pallio: the donor composition The Genoese pallio: The flagellation of St Lawrence The Genoese pallio: St Lawrence incarcerated The Genoese pallio: the martyrdom of St Lawrence The Partenon freeze: the presentation of Athena’s peplos (by kind permision of the Trustees of the British Museum) The Genoese pallio: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo The Genoese pallio: St Lawrence sells church treasures The Genoese pallio: St Lawrence distributes money to the poor The Genoese pallio: St Lawrence argues with the Emperor Decius The Pallio, Palazzo Bianco, Genova. (Photos provided by kind permission of Dr. Loredana Pessa, Collezioni Tessili, Raccolte Ceramiche, Museo Luxoro, Genova)

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Abbreviations AASOR ACW Akropolites, History ANCL Aphthonius, Progymnasmata ANRW BSOAS BZ Cameron 1976 Canale’s Chronicle CCSL 175 Chronicle of Morea CIL Cod. Theod. CSEL DMP DOP ET GM

Nikephoros Gregoras, History IG Inst. Div. litt. It. Eg. JbAC JECS JRA JRS LIMC A. Makrembolites, Logos Historikos Menander Rhetor, Imperial Oration Molinier, 1885 NPNCF ODB George Pachymeres, History (Bekker) George Pachymeres, History (Failler)

Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research Ancient Christian Writers. A. Heisenberg, ed. 1903. Georgii Acropolitae Opera, I, 1-189. Leipzig (repr. Stuttgart 1978). A. Roberts and J. Donaldson, eds. 1864-97. Anti-Nicene Christian Library. 25 vols. H. Rabe, ed. 1926. Aphthonii progymnasmata. Leipzig. Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt. 1972Bulletin of the Schools of Oriental and African Studies Byzantinische Zeitschrift A. Cameron. 1976. Flavius Cresconius Corippus: In laudem Iustini Augusti minoris (In Praise of Justin II). London. F.L. Polidori and G. Galvani, eds. 1845. “La Chronique des Veneciens de maistre Martin da Canal”. Archivo storico italiano VIII: 229-798. P. Geyer and O. Cuntz, eds. 1965. Itineraria et Alia Geographica, Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 175-76. Turnhout: Brepols. J. Schmitt, ed. 1904. The Chronicle of Morea. London. Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. 1863T. Mommsen and P.M. Meyer. 1905. Theodosiani Libri XVI. ET: C. Pharr, T.S. Davidson and M.B. Pharr. 1952. The Theodosian Code, and Novels. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press. Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. 1866- . Vienna. Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum; ET: J.L. Creed. 1984. De Mortibus Persecutorum. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Dumbarton Oaks Papers English translation Gregory of Tours, De gloria martyrum; ed. B. Krusch, “Georgii Florentii Gregorii episcopi Turonensis libri octo miraculorum”, in Monumenta Germaniae historica. Scriptores rerum merovingicarum, 1 (Hanover, 1885) 451-820; ET: R. Van Dam. 1988. Glory of the Martyrs, Translated Texts for Historians, Latin Series III. Liverpool. L. Schopen and J. Bekker, eds. 1829-55. Byzantina Historia Nicephori Gregorae, I-III. Bonn. Inscriptiones Graecae. 1873Institutio Divinarum litterarum Itinerarium Egeriae. Text: CCSL 175: 25-103. ET: J. Wilkinson. 1981. Egeria’s Travels to the Holy Land. Rev. ed. Warminster. Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Roman Archaeology Journal of Roman Studies Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae. 1981-99. Zurich. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ed. 1897. Ἀνάλεκτα Ἱεροσολυμιτικ±ς σταχυολογίας, vol. I, 14459. Sankt Petersburg (repr. Brussels 1963). D.A. Russell and N.G. Wilson, eds. 1981. Menander Rhetor, 77-95. Oxford. E. Molinier. 1885. “Inventaire du trésor du Saint-Siège sous Boniface VIII (1295)”. Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes 46: 16-44. Nicene and Post-Nicene Christian Fathers. 1890-1900. Oxford. A.P. Kazhdan, ed. 1991. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzatium, vols. 1-3. New York /Oxford. I. Bekker, ed. 1835. De Michaele et Androniko Paleologis, vol. I-II. Bonn. A. Failler, ed. 1984-1999. Georges Pachymérès, Relations Historique, vol. I-III. Paris.

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Michael VIII Palaiologos, Typicon PG PL PLP Pseudo-Kodinos RE SEG Siderides 1926 Synaxarium mensis Augusti Treaty of Nymphaion Treu 1906 Treu 1907 VC ZPE

J. Thomas and A. Constantinides Hero, eds. 2000. “Typikon of Michael VIII Palaiologos for the Monastery of the Archangel Michael on Mount Auxentios near Chalcedon”, in Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Testaments, vol. 3, trans. G. Dennis, 1207- 37. Washington, DC. Patrologia Graeca. J.-P. Migne, ed. 1857- . Patrologiae cursus completes. Series graeca. Paris. Patrologia Latina. J.-P. Migne, ed. 1844- . Patrologiae cursus completes. Series Latina. Paris. E. Trapp, et. al. 1976-94. Prosopographisches Lexicon der Palaiologenzeit, vols. 1-12. Vienna. J. Verpeaux, ed. 1976. Pseudo-Kodinos. Traité des offices, Introduction, texte et traduction. Paris. Pauly-Wissowa, Real-Encyclopädie der klassischen Altertumswissenschaft. Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum. 1923Manuel/Maximos Holobolos, Encomium I = X.A. Siderides, ed. 1926. “ΜανουÂλ Ὁλοβώλου ’Εγκώμιον εÓς ΜιχαÂλ Η᾽ Παλαιολόγον”. ’ΕπετηρÃς ’Εταιρείας Βυζαντιν´ν Σπουδ´ν 3: 17491. H. Delehaye, ed. 1902. Acta Sanctorum, 859-938. Brussels (repr. 1985). C. Manfroni. 1898. “Le relazioni fra Genova, l’impero bizantino e i Turchi”. Atti della Società ligure di storia patria 28: 791-809. Manuel/Maximos Holobolos, Encomium I: M. Treu, ed. 1906. “Manuelis Holoboli orations”. Programm des königlichen Victoria-Gymnasiums: 30-50. Manuel/Maximos Holobolos, Encomium III: M. Treu, ed. 1907. “Manuelis Holoboli orations”. Programm des königlichen Victoria-Gymnasiums: 78-98. Eusebius of Caesarea, Vita Consantini; F. Winkelmann. 1975, rev. 1992. Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantins. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.; ET: A. Cameron and S.G. Hall, eds. 1999. Eusebius: Life of Constantine. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik

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Contributors MATTHEW P. CANEPA Dr. Canepa (Ph.D. University of Chicago) is Asst. Professor of Ancient Art in the Department of Art History at the University of Minnesota. His research tends to focus on the intersection of art, ritual and power in the Mediterranean and the ancient Iranian world. Winner of the 2010 James Henry Breasted Prize, his first book The Two Eyes of the Earth (University of California Press, 2009), is the first to analyze the artistic, ritual and ideological interactions between the Roman and Sasanian empires in a comprehensive and theoretically rigorous manner. ANTHONY CUTLER Dr. Cutler is Evan Pugh Professor of Art History a the Pennsylvania State University. He has established himself as an international expert on ivory carving with such works as The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory, and Society in Byzantium (Princeton University Press). His most recent book is Byzantium, Italy and the North: Papers on Cultural Relations (Pindar Press). He is currently working on his book, The Empire of Things: Gifts and Gift Exchange Between Byzantium, the Islamic World, and Beyond. GEORGIA FRANK Dr. Frank is Professor of Early Christian Literature at Colgate University. She is the author of The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrimage to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity (2000). Her research interests also include early Byzantine lay devotion and hymnography. MILENA GRABAČIĆ Dr. Grabačić recently completed a doctoral thesis on the art and devotion in Venice’s maritime state at the University of Oxford and is currently a lecturer in Medieval History at Wadham College, Oxford. She is convening a research seminar in Medieval Visual Culture. HENRY MAGUIRE Dr. Maguire is Emeritus Professor of Art History at Johns Hopkins University. From 1991 until 1996 he was Director of Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks. His most recent book, co-authored with Eunice Dauterman Maguire, is Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture (Princeton, 2007). HALLIE G. MEREDITH Dr. Meredith (D.Phil. Lincoln College, University of Oxford) is a Lecturer in Classics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her overriding research interest is the intersection of art and text. As a former practicing glassblower, her work highlights the role of use and experience in the ancient world. Her most recent article, “Animating Objects: Ekphrastic and Inscribed Late Antique Movable Material Culture”, was published in Facta. A Journal of Roman Material Culture Studies. She is currently working on a book examining Late Roman craftsmanship which focuses on open-work vessels, a category of deeply carved Roman material culture. CRISPIN PAINE Formerly a local history museum curator in Oxford and elsewhere, Mr. Paine is a museums and heritage consultant, now mainly involved in teaching and writing. He has a particular interest in the material culture of religion, editing Godly Things: Museums, Objects and Religion in 2000, founding Material Religion, the Journal of Objects, Art and Belief in 2005, and now working on a book on the lives of religious objects in museums. He is an Honorary Lecturer at the Institute of Archaeology, UCL. IDA TOTH Dr. Toth completed her doctoral studies at Oxford University, where she has taught, and continues to teach, graduate courses in Medieval Latin, Medieval Greek, Byzantine Literature, and Byzantine Epigraphy. She has published on Byzantine rhetoric, fictional biography, and donor inscriptions. She is currently preparing a Handbook to Byzantine Epigraphy and is co-editing a volume on Reading in Byzantium and Beyond.

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Introduction Hallie G. Meredith Ordinary objects are often perceived as acting like clay. Through use, malleable objects are imprinted with the character and personality of their owner. From dolls, to pens, to guitars, everyday objects are imbued with the agency of their primary user. Whether Indiana Jones’ iconic hat, or ‘Lucille’, BB King’s famous guitar, objects are not just associated with certain individuals, they become extensions of certain individuals. Whilst these may be iconic examples, the underlying idea is ubiquitous. Everyday objects are relics. As a remnant of a time and place, coupled with the personal history of an individual, a relic is set apart from similar objects. Intriguing questions, such as ‘by whom?’ and ‘why?’ lead us ever closer to the original contexts of production, circulation and reception. Whether secular or sacred, relics were originally consecrated in order to serve a specific role. The verb consecrate is derived from the Latin consecrare (to make sacred, dedicate);1 this definition highlights the fundamental idea of giving ‘the object itself a character of holiness’, thus ‘fit for a religious use.’ It is this sense of the word that forms the basis for the ideas explored in the papers and time periods represented in this volume. By exploring key objects and analysing them through the lens of their original contexts of viewing and interpretation, scholars are building up a series of synchronic snapshots of objects in motion. By layering the accumulated meaning gathered from a series of synchronic studies, a diachronic perspective is sought. This kaleidoscopic accretion of ‘social canvases’2 can then aid in our modern understanding of the circulation of religion via material culture. All too often, scholarship begins and ends with a discussion of the True Cross.3 The original use of the wooden cross made it synonymous with its original user; making it the greatest of Christian relics.4 Whilst the True 1

Oxford English Dictionary, see ‘consecrate, v.,’ second edition, 1989; online version November 2010. ; accessed 4 February 2011. Earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1891. 2 Essentially defined as instruments upon which socially-constructed meaning is projected. See H. Meredith “Christianizing Constantine: Eusebius’ Vita Constantini as a Late Antique Social Canvas” in this volume. 3 That is the particular wooden structure, an upright post with a horizontal crossbar, upon which Jesus Christ suffered death. 4 It. Eg. See M.L. McClure and C.L. Feltoe, ed. and trans., The Pilgrimage of Etheria, London, Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1919. Available at http://www.ccel.org/m/mcclure/etheria/etheria.htm, esp. 74-5. See also J. Wilkinson, trans., Egeria’s Travels, Warminster, Aris & Phillips, 1981, see esp. notes 169-73 for extracts from the late fourth century pilgrim’s account recounting worship in the Holy Land before the True Cross.

Cross is an iconic example of an object animated by the power of a divine user, it embodies an idea that gained currency in late antiquity.5 The underlying premise was built upon social ideas embedded in the Graeco-Roman world long before the time of the True Cross. The True Cross is not an anomaly. It is part of broader social development in the late Roman or early Christian period. The mechanism operated in the following way: a key, but ephemeral event occurred; then a physical remnant of an important event was identified as sacred – typically the material object was used by or inspired by a divine power, or devoted to a holy figure for use in worship – this served as a kind of starting point in the metaphoric life cycle of consecrated, material culture with culture-specific meaning; the history of the objects’ meaning was then somehow joined with the movable object. This way the movable object retained its associated religious meaning and social significance; next, the culturally-constructed, movable, material culture then circulated in society in the role of divine agent. In the role of agentive relic, the object then moved among mankind performing miracles and actions in a manner similar to the person who had imprinted it with divine power. The outlook represented by the True Cross is the basis for relics (both corporeal relics from once living saints, and non-corporeal relics, i.e. objects worn or used by holy figures) as well as reliquaries which develop in this period. The papers in this volume consider circulating material culture in order to gain access to the underlying ideas in circulation; drawing upon ‘the period eye’ in order to explore interpretations accessed via the union of history and object whereby the very fabric of religious objects were imprinted and imbued with pivotal ephemeral events. Thereby, the authenticity of the religious material culture in circulation stems from the preservation, orally and in writing, of the past in tangible material form. Material culture provides witnesses. As such, witnesses can authenticate events from the past. Thus, future generations have a means of directly accessing – and validating – the past in the present. Moreover, divine power acquires a presence in the worshippers’ present. 5 For an exhaustive list of fragments of the True Cross compiled from archaeological and literary sources, see A. Frolow, La relique de la Vraie Croix: Recherches sur le développement d’un culte, Archives de l’orient chrétien, vol. 7, Paris, Institut français d’études byzantines, 1961; A. Frolow, La reliquaires de la Vraie Croix, Archives de l’orient chrétien, vol. 8, Paris, Institut français d’études byzantines, 1965. For an outline of Late Antique sources on the perceived power of the True Cross as a substitute for the absent body of Christ, see A.J. Wharton, Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks, Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 2006, esp. 12-15.

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD The papers in this volume are divided into two overarching themes: I. Becoming Holy and II. Holiness in Circulation. These themes suggest a lifecycle of objects, progressing from birth to death and continuing onto rebirth. As sacred objects, they become holy and are then (potentially) embedded in social memory from this point onwards. This volume includes material ranging from conceptions of a shared past via tales of miraculous events, pilgrimage souvenirs, the movement of Manichaean magical incantation bowls and amulets, Christian altars, ivory diptychs, embroidered diplomatic gifts, to places of ritual power and the movement of ideas. Whilst the content of the papers is rich and varied, they share a common focus: exploring the role of a circulation of religious ideas embodied in different material forms of cultural expression.

dedication, to present-day ethnographic evidence concerning the life cycle of such dedicated material culture. The familiar takes a new meaning whilst retaining its shape. The memory of a ‘religious’ vessel maintains and is continually associated with a particular owner. New viewers and users are taught about the history and use of such transformed objects. Those histories are then circulated, for example in the form of hagiographies. Meredith and Paine consider how sacred objects become holy in the eyes of their intended users and viewers. Tackling these kinds of fundamental process-orientated questions as they approach sacralisation in antiquity, the authors exploring this theme address the cultural frameworks within which everyday objects were transformed into religious objects.

Part I, Becoming Holy, focuses on questions to do with the act of making everyday objects sacred. Becoming Holy addresses the subject of transformation, typically from a familiar, commonly used physical object to a religious object dedicated exclusively to religious use. Familiar types of objects – cups, plates, lamps, benches, articles of dress, water, sand, and wood – can be transposed from the context of the everyday to the sacred, effectively moving from the natural cycle of birth to death, to rebirth as a ‘holy’ object for exclusively religious use.6 Whilst their form and original function remains unaltered, their context and dedicated use are radically altered. Hallie Meredith and Crispin Paine both address the role of objects becoming holy.

Part II, Holiness in Circulation focuses on questions to do with how movable material culture exhibits the agency of the original user. Circulation and utility express ideas about religion in a manner more tangible than that articulated in doctrinal writings. Drawing upon textual representations of physical objects, this part explores how culture-specific interpretations are constructed. Once transformed – often made sacer in a liminal space before reintroduction as a rebranded ‘holy’ object in service of religious personae – dedicated material culture does not simply revert back to previous, common use. Use and function continue, often unchanged, but what does change is the user. A lamp, for example, dedicated to Christ has the potential to remain a functioning lamp. The community of worshippers may indeed use it as such. The act of use, however, becomes a display of piety to a physically absent holy figure. Use also becomes a model for worshippers. An inscribed lamp dedicated to Christ with the name of a donor Bishop displayed in a church not only serves to illuminate the communal space, but the illuminated inscription literally highlights the Bishop’s role as exemplar to his community of fellow Use by proxy underscores the Christians.7 commemorative social function of sacred movable material culture.

Hallie Meredith’s paper “Christianizing Constantine: Eusebius’ Vita Constantini as a Late Antique Social Canvas” sets the stage by introducing the term ‘social canvas’. Considering monotheistic material, Meredith not only examines the life of Moses as a model for Eusebius’ fourth century interpretation of the Life of Constantine, but also the key role of highlighted fourth century material culture woven into Eusebius’ extremely visual re-presentation of events. This paper, therefore, considers the implications for the study of religious objects as social canvases, whether from late antiquity or from other historic periods, as an approach with which to analyse the transformative power inherent in objects becoming holy.

Once transformed, such dedicated objects have a cultural currency imprinted within their very fabric. As extensions of their original or only users, they have an agency all their own, thereby acting as intermediaries in place of the user. Thus, just as Mary served as the pure vessel for the

Crispin Paine’s paper “The Portable Altar in Christian Tradition and Practice” redresses a lacuna in Late Antique studies through his treatment of altars as a sacred movable place. Paine raises the following questions: how do portable altars become holy, and what are the implications of that sanctity? Paine’s study surveys altars from as early as the fourth century, discussing their function, materiality, and rites of consecration and

7 See, for example, a treasure of inscribed, sixth century open-work lamps dedicated to the Holy Sion by the Bishop of the See E. Dodd, “The Sion Treasure: Problems of Dating and Provenance”, Sixth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, Abstracts of Papers, Oberlin, OH., 1980; S. Boyd, “A Bishop's Gift: Openwork Lamps from the Sion Treasure”, in Argenterie Romaine et Byzantine. Actes de la Table Ronde, Paris 1113 Octobre 1983, ed. F. Baratte, Paris, De Boccard, 1988, 191-202; S.A. Boyd and M.M. Mango, eds., Ecclesiastical Silver Plate in SixthCentury Byzantium, Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1992. See also I. Ševčenko and N.P. Ševčenko, eds. and trans., The Life of Saint Nicholas of Sion, Brookline, MA, Holy Cross Press, 1984.

6 For the familiar types of objects, see for example, J. Wilkinson Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, Warminster, Aris & Phillips, 2002. On the idea of a lifecycle for material culture, see A. Appadurai, ed. The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, Cambridge, University of Cambridge Press, 1986; A. Gell. Art and Agency, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998; R. Osborne and J. Tanner, eds., Art's Agency and Art History, Oxford, Blackwell, 2007.

2

HALLIE G. MEREDITH: INTRODUCTION Immaculate Conception, saints underwent a purification process whereby they prepared themselves to act as pure vessels for Christ’s gifts. Whilst living saints and other holy figures were vessels receiving holy power directly from God, in death and eternally thereafter, their bodies retained those divinely granted gifts precisely because they remained dedicated vessels in service of Christ.8 The same framework applied to material culture.

Matthew Canepa’s “The Art of Ritual and Manichaean Magic: Text, Object and Image from the Mediterranean to Central Asia” explores the transmission of ideas in Manichaean magical texts in order to highlight the interconnected world of Eurasian magical practice. Canepa discusses the central role of movement for Manichaeism since its third century inception in the Sasanian empire, the syncretistic nature of cult practice as well as the cultural contexts for magical practice. Set against this cultural backdrop, Canepa investigates fifth to seventh century Manichaean incantation bowls as well as a Persian spell and amulet, as a means of understanding how Mesopotamian practitioners appropriated and incorporated ideas into their movable magical texts.

By reinterpreting holiness, these papers address the impact and circulation of reputation in what is effectively the consecrated life of an object. Christ himself no longer walks among men, besides teachings imparted to mankind, what remains are physical vestiges from his time on earth – physical objects used and spaces occupied by his corporeal presence. The Bible records how Christ’s touch healed men, women and children.9 The circulation of material culture imprinted with Christ’s agency thereafter allowed for transference of Christ’s power onto those objects. First, these objects became holy through their connection to a holy figure. Once they became well known in their own right, as a physical presence, these objects could then reinforce Christ’s presence even in his corporeal absence. Thus, nascent myths and legends gained credence with the conspicuous addition of tangible material culture as corroborating evidence of their veracity. The circulation of legends via material culture, therefore, strengthened the credibility of received truth, the object as a material witness, and reciprocally, a worshipper’s faith in ephemeral events. Georgia Frank, Anthony Cutler, Matthew Canepa and Ida Toth each address the role of holiness in circulation.

Ida Toth’s “The Narrative Fabric of the Genoese Pallio and the Silken Diplomacy of Michael VIII Palaiologos” incorporates an imperial diplomatic gift in combination with an imperial oration and another contemporaneous text in order to contextualise the gift. The exchange of the gift is analogous to a relic of medieval cross-cultural heritage. Toth investigates the conceptual framework within which the object operated, tracing a diplomatic gift in circulation across a radically altered political, cultural and religious landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the thirteenth century. As defenders of the Christian heritage, the Byzantine gift considered by Toth demonstrates continuity regarding the circulation of ideas via movable material culture. These are the kinds of questions and issues that the contributors to this volume have considered. This volume is intended to stimulate research into the overlooked ‘minor arts’ and to re-animate them for modern audiences. It is hoped that this collection of essays will serve as a springboard for future interdisciplinary work weaving together elements from religious doctrine, orality, ritual, cultural history and the history of art, through material culture.

Georgia Frank’s “Telling Jerusalem: Miracles and the Moveable Past in Late Antique Christianity” establishes memory as a movable object. Frank considers sixth and seventh century material, in particular pilgrim’s accounts and souvenirs, addressing the mobility of sacred objects in the form of stories about the movement and relocation of sacred objects as they journeyed west from Jerusalem. Frank’s paper frames the second part of this volume, highlighting the role of memory in interpreting sacred objects in motion.

What unites all these studies – as well as objects in motion – is their use of social canvases for the projection of social meaning. The import of the objects highlighted in antiquity originated in the purposes for which they were designed. Whereas Constantine’s physical battle standard had a social use, that of a totemic standard for display in battle, Eusebius’ ideological concerns regarding succeeding emperors’ continued Christianity remains evident in his textual interpretation of events. Miracles were employed to authenticate the past in the present. Diplomatic gifts served as remnants of allegiances. Sacred movable places, altars and magical material culture, whether Christian or Manichaean, allowed worshippers to access and commemorate with divine power. Religious objects circulated ideas, echoed in the objects’ form, content, visuality and tactility. Objects in motion unite the circulation of ideas with the circulation of material culture. Thereby, objects serve as extensions of their agents, as material witnesses, and as

Anthony Cutler’s “The Matter of Ivory and the Movement of Ideas: Thoughts on some Christian Diptychs of Late Antiquity” continues the theme of the life cycle of early Christian ideas and objects. Identifying the role of the craftsmen as well as the spectator, Cutler introduces the notion that form, idea and image can coexist. Cutler considers the ‘afterlife’ of ivories, reanimating ivory diptychs by analysing their visuality, tactility, history and use. 8 The bones and other remnants of living saints served as terrestrial intermediaries – in perpetuity – between God in heaven and man on earth. The very fact that saints relics could be fragmented and still retain their original power underscores the underlying outlook that Christ’s gifts flowed equally throughout the fabric of a vessel’s body. Whether whole or in pieces, divine power remained indivisible. 9 Pilgrim’s guides provide eyewitness testimony of divine power present in secondary relics. See, for example, Wilkinson Egeria's Travels, 1981; Wilkinson Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, 2002.

3

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD social canvases simultaneously acting as catalysts for and reinforcing one another.

4

I. Becoming Holy

Christianizing Constantine: Eusebius’ Vita Constantini as a Late Antique Social Canvas1 Hallie G. Meredith INTRODUCTION1 In brief, this paper argues that textual accounts of the act of viewing objects in circulation created a history for those objects and used those objects as ‘social canvases’ – instruments upon which socially-constructed meaning is projected – to fix meaning. In ancient texts, religious objects are portrayed as having agency. If religious objects are often everyday objects transformed – how do they become holy? As a kind of Late Antique chicken-and-egg paradox, a partial answer is that they become holy in the meaning attributed through the retelling. Thus, the divinely inspired idea for the object is what gives it the power of protection. The underlying idea for its creation is sacred. In this case, divine revelation conveyed the meaning of a symbol to Constantine, the first Christian emperor, who then created physical expressions of a hybrid divine-imperial symbol of protection for Christian Romans against non-Christian Romans.2 Textual recounting projected meaning onto those objects. Today we can approach these interpretations – social canvases – as a way to gain access to ‘the period eye’.3 A pivotal description of a significant holy object is Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea’s retelling of the life of Emperor Constantine in which Eusebius portrays the Emperor’s creation of a Christian battle standard as a holy object recast as a social canvas.4 The description of 1 I would like to thank Susan Weber and Peter Miller for their support whilst I was a Research Fellow at the Bard Graduate Center, NY, New York and for the opportunity and resources with which to host a colloquium devoted to Objects in Motion. This paper benefitted from conversations with Taylor Chase, Nichole Hansen, Eric Klinger, Nathan Pieplow, and Michael Thomas. 2 For the Greek text, see F. Winkelmann, Über das Leben des Kaisers Konstantins, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1975, rev. 1992. For a recent English translation, see A. Cameron and S.G. Hall, eds., Eusebius: Life of Constantine, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1999. All translations are from Cameron and Hall 1999. 3 For the pioneering work on this subject, see M. Baxendall, Painting and Experience in Fifteenth Century Italy: A primer in the social history of pictorial style, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1972. 4 The terms Life of Constantine and Vita Constantini (VC) will be used interchangeably to refer to Eusebius text in its present form. It is by no means certain that the extant imperial biography credited to Eusebius has indeed been preserved in the version that remains today. On this debate, see F. Winkelmann, “Zur Geschichte des

Moses’ staff and the Ark of the Covenant, both from the book of Exodus, served as models for Eusebius’ narration of events framing Constantine’s divine revelation.5 Such miraculous social canvases were central to Eusebius’ representation of Constantine’s Christian life to imperial successors. Constantine is cast in the role of Moses, but instead of bringing the Law in the form of tablets, the Emperor is urged to have man reproduce a divine symbol to protect Christian Romans. According to Eusebius, fourth century Romans – in particular, imperial heirs – are meant to view and interpret Constantine’s battle standard as tangible proof of Christianity’s apotropaic nature.6 Constantine’s battle standard was divinely inspired and its material form was considered, by Eusebius, as a testament to this fact. Its origination and sacred character, therefore, impart onto Constantine the role of intermediary between (a Authentizitätsproblems der Vita Constantini”, Klio 40, 1962, 187-243. Whilst there is very little about its written form that is not debated among ancient historians, such debates would be the subject of another paper. This work addresses the conceptual description of the vision and the divinely revealed object rendered before the minds’ eye – also known as ekphrasis – both the notion of the vision itself, and the physical object produced – are fourth century in origin. For Lactantius’ account, see Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, 44; ed. and trans. J.L. Creed, Oxford, 1984. For alternative pagan accounts of Constantine’s conversion, see Cameron and Hall 1999, 206; N. Lenski, “Evoking the Pagan Past: Instinctu divinitatis and Constantine’s Capture of Rome”, Journal of Late Antiquity 1, 2, 2008, 204-57. Literature on Eusebius’ Life of Constantine is vast. For a comprehensive bibliography on the Vita, see Cameron and Hall 1999. For more recent scholarship, see M.S. Williams, Authorised Lives in Early Christian Biography: Between Eusebius and Augustine, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2008. 5 For scholarship on the life of Moses, see J. Gager, Moses in GrecoRoman Paganism, Nashville, TN., Society of Biblical Literature, 1972; G.J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren, eds., Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, Grand Rapids, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1978; “Moses” A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion, L. Jacobs, Oxford University Press, 1999. Accessed at http://www.oxfordreference .com/views/ENTRY.html?subview=Main&entry=t96.e473, 4 January 2011. 6 After Constantine’s death, there is evidence that Eusebius revised his imperial biography so the heirs and successors of the Roman Empire would continue to be Christians. See T.D. Barnes, “Lactantius and Constantine”, JRS 63, 1973, 29-46; Constantine and Eusebius, Cambridge, MA., 1981; “Panegyric, History and Historiography in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine”, in The Making of Orthodoxy: Essays in Honour of Henry Chadwick, ed. R. Williams, Cambridge, 1989, 94-123; “The Two Drafts of Eusebius” Vita Constantini, in From Eusebius to Augustine, ed. T.D. Barnes, Aldershot, 1994.

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD monotheistic) God and the people of the Roman Empire. By including a miracle as evidence of divine authority, Eusebius provided an early Christian model for hagiographies. This essay will examine how Eusebius’ retelling of Constantine’s battle standard renders the representation of the object as a social canvas influenced by key objects, and highlight users from the monotheistic Jewish tradition, such as Moses and his staff as portrayed in the book of Exodus. I. LATE ANTIQUE OBJECTS CANVAS

IN

USE

AND THE

surface upon which period-specific social meaning can be projected. Such snapshots of Roman life on the ‘social canvas’ of objects provide a Roman perspective about objects in use. It is through those textual accounts of visual culture in use that, even without the objects before us, we can access period-specific interpretations and responses. Anthropologists gather data and construct theories derived from information to do with objects in motion.10 Anthropologists and social theorists who have developed theories concerning usable material culture in use have a great deal to contribute to our understanding of miraculous Late Antique visual culture. B. Brown’s thing theory,11 I. Kopytoff’s notion of a cultural biography,12 and A. Gell’s theory of art nexus13 will be considered as each relates to the social production of Constantine’s battle standard (labarum) .14 Material culture devoid of its social context is like a curious museum object without a label explaining what it originally did and for whom. Its original significance is missing or unknown. It is that original meaning, or at least glimpses of it, which when brought into focus offers a clearer picture of how Late Antique viewers understood their world and interpreted their material culture.

SOCIAL

Why are objects in use important? The instrumental nature of usable or functional material culture allows it to be manipulated by a user, creating a subject-object relation.7 The subject is the person capable of sensory experience, absorbing information through sight and touch in order to make sense of the object before him. Instrumental agents are not necessarily material. For example, in addition to a ceremonial vessel, or a death shroud, consider a vicar entrusted with the power of his office and thus able to officiate at a wedding as an agent of the state. He, like these other agents, is by definition serving a purpose.8 As such, they or their roles were created at a particular time in order to fulfil one or more particular aim. As instruments with a specific social context, such objects are used by an agent in order to perform an action or a purpose. When objects are shown in use – ‘in motion’ – or explained, the account reveals what contemporaries found compelling about the object and the ideas embodied in its presentation, circulation and display.

Before addressing theoretical implications concerning Constantine’s battle standard, let’s first consider the evidence, i.e. the standard as a Late Antique example of miraculous material culture. According to Eusebius, what was essential information concerning Constantine’s battle standard, and why?

Textual accounts of viewing key objects of visual culture – those which Late Antique authors highlighted as significant, or which several Late Antique authors commented on, implicitly underscoring their import – created a history for those objects. The ephemeral experiences in question are long gone. Many of the original objects are absent as well, and of those that remain we have little chance of determining which, if any, might correspond to textual descriptions.9 Regardless, what the visual descriptions provide us with are synchronic views of individual responses to the matters of daily Roman life using specific objects as social canvases upon which to fix meaning. Like a tabula rasa or modern film screen, a ‘social canvas’ is a primed

10

In his introduction to The Social Life of Objects, A. Appadurai begins by making it clear that the focus of his introduction to the volume is ‘things that are exchanged,’ directly contrasted with production or consumption, Appadurai 1986, 3. 11 Supra note 7. 12 I. Kopytoff, “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process”, in The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, ed. A. Appadurai, Cambridge, University of Cambridge Press, 1986, 64-94. 13 A. Gell, Art and Agency, an Anthropological Theory, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1998. 14 In the fourth century CE, battle standards were referred to by the Latin term signa militaria. Whilst the term labarum is commonly used to refer specifically to the imperial Christian standard adopted by Constantine after his Christian vision of 312 CE, this term is of unknown origin, see H. Grégoire, “L'étymologie de ‘Labarum’”, Byzantion 4, 1929, 477-82. Battle standard, signa militaria and labarum will, therefore, be used interchangeably. For Late Antique representations of the chi-rho, see a silver largitio dish in the Hermitage Museum in Leningrad; see the chi-rho on a shield held by a guardsman with Constantius II on horseback, accompanied by the figure of Victory bearing a laurel wreath, N. Lenski, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Constantine, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2006, fig. 39. Also see the procession of Emperor Justinian, the Archbishop and attendants in a mosaic from San Vitale, Ravenna. Demonstrating continuity in the Late Antique manner of depicting the role of emperor, the chi-rho is once again on a conspicuous shield positioned on the left of the pictorial space and held by a guardsman. The Emperor Justinian is centrally placed, this time with Archbishop Maximian and attendants in the place occupied by Victory on the silver largitio dish, M. Maas, ed., The Cambridge Companion to the Age of Justinian, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005, plate IV.

7 In contrast to paintings, for example, which as a whole are without an essential interactive element. On the subject-object relation, see B. Brown, “Thing Theory”, Critical Inquiry, 28, Autumn 2001, 1-21. 8 On agents, see Constantine’s Battle Standard as a Social Agent. 9 See, for example, J. Elsner, Art and the Roman Viewer: the Transformation of Art from the Pagan world to Christianity, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995; J.A.W. Heffernan, “Speaking for pictures: the rhetoric of art criticism”, Word and Image, 15, 1999, 19-33; R. Webb, 1999, “Ekphrasis Ancient and Modern: the Invention of a Genre”, Word and Image, 15, 1999, 7-18; J.P. Small. The Parallel Worlds of Classical Art and Text, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2003; R. Webb, Ekphrasis, Imagination and Persuasion in Ancient Rhetorical Theory and Practice, Ashgate, Aldershot, 2009.

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HALLIE G. MEREDITH: CHRISTIANIZING CONSTANTINE II. MODEL DESCRIPTIONS OBJECTS

OF

explicitly Christian, inaugurating over one thousand years as a Christian Roman Empire.

DIVINELY INSPIRED

Constantine’s Battle Standard in Eusebius’ Vita Constantini

The early Church fathers were keen to make Constantine’s conversion known to contemporaries, and to offer the first Christian emperor’s Christianity as a model. Unlike Constantine’s original battle standard, Eusebius’ account of the vision remains to this day. How did the description of this imperial object contribute to the Christianisation of the Roman Empire? How did contemporary Romans interpret an overt symbol of Christianity, the emperor’s battle standard?

Roman Emperor Constantine had a Christian vision in 312 CE. According to Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea’s account, during the day Constantine and his soldiers witnessed a shared vision in which the chi-rho monogram appeared joined with text that said “By this conquer”.15 Later that night, Constantine alone was visited by Christ, who revealed the same sign – one which Eusebius referred to as a “saving sign” (τρόπαιον).16 Constantine was then urged to make copies of the divinely revealed symbol in order to lead his Christian Roman army against Emperor Maxentius, his former co-emperor.17 History remembers Constantine as the first Christian emperor.18 Before Constantine’s rule, under Diocletian, the Great Persecution literally drove Christians underground.19 The Roman Empire had been pagan for over one thousand years. Yet Constantine’s imperial battle standard was

Constantine’s battle standard is rendered in textual form in the extant pages of an imperial biography attributed to Eusebius.20 According to Eusebius’ text, it has a complex chronology. The battle standard was first seen in the form of a mass vision. Then Christ visited Constantine in a dream, once again, revealing the vision to Constantine; but this time the Emperor was alone. These earliest versions of the divine sign were circulated by word-ofmouth and, therefore, were all ephemeral visions. In his dream, Christ asked Constantine to replicate what he had seen. The first tangible, physical battle standard was produced after two interconnected visions of Christ’s sign. The first was a mass vision which reportedly took place on the day before the battle against Maxentius in 312 CE, and the second occurred the night before the battle when Constantine was visited in a dream.21 According to the accounts of Lactantius and Eusebius, since the battle standard was said to have been successful in the Battle of the Milvian Bridge of 28 October 312 CE, the first physical saving sign must have been made in 312 CE. Finally, Eusebius produces a textual account of the history of Constantine’s Christian battle standard. The text itself provides an account of the reported origins of the Christian labarum which includes a textual version rendered before the mind’s eye (ekphrasis).

15

VC I.28.2. VC I.31.3. Cameron and Hall note that “‘Trophy’ (tropaion) is a favourite word with Eusebius, used both generally and (particularly) of the cross; cf. e.g. 37.1 where the ‘victorious trophy’ of Christ is glossed by ‘Saviour’s sign’ or ‘saving sign’ (soterion semeion); the same terminology in LC, e.g. 9.14, 16 (again the two words juxtaposed), and see on IV.21... For Eusebius, and in later eastern tradition, the cross represented victory rather than suffering”. For additional Roman period sources expressing this idea, see Cameron and Hall 1999, 207. For coins with the Christian standard, see for example, Constantinople no. 19 in P. Bruun, ed., Roman Imperial Coinage, VII: Constantine and Licinius AD 313-337, London, 1966. See Cameron and Hall’s commentary on their translation of the Life of Constantine, esp. 207-208. On Constantine’s Christian coins more broadly, see P. Bruun, “The Disappearance of Sol from the Coins of Constantine”, Arctos, NS 2, 1958, 15-37; “The Christian Signs on the Coins of Constantine”, Arctos, NS 3, 1962, 5-35. 17 The importance of the Roman battle standard can be traced throughout the Roman imperial period from Augustus through to Constantine’s divine exhortation to make and display imperial Christian battle standards. In military contexts, the standards were essentially equivalent to a modern day flag, a patriotic emblem. For example, the breastplate on the well-known Prima Porta Augustus – an imperial statue copied and disseminated throughout the Roman Empire – commemorated the Emperor’s successful recapture of Roman standards from Parthia. See R.R.R. Smith, “Typology and Diversity in the Portraits of Augustus”, Journal of Roman Archaeology, 9, 1996, 31-47; N.H. Ramage and A. Ramage, Roman Art: Romulus to Constantine, 5th ed, Englewood Cliffs, NJ., Prentice Hall, 2008, fig. 3.19. Beyond such public commemorations of civic events, the Roman standards also played a role in subsequent honorific imperial sculpture and reliefs. In one of the earliest recorded double imperial apotheoses, those of an emperor and empress, battle standards were – literally – central in the visual record. From circa 161 CE, a double imperial funerary decursio scene on the Antonine column base in Rome honours Antoninus Pius and Faustina. They are shown ascending in union on an adjacent relief. Ibid., fig. 8.20. 18 On emerging notions of Christianity, see Codex Theodosianus; For an English translation, see C. Pharr, T.S. Davidson and M.B. Pharr, eds. and trans., The Theodosian Code, and Novels and Sirmondian Constitutions, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1952. See also J. Elsner, “Archaeologies and Agendas: Reflections on Late Ancient Jewish Art and early Christian Art”, Journal of Roman Studies, 93, 2003, 114-128. 19 According to imperial edicts, the Great Persecution began in 303 CE. It was not until 311 CE, that the Edict of Toleration formally ended the empire-wide persecution. On material culture from this period, or the lack thereof, see G.F. Snyder, Ante Pacem: Archaeological Evidence of Church Life Before Constantine, Macon, GA., Mercer University Press, 2003. 16

In the text, the highlighted instrument of the Christian battle standard is first portrayed as a vision, then relayed as a concept, and finally as an image – reportedly based on the act of Eusebius witnessing a physical object and then rendering it before the mind’s eye. The written 20 On the current state of the text and the problems inherent in attributing the surviving text to Eusebius, see Winkelmann “Zur Geschichte des Authentizitätsproblems der Vita Constantini”, 1962. 21 Lactantius produced a brief but account of Constantine’s vision (circa 317/318 CE) that predates Eusebius’ Vita Constantini. Eusebius revised his biography after Constantine’s death in 337 CE with an eye towards his new imperial audience, Constantine’s heirs. Constantine’s Christian vision was omitted entirely from Eusebius’ earlier Historia Ecclesiastica. Lactantius’ account, although earlier than Eusebius’ account in the VC and thus closer to the original event of 312 CE, is shorter. Lactantius reported the divine symbol took the form of a staurogram or cross-monogram (the Greek letter rho superimposed upon a tau or cross-shape), as opposed to Eusebius’ identification of the symbol as the chi-rho or christogram (the Greek letters chi and rho from the word Christos, meaning ‘the anointed’ superimposed). On the staurogram, see L.W. Hurtado, “The Staurogram in Early Christian Manuscripts: The Earliest Visual Reference to the Crucified Jesus?” in New Testament Manuscripts: Their Text and Their World, eds. T.J. Kraus and T. Nicklas, Leiden, Brill, 2006, 207-26.

9

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD narrative within which Constantine’s battle standard was interpreted remains the means by which scholars today frame early Christian perspectives on the object’s significance (Fig. 1).22 Focusing on the conception and verbal treatment of the religious object at the centre of the vision – emperor Constantine’s labarum or battle standard – the underlying question is: How is this particular material object shown becoming holy?

the cross are two imperial signs which complete the tripartite saving sign described by Eusebius (Fig. 2). Moving downwards, the imperial images are a tapestry and a portrait of Constantine and his sons. Eusebius’ description of the imperial battle standard is an interpretation of the divine sign – above – coupled with that of the emperor, visually positioned as the intermediary between God and man.

Before presenting a brief overview of the conceptual breakdown of this well-known text, let’s start with an abbreviated description of the Christian saving sign23:

Neither Constantine’s original description of his divine vision nor the physical object he produced survive, but we have nearly contemporaneous presentations of both in the form of Eusebius’ retelling of the vision (Fig. 1). The text produced a history not only of the battle standard, but of Constantine as the first Christian emperor. The description of Moses found in the text of the book of Exodus served as a model for Eusebius’ portrayal of Constantine. In the imperial biography (echoing events in Exodus) first, the idea behind the battle standard is revealed by Christ to Constantine, moving chronologically forward in time, next the physical standard comes into existence, and finally, battle standards are used and displayed in battle. After the circulation of Christian battle standards in the pursuit of military aims, Eusebius produced a text which provided a history for the circulating object. Eusebius offered a description of the battle standard in his polemical imperial biography.

This was something which the Emperor himself once saw fit to let me also set eyes on, God vouchsafing even this. It was constructed to the following design. A tall pole plated with gold had a transverse bar forming the shape of a cross. Up at the extreme top a wreath woven of precious stones and gold had been fastened. On it two letters, intimating by its first characters the name ‘Christ’, formed the monogram of the Saviour’s title, rho being intersected in the middle by chi. These letters the Emperor also used to wear upon his helmet in later times.24 From the transverse bar, which was bisected by the pole, hung suspended a cloth, an imperial tapestry covered with a pattern of precious stones fastened together, which glittered with shafts of light, and interwoven with much gold, producing an impression of indescribable beauty on those who saw it. This banner then, attached to the bar, was given equal dimensions of length and breadth...below the trophy of the cross and near the top of the tapestry delineated, carried the golden head-and-shoulders portrait of the God beloved Emperor, and likewise of his sons.25

According to Eusebius’ Life of Constantine, two underlying ideas explain how the standard becomes holy. First, the concept – that of the underlying symbol of the chi-rho – is holy. This concept contrasts with the classical world view in which following the monotheistic world view, gods no longer inhabit naturalistic pagan statues.26 The change from representational to symbolic is, therefore, indicative of a transformation in the Christian world view. Second, the history of the object’s use, that of battle standards in general, demonstrates its holiness. Constantine is known to have circulated public images of himself bearing the divinely revealed symbol27 before The Life of Constantine subsequently presented Constantine commanding the physical object ‘to lead all his armies’.28 Eusebius’ text offers a testament to readers, projecting the holiness of the divinely inspired object in circulation.

Essentially, Eusebius provides a description of the saving sign. This description underscores the important elements of the hybrid sign as a cross-shaped backbone upon which a divine sign (seen in the vision) and the two-part imperial sign are joined. Christ’s sign consists of a wreath with the chi-rho monogram. Below the horizontal bar of 22

Lactantius’ – earlier – abbreviated description of the revealed sign (staurogram) renders the subject differently than Eusebius’ – later – edited description of the saving sign (christogram). Eusebius’ text survives, however altered, and succeeding emperors followed Constantine’s use of the chi-rho as recounted by Eusebius. This suggests that Late Antique emperors use of the chi-rho continued established conventions. 23 Eusebius uses this term to refer to the three parts which made up Constantine’s battle standard. See Fig. 1B. 24 An extant medallion minted in 315 CE in Ticinum (Lombardy, northern Italy), now in the Staatliche Münzsammlung in Munich shows Constantine with a small roundel above his head bearing the chi-rho monogram. The inscription on the obverse reads as follows: IMP(erator) CONSTANT-INVS P(ius) F(elix) AVG(ustus) (Emperor Augustus pious and fortunate Augustus); reverse: SA-LVS REI-PUBLIC-AE (the safety of the state). Accessed at http://www.staatlichemuenzsammlung.de/highlights_06.html, 4 January 2011. 25 VC I.28-32.

As was said earlier, Eusebius’ portrayal of Constantine was clearly influenced by the representation of Moses in 26 On pagan versus Christian conceptions of religion in texts, see Elsner Art and the Roman Viewer 1995. An interesting question is to what extent was this view shaped by the second commandment, outlined in the book of Exodus. All translations are from New International Version, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1987. For discussions on the prohibition of images in Roman imperial period Judaism and Christianity, see M. Barasch, Icon: Studies in the History of an Idea, New York and London, New York University Press, 1992; H. Belting. Likeness and Presence: A History of the Image before the Era of Art, trans. E. Jephcott, Chicago, IL., The University of Chicago Press, 1994. 27 See supra note 21. 28 VC I.31.3.

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HALLIE G. MEREDITH: CHRISTIANIZING CONSTANTINE When Egyptian magicians are called upon and reply in kind with the same feat, Aaron’s miracle gets the better of the sorcerers who are only playing tricks, as Aaron’s staff triumphs by swallowing theirs.32 Previously, the text has made it clear that Moses typically receives specific instructions from Yahweh. With this story, however, the implication in the narrative account does not include instructions for Moses regarding the execution of the culminating miracle. The divinely chosen staff is an instrument and external marker. Without any intervention from Moses or Aaron, their staffs swallow those of the sorcerers. The reader is thereby left to decipher the overlapping roles played by Moses and Aaron. Their staffs are divinely selected instruments which serve to communicate a moment of divine intervention. It is, therefore, implied that Yahweh responded with this concluding move.33

the book of Exodus. According to Exodus, Yahweh taught Moses how to use his magic staff. Focusing on model descriptions of divinely inspired objects in both Exodus and the imperial biography raises the question: to what extent is Constantine’s battle standard performing a role similar to that of Moses’ staff? Moses’ Staff and Constantine’s Battle Standard Just like the first vision in Eusebius’ version of Constantine’s Christian vision, Yahweh does not appear to Moses in physical form. Instead, he offers miraculous signs as visual proof of divine communication.29 The material object chosen by God – as the instrument with which to perform miracles before the eyes of Moses and the Jewish people – is the staff of Moses. This is illustrated directly in the book of Exodus:

The staff and Moses’ hand are somewhat interchangeable, suggesting that it was not only Moses’ staff, but also the person of Moses that was chosen as the instrument through which Yahweh’s power or gifts were manifest on earth.34 Crossing the desert, Yahweh said to Moses, “Raise your staff and stretch out your hand over the sea to divide the water so that the Israelites can go through the sea on dry ground”.35 Subsequently, when Moses parts the Red Sea, ‘hand’ is substituted for ‘staff’. Thus, both are used synonymously as instruments for Yahweh’s power to manifest itself on earth.

the Lord said to him [Moses], “What is that in your hand?” “A staff”, he replied. The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.” Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. “This”, said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has appeared to you”.30

Christ’s magic was given historical validity and authority due to an inheritance in the tradition of magic found in the stories of Moses, Daniel and the Magi.36 The

Later, Moses is shown showing Aaron how to perform the same miracle in front of Pharaoh. Moses then takes the role of Yahweh, and Aaron takes Moses’ place.31

lowered, i.e. without God’s help, the Israelites were defeated]…the Lord said to Moses, “Write this on a scroll as something to be remembered…” (Exodus 17, 8-17, esp. 11 and 14). 32 Exodus 7, 8-12. 33 In a later passage, Yahweh is given the credit for the miracles, the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh,...that I may perform these miraculous signs of mine among them that you may tell your children and grandchildren how I dealt harshly with the Egyptians and how I performed my signs among them, and that you may know that I am the Lord” (Exodus 10, 1-2). 34 See, for example, Moses with a staff in his hand as he is shown crossing the Red Sea, see R. Du Mesnil du Buisson, Les peintures de la synagogue de Doura-Europos, 245-256 après J.-C., 1939, XV-XVII; A.J. Wharton, “Good and Bad Images from the Synagogue of Dura Europos: Contexts, Subtexts, Intertexts”, Art History, 17, 1994, 1-25. 35 Exodus 14, 16. Compare the interchangeable use of ‘hand’ and ‘staff’ in Exodus, cf. 10, 12-13; 14, 21 and 14, 26-27. 36 Moses was one of the most widely known figures from the Pentateuch, and the story of the serpent-staff miracle was familiar to pagan authors, Gager 1972, 21. The well-known event of the Crossing of the Red Sea occurs on at least 29 Roman sarcophagi, see Gager 1972; T.F. Mathews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1993, 54-91. Not only was this particular episode popular, but by the fourth century CE, it was the only narrative subject to occupy the entire face of any sarcophagus, see Mathews 1993, 72 and 75. On images of Moses and Christ in late Roman art, with and without a staff, see Mathews 1993, figs. 50-54 for depictions of Moses. For illustrated moments from the life of Moses in late Roman art, see the mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore, Rome. See S. Spain, “‘The Promised Blessing’: The Iconography of the Mosaics of S. Maria Maggiore”, Art Bulletin, 61, December 1979, 51840; M.R. Miles, “Santa Maria Maggiore's Fifth-Century Mosaics: Triumphal Christianity and the Jews”, Harvard Theological Review, 86, April 1993, 155-75.

29

On the importance of vision in relation to the other senses, see L. James, Light and Colour in Byzantine Art, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1996; G. Frank, The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity, Berkeley, CA. and London, University of California Press, 2000a; L. James, “Senses and Sensibility in Byzantium”, Art History, 27, September 2004, 522-37. In the Hebrew Bible, Yahweh is most often represented in the form of fire. Moses ‘sees’ his God as the miraculous Burning Bush, rather than as an anthropomorphic figure. Following the second commandment, Yahweh is not to be seen (Exodus 33, 19-23) or depicted by man: “You shall not make yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Exodus 20, 4-5). The text follows this visual prohibition. Invoking fire to indicate divine presence, no visual form serves to represent God, nothing serves as a substitute for the voice of God. In contrast, according to Eusebius, the visitation of the postresurrected Christ to the Emperor in a dream may have revealed a vision of the incarnate Christ. The text does not comment on Christ’s physical form. If, however, Eusebius as a Church Father was following the tradition established in the New Testament, the familiar postResurrection figure of Christ was most likely shown to the Emperor. In the Life of Constantine, the first vision of the divine sign is shown to Constantine’s Roman army devoid of explanation. Viewers are uninitiated. Thus, this vision – of a symbol – is unclear to those who see it, VC I.29 and I.32.1-2. Presenting seeing without comprehension is an idea in circulation throughout the Graeco-Roman period. See, for example, the shield of Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid from the first century CE, Aeneid esp. 8.619-731. 30 Exodus 4, 2-5. 31 For an unambiguous image of the staff of Moses as an instrument of holy power: As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, [when the staff was

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD the people to drink”.44 In the book of Exodus, the staff used by Moses45 is chosen by Yahweh to signal miracles. Yahweh, however, makes it clear that he will be present to perform the wonder-working. Thus, it is unambiguous – Moses and his staff, and subsequently Christ and Constantine’s Christian battle standard, are each instruments for the transmission of divine power.

ideological link is made visible by the inclusion of a staff/wand in early Christian art. Christ’s miracles gain credibility from Moses’ miracles “since Moses had predicted them. The repeated appearance of Christ working miracles with the wave of his wand was meant to establish this parallel to Moses whose words he fulfilled”.37 Just like Moses and Aaron bested the sorcerers at their own game, with Yahweh as the divine source of their authentic power, so too Christ performs his wonders by wielding his staff as an instrument of his authentic power. In response to attacks on Christianity, supporters did not seek to differentiate Christ from magicians: “The magic of Christ was presented more effectively in art than the magic of his rivals”.38 The staff of Moses and depictions of magic represented by monotheism – in the form of miracles – provide continuity between the wands used by Moses and Christ.

The Ark of the Covenant, Battle Standard

the

Tabernacle

and

Constantine’s

Unlike the staff of Moses, which according to the text was a functional object already in use before it was shown selected by God,46 the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle were made exclusively for, and as a result of, Yahweh’s divine plan. The description of objects in the book of Exodus presents their origin and role as central to the life of the prophet Moses. This section considers a number of related aspects concerning the representation of miraculous material culture which set the stage for Eusebius’ re-presentation of Constantine and his Christian battle standard. This discussion of Eusebius’ version of Constantine’s battle standard in relation to the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle addresses monotheistic parallels concerning divine visions, divinely revealed instructions, cultural processes for making material culture holy and writing as a form of remembering.

How does the representation of Moses’ staff in Exodus and Christ’s staff relate to Constantine’s battle standard? First, just as Moses’ staff and hand signal divine intervention, Constantine’s battle standard serves an instrumental role in identifying which Romans were granted divine protection. Second, just like Moses, Eusebius’ representation of Christ’s hand and wand also “are presented as parallel instruments”.39 Following conventions established in the Hebrew Bible, in early Christian art the staff of Christ effectively worked like a magic wand, a gesture indicating a miracle.

A. DIVINE VISIONS

Finally, not only did a number of well-known passages from the book of Exodus serve as a model for Eusebius’ manner of reporting Constantine’s Christian labarum, but the portrayal of Moses also served as a model for Eusebius’ portrayal of Constantine himself.40 Moses was instructed to perform specific actions with his staff, or Aaron’s, which Yahweh would then use to mark a miraculous event. Moses is told to use his staff to turn the water in the Nile into blood,41 to stretch out his hands towards the sky in order to bring a plague of hail,42 then to use the same gesture to bring a plague of darkness,43 and in response to a request for guidance, he is instructed: “take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. I will stand there before you by the rock at Horeb. Strike the rock, and water will come out of it for

As a precursor to the lives of Christian saints, biographies of prophets contained histories of divinely inspired material culture.47 Many divinely revealed functional objects exhibit agency. Explanations concerning use and agency are disseminated through the circulation of an appended history, typically in the form of a holy figure’s biography. For example, as a parallel to Moses who saw the Burning Bush before communicating with God, Constantine also witnessed a divine sign; both figures’ visions preceded the unique experience of a direct encounter with God. The inclusion of a miraculous vision presaging a divine exhortation is one of a number of references to Moses in Eusebius’ re-presentation of Constantine and his battle standard. In both biographical accounts of Moses and Constantine, the sequence of events and central roles ascribed to miraculous material culture serve as testaments to the ephemeral transformations experienced.

37

Mathews 1993, 77. Mathews 1993, 67. Eusebius’ contemporaries made a direct connection between Moses and Christ, as is clear by the inclusion of a wand or staff in some of the earliest depictions of Christ. For a discussion of the archaeological evidence, such as sarcophagi and frescoes, see Mathews 1993, esp. 64. Although Christ’s staff was included in some early images, thereafter, the staff does not typically feature in depictions of Christ. 40 See A. Cameron, “Eusebius’ Vita Constantini and the Construction of Constantine”, in Portraits: Biographical Representation in the Greek and Latin Literature of the Roman Empire, eds. S. Swain and M. Edwards, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1997, 145-174, esp. 158163. 41 Exodus 7, 15; 17 and 19. Aaron’s staff called forth a plague of frogs and gnats, Exodus 8, 5-6 and 8, 16-17, respectively. 42 Exodus 9, 13-35. 43 Exodus 10, 21-29. 38 39

44

Exodus 17, 5. Certain miracles occur without the intermediary of the staff. Yahweh alone calls forth the plague of flies and plague on livestock, see Exodus 8, 20-32 and 9, 1-7, respectively. 45 It is explicitly stated that the staff used by Aaron is directed by Moses in a relationship which parallels that of Yahweh and Moses. By means of the instrumental staff of Moses, Yahweh is the agent or subject and Moses the recipient or object. Similarly, via the instrumental staff of Aaron, Yahweh tells Moses that he will occupy the agentive role of subject and Aaron will occupy that of object. Thus, the text implicitly calls attention to the subject-object relation and the different roles assigned to Moses. 46 In the book of Genesis, the staff denotes kingship (Genesis 38, 18). 47 Cf. A. Cameron 1997, 145-174, esp. 173.

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HALLIE G. MEREDITH: CHRISTIANIZING CONSTANTINE have ‘them’ make a sanctuary for me, and I shall dwell among them. Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings, like the pattern I will show you.51 …make them [lampstand, tabernacle and bronze altar] according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.52 All the other articles used in the service of the tabernacle, whatever their function … are to be of bronze.53

B. DIVINELY REVEALED INSTRUCTIONS How closely did the specific instructions for offerings of the Tabernacle serve as a prototype for Eusebius’ description of Constantine’s divine revelation? To what extent was Constantine’s hybrid divine-imperial saving sign (see Fig. 2) produced in accord with divine will and instruction? As conveyed in the book of Exodus and subsequently reiterated in works like the Life of Constantine, understanding overlapping themes such as divinely inspired material culture, and the portrayal of a prophetic leader provides a clearer understanding of how pivotal objects became holy through accounts of their origins.

Furthermore, according to Exodus, Yahweh ensures that the two pairs of human hands entrusted with the creation of his dwelling were inspired by God himself: Then the Lord said to Moses, “See I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, ability and knowledge in all kinds of crafts – to make artistic designs for work in gold, silver and bronze, to cut and set stones, to work in wood, and to engage in all kinds of craftsmanship. Moreover, I have appointed Oholiab son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, to help him. Also I have given skill to all the craftsmen to make everything I have commanded you: ... They are to make them just as I commanded you”.54

Exodus contains specific, divinely revealed instructions concerning how to make material culture exclusively for religious use. Resonating with the Old Testament text, Eusebius presents the first Christian emperor similarly, receiving divinely revealed instructions concerning how to make material culture for use against non-Christian Romans. Before addressing these issues, however, it is necessary to consider key passages from Exodus, for both Exodus and the Vita Constantini contain a description of the divine origins of a miraculous object. The book of Exodus not only provides a biography of the life of Moses, but also recounts the origins of the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle.48 Both texts focus on divinely inspired material culture physically produced by human craftsmen closely following a predetermined divine plan. The account presented in Exodus outlines a divinely inspired dwelling designed for Yahweh, complete with a carefully enumerated sequence of production, so that the Jewish people can then make a physical place for God to inhabit among his chosen people. A description of the design and production of the Tabernacle occupies a majority of the final part of the book.

God makes it known that he has selected the craftsmen responsible for making the Ark, and that he has seen to it that they are filled with sufficient skill, ability and knowledge to produce the sacred objects for use. Echoing both the central role of Moses and the specific nature of a divinely revealed design, the VC presents Constantine and events in his life in a manner which directly parallels Moses’ life. Eusebius also elects to portray Constantine as intermediary between God and craftsmen, outlining the materials to be used by human hands in order to execute usable material culture from a divine design. Eusebius closely follows the model of the making of the Ark of the Covenant by showing the Emperor relaying the divinely conceived design to craftsmen.55 Whilst the Vita does not detail divine intervention on behalf of the craftsmen, the narrative indeed outlines the process of making a divinely conceived object.

In his role as intermediary Moses is singled out as the liaison between God and man, the religious leader responsible for realizing a divinely inspired idea by the hands of believers. The revelation and construction of the Ark and the Tabernacle thus represents a culminating achievement in the life of the prophet Moses. The divinely revealed plan is of such significance that the same instructions are repeated, first as the prophet Moses, the original recipient, receives them from Yahweh, and again a second time when Moses repeats the list to his followers.49 Yahweh provides Moses with a clear sequence of steps which he subsequently relays to his people to fabricate the material objects for worship. In the description of offerings for the Tabernacle, materials are specified.50 Yahweh says:

Divine instruction is portrayed as direct communication between God and a living leader. In each case, the message is a specific sequence of events called for by God in order to manifest his power on earth. In Exodus, the implication is that God wants the Jewish people to play a pivotal part – not only in creating the physical space Yahweh is to inhabit, but in choosing to enter into this decision.56 Similarly, in the Vita Constantini, 51

Exodus 25, 8-9. Also see Exodus 35, 4-19. Exodus 25, 40. 53 Exodus 27, 19. 54 Exodus 31, 1-6 and 31, 11. 55 VC I.30. 56 Cf. the presentation of Achilles’ decision to enter into battle in the Trojan War, a turning point crystallised by a parallel ekphrasis on a divine creation of a key physical object – the Shield of Achilles. See, for example, A.S. Becker, “The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of 52

48

Exodus 24-40. Exodus 25-31, then again in 35-40. Exodus 25, 3-7. Cf. the second time Moses recounts Yahweh’s precise instructions Exodus 35-40. 49 50

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD Eusebius describes Constantine considering the divine message he was chosen to receive. Moreover, Eusebius deftly highlights the very moment when Constantine chooses to adopt the revealed Christian symbol, thus the impetus behind Constantine’s conversion to Christianity – in which the emperor relays the divinely revealed design.

Ark of the Covenant, Constantine’s battle standard did not need to be “activated”; it was sacred at inception. Whereas in Exodus, the Ark and objects created exclusively for religious use are consecrated, there is no explicit moment of consecration in the Life of Constantine.62 Why is this moment missing from the text? Christian battle standards were used by Roman soldiers in combat, presumably reproduced when an Emperor chose; thereby, divine protection was accessible through unlimited duplication. In contrast to inimitable Jewish religious objects, the text implies that Christian battle standards were intended to be reproducible,63 used as a means of manifesting Christ’s power and channeling it like a conduit on earth to protect the Christian Roman army charged with defending the Roman Empire.

C. MAKING MATERIAL CULTURE HOLY In Exodus and the Vita Constantini, material culture is made holy in different ways. In contrast to Christ’s exhortation that Constantine produce divinely inspired material culture for use in battle,57 Moses is instructed to have his people produce divinely inspired material culture for use in worship. This is in order to produce a suitable dwelling for consecration before Yahweh could inhabit it. According to the text, once human hands had finished building the terrestrial Tabernacle, ritual purification was required before Yahweh could enter the dwelling. Thus, Moses is told which gifts must be made for dedication in proper worship. Moreover, it is made explicit that the transformation from fabrication to holy dwelling occurs by means of consecration. Moses is told: “the sacred gifts the Israelites consecrate, whatever their gifts may be…[to make them] acceptable to the Lord”.58 Notably, both monotheistic visions – that intended for the Jewish Ark of the Covenant and the Christian Roman battle standard – include golden coverings, mention of a skilled craftsmen,59 and an embroiderer or work of embroidery.60 These objects are also meant to be carried and used, specified as portable objects (e.g. including poles for movement).61

D. MATERIAL WITNESS: WRITING REMEMBERING

AS A

FORM

OF

Underscored in the Exodus passage is the importance of writing as a form of remembering and honouring. This is similar to the fundamental message underlying the Vita, in which the chi-rho monogram is displayed as part of a divine sign. In antiquity, inscriptions on material culture were a means of commemorating historical events.64 Establishing an important precedent with which to honour and preserve such extraordinary events, upon entering into a covenant with God, Yahweh provides the Ten Commandments as written tablets. In addition to divinely rendered tablets, God tells Moses: “[e]ngrave the names…on the two stones the way a gem cutter engraves a seal…as memorial stones65…engrave on it [pure gold plate] as on a seal ‘Holy to the Lord’”.66 The Jewish people are instructed to write on material culture as a form of memory.

In contrast to the myriad of objects combined to form the Ark of the Covenant, Constantine’s Christian battle standard was inherently active from the point of revelation. Since Constantine was told to use it against non-Christian co-emperor Maxentius on the eve of battle, the suggestion is that the apotropaic symbol was intended for use as part of his Christian Roman army’s arsenal. According to Eusebius’ description of the battle standards’ fabrication, the act of anointing was not necessary, nor was an explicit invocation of Christ once the physical object was constructed. By implication the religious transfer of power, the point of origination (of becoming holy) occurred during the second vision, when Christ revealed the meaning contained within the symbolic vision (his message) directly to his chosen recipient Constantine. Unlike the objects comprising the

Eusebius draws upon similar ideas concerning writing as a form of remembering, but takes liberties to editorialize events. Eusebius’ visual description of Constantine’s Christian battle standard presents a biased and strongly Christianized perspective of the Emperor.67 According to 62 Although the staff is not shown in the act of consecration, it is shown in use as an instrument for Yahweh. 63 Evidence from the archaeological record suggests that later Christian emperors continued duplicating the divine design well into Byzantium. See supra note 14. 64 See, for example, H. Meredith, forthcoming book on open-work vessels. Among the inscribed glass or metal vessels from the fourth century, some contain the emperor’s name. This suggests use as imperial gifts. 65 Exodus 28, 11-12; see also 28, 29-30. 66 Exodus 28, 36. 67 Whereas Eusebius’ text gives us insight into the fourth century, his personal views on religion are apparent in the text. As one of the early Church Fathers, Eusebius presents all things pagan as deliberately excised by Constantine, root and branch, explicitly ascribing religious motivation for such actions, VC IV.14.2-28. According to contemporary sources, pagan statues were in fact moved to the emperor’s new Christian capital, Constantinople, VC III.25-43.4. Contradicting Eusebius’ assertions, see C.A. Mango, “Antique statuary and the Byzantine beholder”, Dumbarton Oaks papers, 17, 1963, 55-75; S. Bassett, The Urban Image of Late Antique Constantinople, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004. On Eusebius’ posthumous revision of the biography with the imperial heirs as his target audience, in order

Homeric Description”, American Journal of Philology, 111, Summer 1990, 139-53; The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis, Lanham, MD. and London, Rowman and Littlefield, 1995. 57 Implicitly – as argued after the fact by Eusebius – against nonChristian adversaries. 58 Exodus 28, 38. “It will be the sacred anointing oil…You shall consecrate them so they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy” Exodus 30, 25 and 29. For moments of consecration, see 28, 41; 29, 3 and 5. 59 Exodus 26, 1 and 26, 31; VC I.30. 60 Exodus 26, 36; VC I.31.2. 61 Exodus 25, 28; VC I.31.1-31.3, explicitly for use as protection, see VC I.29.

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HALLIE G. MEREDITH: CHRISTIANIZING CONSTANTINE divine design; man then chooses to produce an object to honour one God – using human hands – following a divinely revealed design. Finally, even though the object is man-made, due to its divine origins, that object is holy, manifesting divine power on earth. This history of inception and production, which Eusebius patterned after the monotheistic model,71 therefore, is based on Eusebius’ incorporation of the view that holy material culture is physically made by man,72 and made sacred at the point of revelation. Thus, miraculous material culture’s holy power stems from revealed truth.

the ekphrastic treatment of the battle standard, as well as representations preserved on coinage, the inclusion of the chi-rho serves as a memorial, literally written onto the very fabric of the object. This is another iteration whereby the Exodus narrative served as a model for Eusebius’ Christian biography. Inscribed visual culture can memorialize an ephemeral religious experience with permanence. The inscription acts as a record of events, and the object itself serves as a witness. Thereby, material culture can directly convey a message to ever greater witnesses. The written word of God is offered as testimony – an object serving as proof or evidence of a covenant between God and his followers – both to Moses and his fellow Jews, and to Constantine and his fellow Romans. God reveals to Moses: “in the ark the testimony I will give you [the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments]”.68 Similarly, by virtue of the inclusion of either the christogram (according to Eusebius’ account) or the staurogram (according to Lactantius’ account) as part of the fabric of the saving sign, both textual accounts incorporate and visually display divine testimony. In either case, material culture projects authority. Both divine exhortations entrust a single chosen prophetic leader with a divinely conceived plan, the means by which to realize God’s vision on earth. It is through the realization of that vision that holy power has a suitable vehicle in which to inhabit and exert divine power on earth, ‘as the throne of God’.69

Whilst both miraculous objects are man-made, they are holy because their origin is divine. An examination of the paradigmatic life of Moses, his mobile miraculous material culture (the staff), and stationary miraculous material culture (the consecrated Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle) reveals the extent to which Eusebius’ textual re-presentation of Constantine’s Christian battle standard is directly indebted not only to the life of Moses, but also to his miraculous material culture. The question arises: what role does use play? What did the circulation and use of material culture contribute to interpreting its social meaning? III. CONSTANTINE’S BATTLE STANDARD: VIEWING THING

A

According to one theoretical classification of visual culture, objects are examples of unnoticed material culture; things are interrupted objects in use.73 Whereas we often fail to notice and look through “objects” – such as a windowpane, a hammer, a fork – we notice and look at the materiality of a dirty window, a hammer head that comes off, or a bent fork. Thus:

From divine revelation to sacred production, the metaphoric lifecycle of usable material culture is repeated in Eusebius’ Life of Constantine. In the two examples of miraculous material culture from the lives of Moses and Constantine, both were inspired by and following a divine design. The hands of the Jewish people collaboratively created a consecrated dwelling which Yahweh inhabited in order to be among his chosen people. Following a similar tradition, the hands of Roman Christians created an apotropaic symbol or ‘saving sign’ as part of the totemic Christian battle standard.70 Both accounts follow the same general structure: to a chosen leader, a lone God reveals an inspired idea or concept for a material object to serve as a vehicle for holy power; that leader then serves as an instrument for God, relaying a

we begin to confront the thingness of objects when they stop working for us…The story of objects asserting themselves as things, then, is the story of a changed relation to the human subject and thus the story of how the thing really names less an objects than a particular subjectobject relation.74 Applying B. Brown’s terminology to Eusebius’ representation of the history of Constantine’s battle standard, the manifestation of the object inverts the subject-object relation. Thereby, Eusebius re-presents Constantine as a Christian through the ‘thingness’ of his Christian battle standard. The first tangible, physical

to promote the continued adoption of Christianity by subsequent Roman Emperors, see Cameron and Hall 1999; Williams 2008. 68 Exodus 25, 16. See also 16, 34; 24, 12 and 32-34, 28. 69 Exodus 25, 10. “Of the tabernacle furnishings, the ark is mentioned first probably because it symbolized the throne of the Lord, the great King, who chose to dwell among his people”, NIV 1987, editorial note, 122-3. 70 The Roman battle standard carried tremendous importance. A significant example in the history of Roman imperial art was the Prima Porta Augustus. This was a larger than life-size marble statue of the emperor discovered in a villa in Rome belonging to the imperial couple. The return of the Roman battle standard became an iconic symbol of victory and was visually commemorated on the breastplate of the honorific stature. Copies of this significant imperial statue were made and circulated throughout the Roman Empire, see Smith 1996, 31-47. For a discussion of the importance of this historic scene set within a cosmic setting, see P. Zanker, The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, trans. A. Shapiro, Ann Arbor, MI, The University of Michigan Press, 1988, rev. 2003.

71 Eusebius deliberately includes additional references to the book of Exodus and to Moses throughout the Vita Constantini, see for example, VC I.12.1 when Constantine, like Moses, is brought up in an enemy court. Cf. Cameron and Hall, 1999, commentary 192-3. 72 Whereas the Ark is explicitly consecrated (Exodus 40, 1-33, esp. 911), the battle standard is not – suggesting the latter is replicable as and when the Roman emperor decides. This is borne out by the continued use of the labarum on the coinage of later Roman emperors. See, for example, J.P.C. Kent, Roman Imperial Coinage, VIII: The Family of Constantine I, A.D. 337-364, London, 1966. 73 Brown Autumn 2001, 1-22. 74 Brown Autumn 2001, 4.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD battle standard was produced after two interconnected visions of Christ’s saving sign. After that, according to Eusebius, Constantine’s labarum became a ‘thing’.

worship any God other than Christ. In a parallel narrative, Eusebius underscores Constantine’s intention of learning from the interpretations of Christian religious leaders, like the biographer himself.

As an instrument with a specific social context, such objects are used by an agent in order to perform an action or a purpose.75 In the life of Moses in Exodus, his staff and the making of the Tabernacle serve to illustrate Moses’ faith and seminal role in Judaism. Reviewing the battle standard’s chronology, according to Eusebius’ text, the labarum has its origins in two divinely revealed visions. The sign was first seen as a mass vision. Then Christ visited Constantine in a dream, revealing his divine communication to him alone through a vision. These earliest recorded accounts of the divine sign, therefore, were all ephemeral. Thus, the Christian visions witnessed by Constantine draw attention to the ‘thingness of objects’ before they had begun to work for him as material culture. The nature of the object, as represented by Eusebius, was less about a type of functional military object and more about the construction of the Roman Emperor’s Christianity – ‘a particular subject-object relation’.

Eusebius himself, however, acknowledges that his narrative account – and even his having set eyes upon Constantine’s labarum – took place years after Constantine had fulfilled Christ’s request and had the first battle standards made for the Roman army. In the Vita, Eusebius writes: If someone else had reported it, it would perhaps not be easy to accept; but since the victorious Emperor himself told the story to the present writer a long while after, when I was privileged with his acquaintance and company, and confirmed it with oaths, who could hesitate to believe the account, especially when the time which followed provided evidence for the truth of what he said?79 Returning once again to the way that the text helps shape responses within Eusebius’ ideal audience, his preparatory statements provide assurances which prefigure the salient rhetorical question: “who could hesitate to believe the account, especially when the time which followed provided evidence for the truth of what he said?” Eusebius seeks to dispel any doubts in the minds of his intended audience members from the outset. He takes two events – the Christian vision, and Constantine’s victories against non-Christian adversaries – and makes one the cause and the other the effect. Starting with the tacit premise that no true Christian could mistrust the Emperor’s account – or more to the point, Eusebius’ own interpretation offered together with Constantine’s account – Eusebius clearly draws the conclusion that by fulfilling Christ’s exhortation to make Christian battle standards, Constantine’s Christian Roman army was victorious against non-Christian opposition.80 This is the correlation and interpretation that Eusebius seeks to disseminate far and wide by means of his imperial biography.

Constantine is portrayed as an ideal viewer, offering a model for Eusebius’ audience. Constantine is represented alone seeking an interpretation of his vision. As he ponders what he saw, “night overtook him” and Christ himself appears in a second vision with the image of his sign, his exhortation and his interpretation: “Christ of God appeared to him with the sign which had appeared in the sky, and urged him to make himself a copy of the sign which had appeared in the sky, and to use this as protection against the attacks of the enemy”.76 Once Constantine’s saving sign is described in Eusebius’ text, it continues: “stunned by the amazing vision, and determined to worship no other god than the one who had appeared, he summoned those expert in his words, and enquired who this god was, and what was the explanation of the vision which had appeared of the sign”.77 Thus, according to Eusebius, even before Constantine has his Christian battle standards made and successfully used them in battle,78 by implication he has decided not to

Eusebius’ version of events also makes the labarum ‘holy’. The fourth century narratives sought to interpret the meaning that lay behind the tangible, circulating object – thus, altering the subject-object relation. Thereby, the telling changed the object as it created it. An act of viewing, or interpreting, what is seen is an act of appropriating a visual image into a pre-existing set of ideas, reciprocally changing the viewer:

75 Whilst a definite starting point for the hagiographic tradition is unknown, the earliest surviving and dated hagiography is Athanasius’ mid-fourth century Life of Antony. This text is nearly twenty years later than Eusebius’ revised version of the VC. See also P. Cox, Biography in Late Antiquity: A Quest for the Holy Man, Berkeley, CA., University of California Press, 1983; P.C. Miller, Dreams in Late Antiquity, Princeton, N.J., Princeton University Press, 1994; A. Cameron 1997, 145-74; “Form and Meaning: The Vita Constantini and the Vita Antonii”, in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, eds. T. Hägg and P. Rousseau, Berkeley, CA. and London, University of California Press, 2000, 72-88; P.C. Miller, “Strategies of Representation in Collective Biography: Constructing the Subject as Holy”, in Greek Biography and Panegyric in Late Antiquity, eds. T. Hägg and P. Rousseau, Berkeley, CA. and London, University of California Press, 2000, 209-54; The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity, Philadelphia, PA., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009. 76 VC I.29. 77 VC I.32.1. 78 It is noteworthy that the Christian saving sign was used against pagan co-ruler, Maxentius. Portraying him as a tyrant, Eusebius underscores Maxentius’ inhuman actions, VC I.33-38.5.

Viewing is always a dual process of interpretation in which what is seen becomes fitted into the already existent framework of the viewer’s knowledge and thereby, very subtly, changes both the content of what the viewer knows (because something new has been added) 79 80

16

VC I.28-30. Maxentius is a laudable case in point. See supra note 75.

HALLIE G. MEREDITH: CHRISTIANIZING CONSTANTINE that Eusebius provided (Fig. 1). Thereby, in his textual object, Eusebius constructed the labarum for Late Antique – and now for modern – viewers.

and the meaning of what is seen (because it is now framed by the viewer’s knowledge).81 Whether it’s called viewing –the change from an object to a thing – or a social canvas, the underlying idea remains one of cultural interpretation. Viewers and users interpret socially-constructed meaning rather than scrutinizing, or even noticing, the film screen or backdrop upon which meaning is appended.

IV. CULTURAL BIOGRAPHY BATTLE STANDARD

OF

CONSTANTINE’S

At its core, a cultural biography of an object is a history of period-specific experiences appended to a given object. The meaning imparted onto that object is socially constructed. Just as ‘art’ is the result of a series of moments which create a history for an object, resulting in the classification of an object as ‘art’, an ‘object’ is fundamentally an instrument or a tool. Returning to the definition of a thing, a cup is a vessel made to hold liquid. If it holds liquid, it is a successful cup. If it does not hold liquid, it may be a broken cup, in which case, until it is mended, it might stay on a shelf – unusable – until it is repaired. Or if it is a cup that has been dedicated for religious purposes, the act of repair may be sacralised, part of a ritual performed with the honorand in mind. If this is the case, then it may be that the act of repair is likened to the healing of the human body.84 Either way, an unusable functional object calls attention to itself and prompts the user to consider what to do with it in its unusable state. It is at that moment of attention that the object – and its developing history – can take one of several divergent paths.

Returning to Brown’s terminology, looking ‘through’ means not noticing the screen a film is projected onto, but looking ‘at’ is noticing a tear in the screen and becoming aware of the screen as a tool. In the case of Constantine we see the subject-object relationship flipped. Rather than having Constantine interpret an object as Christian (subject infusing an object with agency), Eusebius uses the object to create the perception of a Christian Constantine. The act of interpreting occurs at the moment of reflection. This takes place when a viewer looks at rather than through visual culture. Implicit in this shift is “a changed relation to the human subject...[the thing refers to] a particular subject-object relation”.82 The subject is viewing the material object which is being looked at. It is this opportunity for interpretation that affords the momentary reflection on the instrument in its changed state. In this moment the thing changes for the user or viewer. This process is more than a mixture of vision and memory of things learned. Relying upon a sense of sight, what is seen is looked at through the lens of pre-existing knowledge and culturally constituted categories.

A biography of a person is about someone’s life; a biography of an object belongs to, or relates to the culture of a particular society, people, or period. I. Kopytoff offers a definition of what he refers to as a cultural biography of an object: “A culturally informed economic85 biography of an object would look at it as a culturally constructed entity, endowed with culturally specific meanings, and classified and reclassified into culturally constituted categories”.86 A biography is culturally constructed. So too are the interpretations given to its subject. This is true whether the subject is a person or an object. Unless and until an object is handled or used by an agent, it is effectively dormant and remains literally inactive. Its cultural meaning is acquired over the course of its history, akin to a human lifecycle. It is the cultural projection of meaning – over time, akin to accretions on a social canvas – that endows an object with a cultural biography which is both relevant to the object’s use and to society as a whole.

What allows for this shift in interpretation? In the example of objects shifting from useful to non-useful, it is ‘objects asserting themselves as things’ that changes the relation between the agent and the instrument.83 This is one example of a transformation which prompts the user to view the instrument, whereby material culture is then looked at rather than through. Another instance is a textual narrative which incorporates material culture in order to append meaning onto it. Eusebius’ cultural biography of Constantine’s labarum is an example of the Roman period writer interpreting the significance of an object – which he takes great pains to demonstrate he’s seen – in order to present his interpretation, primarily of the subject, as authoritative. His visual description tacitly prompts his audience to place the subject of his visual description into their pre-existing framework of knowledge, concurrently changing both the content of what the viewer knows and the meaning of what is seen. If one accepts the product of Eusebius’ reported act of viewing, then the implication is that when one sees Christian battle standards carried by the Roman army, a viewer will interpret what is seen according to the meaning Eusebius sought to append to the object as instrument. The subject-object relation will be the one

84 See Appadurai 1986; Kopytoff 1986; C.M. Booker, “Precondition to Miracle. The Construction of Discernment and its Application in the Works of Sulpicius Severus and Gregory of Tours”, Orpheus Rivista di Umanita Classicà e Cristiana, N.S. XVIII, 1997, 182-95; C. Gosden and Y. Marshall, “The Cultural Biography of Objects”, World Archaeology, 31, 1999, 169-78; D. Morgan, The Sacred Gaze: Religious Visual Culture in Theory and Practice, Berkeley, L.A. and Oxford, University of California Press, 2005. 85 In his article, Kopytoff explored the notion of commoditization. The economic concerns of religious objects are the subject of another paper, and are, therefore, omitted from this discussion. 86 Kopytoff 1986, 68.

81

Elsner Art and the Roman Viewer 1995, 4. Brown Autumn 2001, 4. 83 Ibid. The instrument need not change from useful to non-useful. 82

17

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD When appended to an object, a cultural biography provides that object’s successive users and viewers with a blueprint which they can apply to their interactions with that object. Similar to interactions with people, if one had learned from the biography of a person, a saint for example, that a particular saint heals a specific type of affliction, those with such an affliction may seek out that particular saint to request his healing touch.87 If an object is renowned for its healing powers,88 then potential users may seek out that object to fulfil their expectations.

composed of Constantine’s construction of the physical object, and Lactantius’ and Eusebius’ appended histories (Fig. 1). When considered all together, texts about objects convey a socially constructed meaning that continues to inform and mediate experiences of the object. From this point of view, Roman writers successfully contributed to the cultural biography of Constantine’s Christian battle standard. V. CONSTANTINE’S BATTLE STANDARD AGENT

Such a physical object serves a variety of social aims. The ephemeral experience is made tangible through a permanent physical form. Through its material form, the object serves as a testament to the original, mythic event which could then be borne witness to by ever greater numbers who were not present during the original event. As a vessel endowed with divine power, thereafter, miraculous material culture had the potential to serve as an agent manifesting holy power on earth. It is through the rhetoric of the narrative, the manner of the telling, that culture-specific meaning and culturally constituted categories could be – and remain – known. When an objects’ cultural biography is missing, what remains unknown are the culturally determined conceptual categories within which that object’s meaning was constructed and its function or functions articulated.

AS A

SOCIAL

The cultural biography of an object – or thing – implies an agent or user. As in the case of Constantine’s battle standard, an originating power as well as a distinct recipient and craftsman were distinguishable agents. With so many potential users, how did Late Antique users seek to embed evidence of the originating power in a physical artefact? What is it about material culture that has the potential to exert religious power?

The artefactual record has established beyond any doubt that Roman Emperor Constantine was visually represented in his own time wearing the chi-rho symbol, located where we might expect to see a crown, atop his head.89 Contemporaries from the fourth century wrote about events reported from the life of Constantine, noting the origins of the first Christian battle standard. Two accounts remain (Fig. 1). Granted, just like today, writers had personal reasons for composing and disseminating a piece of written work; therefore, the motives of ancient writers must be considered alongside the content of their text. Such considerations aside, what these textual descriptions offer are contemporary accounts of cultural categories these fourth century writers considered meaningful in their day. Roman period perspectives on imperially circulated material culture shed light on how period-specific writers wished others to interpret and understand signs in circulation amongst them.90 The work of these ancient authors formed part of the cultural biography of the Christian labarum. Our present-day interpretations are a composite historical artefact

A. Gell devised a typology, part of his theory of art nexus, in which human agents are primary agents and material objects – as ‘instruments’ – are secondary agents. As a particular subset within the category of agent, material culture can easily slip into the conceptual role of agent imbued with the power (or agency) of the primary agent, their user. In common usage, an agent is defined as “[o]ne who (or that which) acts or exerts power, as distinguished from the patient, and also from the instrument”.91 Thus, the person acting is the agent. An instrument is typically defined as “[t]hat which is used by an agent in or for the performance of an action; a thing with or through which something is done or effected; anything that serves or contributes to the accomplishment of a purpose or end; a means”.92 When addressing material culture, an instrument is “A material thing designed or used for the accomplishment of some mechanical or other physical effect; a mechanical contrivance (usually one that is portable, of simple construction, and wielded or operated by hand)”.93 This conceptual elision is intriguing, especially, as illustrated by Gell, when animate dolls act as secondary agents as opposed to instruments.94 The problem, however, is in part to do with the underlying anthropological nature of Gell’s work and thereby the premise upon which the notion of secondary agency is based. Objects are understood when in motion.95 Unlike ethnographers and social scientists who might ask questions of their living

87

91

This idea has been in circulation since Asclepius, if not before. For healing saints, such as Cosmas and Damian, see H. Delahaye, Legends of the Saints, trans. D. Attwater, London, G. Chapman, 1962. See also P.C. Miller, “Visceral Seeing: The Holy Body in Late Ancient Christianity”, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 12, 2004, 391-411. 88 See J. Wilkinson 1981; R.G. Ousterhout, ed., The Blessings of Pilgrimage, Urbana, IL., University of Illinois Press, 1990; J. Wilkinson, Jerusalem Pilgrims before the Crusades, Warminster, Aris & Phillips, 2002. 89 See supra note 21. 90 Although we do not know whether they initiated it or referred to ideas already in circulation, from the Constantinian period onwards, Christian emperors chose to continue producing and circulating material culture based on this precedent.

Oxford English Dictionary, see ‘agent, n.’, B.1.a. second edition, 1989; online version November 2010, earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1900. Accessed at http://www.oed.com:80/ Entry/97158, 4 January 2011. 92 Oxford English Dictionary, see ‘instrument, n.’, 1.a. second edition, 1989; online version November 2010, earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1900. Accessed at http://www.oed.com:80/ Entry/97158>, 4 January 2011. 93 Oxford English Dictionary, see ‘instrument, n.’, 2.a. second edition, 1989; online version November 2010, earlier version first published in New English Dictionary, 1900. Accessed at http://www.oed.com:80/ Entry/97158, 4 January 2011. 94 See Gell 1998, 17-19 and 133-137. 95 See also Kopytoff 1986.

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HALLIE G. MEREDITH: CHRISTIANIZING CONSTANTINE based on the history of ekphrasis of useful art objects, Gell concludes that ‘art’ is a product of social interactions.101 Explaining a basic tenet of his theory, an:

subjects – they can ask directly how objects circulate and the social network within which they operate – Roman historians do not have this luxury. Ancient historians do, however, have a wealth of visual and textual sources which can offer access to Late Antique conceptions, interpretations and responses.

anthropological theory of art cannot afford to have as its primary theoretical term a category or taxon of objects which are ‘exclusively’ art objects because the whole tendency of this theory…is to explore a domain in which ‘objects’ merge with ‘people’ by virtue of the existence of social relations between persons and things, and persons and persons via things.102

The theory of art nexus is premised on the notion that what we refer to as ‘art’ is not distinguishable from life. This anthropological theory supports the argument that useful art objects – rendered in texts, i.e. ekphrases – exhibit agency. Gell argues that people and objects display differentiable agency, but that objects have agency because of their roles in social interactions.96 Artefacts are secondary agents, referring to “the fact that the origination and manifestation of agency takes place in a milieu which consists (in large part) of artefacts, and that agents, thus, ‘are’ and do not merely ‘use’ the artefacts which connect them to social others”.97 A physical object is thus an agent because it initiates a causal sequence.98

Thus, useful art objects are not exclusively ‘art’. Just as a newly married man may perform the roles of husband, brother, uncle and son all at once, an art object can also perform several roles concurrently. It is precisely because objects can have multiple, overlapping roles via multiple, overlapping uses and contexts of use that these objects have the potential to initiate causal sequences in relations as secondary agents.

The distinguishable primary and secondary agents are defined as follows:

The physical object of the Christian battle standard is a secondary agent because, as stated above, it initiates a causal sequence. Conveyed in Eusebius’ text is the apotropaic nature of the divinely inspired physical agent. The role ascribed to the saving sign is to lead the Christian Roman armies in battle: “This saving sign was always used by the Emperor for protection against every opposing and hostile force, and he commanded replicas of it to lead all his armies”103 “invoking his Christ as saviour and succour, and having set the victorious trophy, the truly salutary sign, at the head of his escorting soldiers and guards, he led them in full force, claiming for the Romans their ancestral liberties”.104 Thus, in the telling, the protective battle standards figuratively – and perhaps even literally for the devout – led the Christian Roman armies to conquer their non-Christian opposition. The power underlying the labarum stems from divine inspiration. For those who knew of its divine origins, the implication is that every labarum made by Constantine would be ‘holy’ in the sense that it would serve as a conduit through which Christ would protect the Christian Roman army fighting for the Christian Roman people.

a distinction between ‘primary’ agents, that is, intentional beings who are categorically distinguished from ‘mere’ things or artefacts, and ‘secondary’ agents, which are artefacts, dolls, cars, works of art, etc. through which primary agents distribute their agency in the causal milieu, and thus render their agency effective…I describe artefacts as ‘social agents’…in view of the fact that objectification in artefact-form is how social agency manifests and realizes itself, via the proliferation of fragments of ‘primary’ intentional agents in their ‘secondary’ artefactual forms.99 According to the definition proposed for a secondary agent, Constantine’s Christian battle standard functions as a socially constructed agent. Thus, as a secondary agent its meaning or ‘language’ is not fixed, rather it is relative to a primary user. Gell refutes the idea of an independent visual language; he argues that meaning is attributed to art objects linguistically, thereby strengthening the means by which visual categories are socially constructed.100 Underlying this distinction is the incisive anthropological conclusion: visual meanings are dynamic and culture-specific. In a manner that parallels the definition of useful art objects offered in this study,

Artefacts as agents connect people to others socially. Returning to Constantine’s labarum, the artefactual Christian battle standard is a secondary agent by virtue of its role connecting Christian Romans to Christ. The conceptual acceptance of Christ as saviour is manifest in the form of a totemic, tangible symbol of Christianity. By giving Constantine’s adoption of Christianity physical form, the personal, experiential nature of religion is transformed into a visible presence which can be witnessed and interpreted by ever greater numbers of Romans. This was the case whether viewers witnessed

96 Gell 1998, 1-50. See also A. van Gennep, The Rites of Passage, Chicago, IL., The University of Chicago Press, 1960); Appadurai 1986; J. Coote and A. Shelton, eds., Anthropology, Art and Aesthetics, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1992; R. Layton, “Art and Agency: A Reassessment”, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute Incorporating Man, 9, September 2003, 447-64; R. Osborne and J. Tanner, eds., Art's Agency and Art History, Oxford, Blackwell, 2007. 97 Gell 1998, 21. 98 Gell 1998, 13-19. 99 Gell 1998, 20-21. 100 Gell 1998, 6.

101

Gell 1998, 5-7. Gell 1998, 12. VC I.31.3. 104 VC I.37.1. 102 103

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD the movable labarum on the battle field in the form of a celebratory trophy, viewing representations of the battle standard on the Emperor’s coins as a signifier integral to the imperial image, or as an audience reading or hearing about the importance of Constantine’s labarum in the pages of Eusebius’ narrative.

source and history as a means of creating the subject. In this case, the inspired, Christian battle standard is tangible proof of Constantine’s Christianity. The subjectobject relation is flipped in the pages of Eusebius’ biography, and the object creates the subject. It is perhaps an ironic twist that, whereas once texts described objects, all that remains of Constantine’s battle standard is Late Antique re-presentations of objects as text. But, as layered ekphrastic texts demonstrate, the lifecycle of a pivotal object in circulation does not necessarily end with the destruction of its material form. Having undergone a shift from divinely inspired idea to physical form, such material witnesses continue on a path to ever greater audiences transforming, or shaping, interpretations.

CONCLUSION Texts circulate meaning. Whether secular or religious, biographies circulate meaning concerning the life of a figure of note. Social canvases – as instruments – circulate in two iterations. One is in tangible, physical form. The other is as a conceptual re-presentation. By blurring the boundaries between object and text, between presentation and re-presentation, the projection of meaning onto an object through its cultural biography and role as social agent, the thing fixes an ephemeral idea onto a physical form.

Christian biographers from the Constantinian period onward invoke miraculous material culture as evidence of a holy figure becoming holy. Whether man makes holy material culture or it is a gift from the divine, the inspiration and design are divinely revealed. The proof is the whole of the hagiographic tradition. Thus, their sacred nature is ingrained in the joining of an ephemeral experience onto a tangible, physical form – a material witness. Simultaneously, as the holy figure was rendered biographically, so too was the history of miraculous material culture – social canvases – created in the pages of the biographies of holy figures. Thus, in the hagiographic tradition, material culture became an established way to demonstrate the effects of a saint’s divine gifts on earth. Familiar, everyday material culture was transformed and offered as proof of Christ’s miraculous power disseminated through a chosen vessel, either a person or a thing. Holiness was demonstrated by showing it. This approach was considered a successful strategy in late antiquity. This tact, however, is not restricted to late antiquity.

Extant textual accounts frame the act of viewing objects in circulation by creating a history for those objects and using those objects as social canvases. Unambiguously, Moses and his staff, and subsequently Christ and Constantine’s Christian battle standard, are each instruments for the transmission of divine power. By circulating Eusebius’ version of Constantine’s battle standard, as it remains in the pages of the Vita Constantini, the agent created was a Christian Constantine via the physical and conceptual circulation of the miraculous – Christian – battle standard. Why does this matter? Eusebius presents the battle standard as a witness to ephemeral events, to Constantine’s conversion. Thereby, Constantine created a material witness which sought to evoke the understanding that the material object is a testament to Constantine’s Christianity. As a corollary to this argument Constantine’s heirs, and thus the Roman Empire, should remain Christian rather than return to traditional pagan practices.

By approaching texts from any period of study as social canvases, we have actual records of interpretations and perceptions from the period of study. This approach can be fruitfully applied to this and later periods as a way of accessing the period eye. As interpreted by Eusebius, Constantine’s battle standard continues to function as a late Roman object in motion. Although the objects are long gone, in this sense they still circulate in society – if only in our minds.

Eusebius chose to elaborate on the miraculous story of Constantine’s Christian vision in his biography, an event which might otherwise remain largely unknown had it not been for Eusebius’ record of events as he interpreted them and wished others to interpret them. The figure of Constantine that we know today is, to a large extent, the portrait of Constantine created and circulated by Eusebius – and to a lesser extent Lactantius’ comparatively brief account – which has been handed down to us. Thus, Eusebius’ biography created Constantine’s labarum – certainly for a present day audience – and appended a history onto the labarum; by projecting and fixing socially-constructed meaning onto a social canvas. Thereby, Eusebius also created an historical portrait of Constantine as a Christian Emperor. More broadly, in contrast to the object-subject relation, whereby the subject creates the object, Eusebius inverts the relationship between a pivotal physical creation and the primary user by presenting a key objects’ originating 20

HALLIE G. MEREDITH: CHRISTIANIZING CONSTANTINE

FIGURE 1: EVIDENCE OF CONSTANTINE’S BATTLE STANDARD AS A LATE ANTIQUE SOCIAL CANVAS 21

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD

Wreath with chi-rho

imperial tapestry

portrait of Constantine & his sons

FIGURE 2: DIAGRAM OF CONSTANTINE’S SAVING SIGN ACCORDING TO EUSEBIUS’ VITA CONSTANTINI

22

The Portable Altar in Christian Tradition and Practice Crispin Paine FOREWORD One of the striking characteristics of Late Antique and early Christian thinking is the way in which objects were set in motion from the mundane to the sacred. Objects became sacred in a wide variety of ways, and an important theme of the early Christian centuries was the effort the ecclesiastical authorities made to control those ways, and to retain control over all those objects, places and people that public opinion recognised as sacred. A class of object that illustrates most strikingly this aspect of ‘the object in motion’ is the portable altar. Portable altars are found in almost all the ancient Christian traditions, and have everywhere been seen as sacred, in some traditions intensely so. They gain their sanctity from their consecration by the bishop, but also from their function as altars, from their materials, from their inscriptions and iconography, and from their incorporation of relics. This sanctity has also made portable altars the focus of intense struggles for control, and given them a place alongside relics in the trading and gift-exchange economy of medieval Christianity. Thus portable altars, at first sight an obscure byway of ecclesiological antiquarianism, highlight many of the issues raised by the concept of motion from the mundane to the sacred, as well as being themselves objects in geographical motion in the early middle ages. This study examines what that sanctity means, how they are and have been used, how their form and decoration declare or determine their meaning, how they are contested in political struggle or deployed in personal or hierarchical assertion, how they are active players in the lives of widely differing societies. My aim is to answer two key questions: how do portable altars become holy, and what are the implications of that sanctity?

their works, but also in particular to Paul Bradshaw, Sebastian Brock, Ani Colville, John Cherry, John Cleary, Michael Doyle, David Goa, Amir Harrar, Niall McKeith, John and Marlene Mitchell, David Morgan, Brent Plate, Gregory Tillett, Sten Tosch, Maria Vretemark, and Oksana Yurchysyn-Smith. Crispin Paine Liss, Hants, UK April 2010 INTRODUCTION The Altar and the Sacred Place From at least as early as the fourth century the Christian church has used altars for the celebration of Mass. The altar represented simultaneously a table, as that on which Christ and his disciples ate their Last Supper, an altar, on which was celebrated the ‘bloodless sacrifice’ which had replaced the bloody sacrifice of the pagans, and the tomb of Christ or of a martyr. The altar, and the church that contained it, was seen as a sacred place. It could become sacred because it was the site of a martyr’s tomb or place of death, because the Mass was celebrated there, or because it was consecrated by a bishop. As early as the year 500 there is evidence that it was customary in some places for the bishop to anoint the top of the altar with holy oil (chrism). This rite seems to have been based on the use of holy oil as part of baptism.

This seems to be the first investigation of portable altars in all the ancient Christian traditions. Braun (1924), Welch (1951), Izzo (1975) and Budde (1998) are the principal studies, but none are easy to find. I have tried here to bring together as many of the widely-scattered references as I can – art-historical, archaeological, anthropological, historical and simply antiquarian, plus the rather fewer studies from a theological perspective. I am deeply indebted to all the authors listed in the references, and to the librarians or webmasters who house

FIGURE 1. A modern altar is consecrated. The Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Bishop of Aosta, consecrates a new altar in Canterbury Cathedral by pouring on holy oil, 2006. (Photo: Canterbury Cathedral).

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD the use of portable altars has long been governed by strict rules. Portable altars are used in the Old Catholic Church, and very occasionally in the Anglican Church, but not at all in the Protestant churches.4

The altar is thus set apart from the mundane for the service of God, just as the convert is at baptism, the priest at ordination and the king at his coronation,1 by what David Morgan (pers. com) has called a process of Christian alchemy. Inevitably though, the rule that Mass can only be celebrated on an altar so consecrated must create practical problems. It was to solve some of these that the portable altar was invented.

The Antimension in the Eastern Orthodox Churches In the Orthodox Churches the portable altar is normally made of cloth, and is known in Greek as an antimension, and in Old Slavonic as an antimens, supposedly from the Greek anti ‘instead of’ and the Latin mensa ‘table’. Usually around 500 X 400mm, it is painted or printed with holy pictures. There is space for the signature of the consecrating bishop, and on the back is sewn a little pocket containing a relic.

The Portable Altar in the Catholic West A portable altar2 is a wooden or stone tablet, or a cloth, consecrated with holy oil by a bishop, on which Mass is celebrated. It is required in most of the older Christian traditions when no permanent consecrated altar is available, though in recent centuries it has often been used in addition to a permanent altar. Before the changes inaugurated by the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council, a Roman Catholic Mass could only lawfully be celebrated on an altar, properly consecrated by a bishop. This had to contain, in a sealed cavity, the relics of two saints, and its top – the mensa – had to be of a single piece of natural stone. (Often this was in fact not the whole altar-top, but an ‘altar-stone’ inserted into a wooden base). To celebrate Mass anywhere other than in a church containing such an altar, a priest required a portable altar. In the Catholic West, a portable altar is a small (usually around 300 X 200 X 30mm) tablet, of wood or (since the early Middle Ages exclusively) of stone set in a wooden frame.3 Sometimes, though, it can be considerably larger, incorporating relics and becoming more like a small shrine, decorated with much goldsmith’s work. These have attracted much attention from art historians: Peter Lasko’s Ars Sacra is an excellent introduction, but the most comprehensive study of Western medieval portable altars is that of Michael Budde (1998). Budde describes, illustrates and analyses 150 portable altars dating from 600 to 1600. His analysis shows that while his first type, the table-form altar, was found throughout his period, his box-form and altar-form (those with recessed sides) were limited to 1000-1100 and 1050-1200 respectively.

FIGURE 2. Antimension in use in the church of St Herman of Alaska, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. The antimension is brought to the altar, wrapped in the silk iliton, in a decorated folder. (Photos: Reiner Loewan, through the kindness of the church and of Prof. David Goa of the University of Alberta).

The upper surface is usually inscribed with five crosses, which represent the five spots marked with oil when it is consecrated by the bishop. In the Roman Catholic Church

Normally kept folded on the altar, it is uncovered and opened during the Holy Liturgy, and the chalice and discos are placed on it. The Holy Liturgy cannot be celebrated without it.

1

The British monarch is still anointed with holy oil during the coronation service. 2 Portable altars are still sometimes known as ‘superaltars’, as they were in medieval England. Confusingly, the term ‘portable altar’ is also sometimes used for portable altarpieces - small painted triptychs - and for collapsible Baroque altars intended for domestic or church festival use. The latter were the subject of a splendid recent exhibition in Malta (Azzopardi 2000). A variety of Latin terms for portable altars is given by Perrin, n.d. 3 In Scandinavia portable altars are sometimes very much smaller, in fact often little more than fragments of porphyry or serpentine set in a wooden base (Tesch 2007). A Greek porphyrite stone recently found on a man’s chest in an eleventh century cemetery at Varnhem, western Sweden, is only 52.6 X 33.7 X 10.7mm. www.vastergotlandsmuseum.se/kulturvast_templates/kultur_articlepage .aspx?id=8704&Menu=true. Accessed October 2007.

4 In England, their use was abolished during the Reformation. An order of the Privy Council, dated November 24, 1550 to take down altars, stated: ‘Thirdly, the popish opinion of mass was that it might not be celebrated but upon an altar or at the least upon a superaltar to supply the fault of the altar, which must have had his prints and characters, or else it was thought that the thing was not lawfully done. But this superstitious opinion is more holden in the minds of the simple and ignorant by the form of an altar than of a table; wherefore it is more meet for the abolishment of this superstitious opinion to have the Lord’s board after the form of a table than of an altar.’

26

CRISPIN PAINE: THE PORTABLE ALTAR IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND PRACTICE

FIGURE 6. Antimension fully opened at the Prayers for the Catechumens. The bread and wine are placed on it following the Great Entrance, and are consecrated.

FIGURE 3. The antimension is slowly opened.

FIGURE 4. As the antimension is opened, the name of the consecrating bishop, written in ink on the back, is revealed: ‘The Unworthy Seraphim, Bishop of Ottawa’.

FIGURE 7. Note in the corner the sponge that is also wrapped within the folded antimension and used during the preparation of the gifts on the Holy Table. The central image shows the burial of Christ surrounded by the women, including his mother and Mary of Magdalene and the other Marys. The Gospel writers are in each corner of the cloth; Saints Basil the Great and John Chrysostom are also shown.

‘…in the Byzantine rite, the antimension is not only a substitute for an altar, it is…a symbol of apostolic continuity and communion with the Church Universal. Where the antimension is present the place is formed into a temple for the true worship of God, in communion with the saints whose relics are therein enclosed, and in communion with the rightful hierarchy and successors of the Apostles, through whose representative the antimension was consecrated and consigned to the priest…’5

FIGURE 5. Antimension one-third open, with the inscription at the bottom showing: ‘The blessing of Holy Synod of the Autocephalous Orthodox Church in America consecrated by the Unworthy Seraphim, Bishop of Ottawa and Canada in 2002 of the Incarnation of the Son of God, the month of May the 11th day. Given for the celebration of the Divine sacrifice in the Church of Saint Herman of Alaska, Edmonton, Alberta’. When it is opened to this position prayers of blessing are said for the hierarchs of the Church and the cloth is kissed by the celebrant. Note the reliquary pocket with the inscription ‘By Grace of God’. The relic sewn into this pocket is of Saint Herman of Alaska, to whom the church is dedicated.

5 Izzo 1975, 3. Izzo’s study is invaluable, despite a preoccupation with the minutiae of canon law and a Uniat perspective. Unfortunately there seem to be no accessible copies in the UK - mine was acquired by interlibrary loan from Florence. It deserves reprinting.

27

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD a few have been published.12 Most seem to be of wood, carved with a central cross, and sometimes with the name of God (by the signs of alpha, omega, beta and yevita in Ge’ez letters) in the corners, as well as the names of the Holy Trinity, Christ, St Mary, or the saints and angels to whom it is dedicated.13 Sometimes it also bears the name of the person who commissioned it. ‘Marble’ ones are known, however, and some are gold plated or covered with other precious materials.14 They vary in size, but are (unlike their Coptic equivalents) usually roughly square. Nowadays they are stored when not in use, wrapped in cloth, in the cupboard underneath the altar.

The Portable Altar in the Oriental Orthodox and Other Eastern Churches Only some of the other eastern Churches use the portable altar; the Assyrian Church of the East, for example, does not, and nor do the Maronites, while the Armenians do if no consecrated altar is available: they simply call it a vem, a stone. The tablitho of the Syriac Orthodox Church is a stone or wooden tablet placed in the centre of the altar, and covered with seven layers of silk.6 It is normally some 400 X 200mm, and bears a dedication in cross-form across its surface. On the tablitho are spread red, green and white silk coverings, red representing the Omnipresence of God throughout the universe, green the world and white the church. Only one Qurbana (Liturgy) can be celebrated on one tablitho on one day.7 In the Coptic Church the muqaddas is known as al-lawh al-muqaddas (the holy tablet), al-lawh al-khashab (the holy wood) or in Coptic as nagis enshe. It is a wooden board,8 at about 500 X 200mm rather larger than those of other churches, that fits into a depression in the top of the altar under three cloths. It is made of wood from a fruitbearing tree, and is inscribed with a cross in the centre, flanked by alpha and omega, and in the four corners ‘Jesus Christ Son of God’.9 It is nowadays seen as portable, though in the nineteenth century it was apparently regarded as a permanent part of the altar.10

FIGURE 8. A modern Coptic muqaddas (Photo: Fr Gregory Tillett).

THE ORIGINS OF THE PORTABLE ALTAR

The only evidence for early use of such altar boards as portable altars is the charming story quoted by Butler. When in 836 Prince George was sent by his father King Zacharias IIIrd of Makaria (now in Sudanese Nubia) to the Abbasid Caliph al-Mu’tasim in Baghdad to renegotiate the tribute, he returned via Cairo. There he paid a visit to the Patriarch Joseph, who as a very special favour gave him a portable altar board. ‘Tradition says that such a thing was never known before; and the concession was only justified by the peculiar circumstances of the Nubians, who were restless nomads and dwellers in tents, and whose life was all fighting and foray’.11

Canon Law and the Portable Altar From the earliest days of the Christian church, the altar was the most important object of cult and attracted to itself powerful symbolism. The altar was the table used by Christ at his Last Supper with his disciples, it was the cross on which he sacrificed himself for the redemption of humankind, and it was Christ himself. St. Sixtus II (257-259) is said to have been the first to prescribe that Mass should be celebrated on an altar. A letter of about 511 from the bishops of Tours, Angers and Rennes to two missionary priests in Brittany forbids them to say Mass in local houses on consecrated tables. This has been claimed as evidence for the use of portable altars in the early sixth century, but the first unequivocal legal reference is in the 769 Capitulary of Charlemagne which enacted that no priest was to say Mass except in places dedicated to God unless he was on a journey, and then he must use a stone table consecrated by a bishop. This rule was repeated by Hincmar, Archbishop of Reims (845-882), and the Council of Mainz in 888 permitted use of portable altars in the sickroom, the open air or in a tent, when no church was available. Around 1140 Gratian included this rule in his Decretal, and so it became embedded in emerging Canon Law.15

In the Ethiopian Orthodox Church the tabot has taken on an extraordinary significance – its fearful sanctity is discussed below. Because of this, little is known about tabotat beyond the ranks of the Ethiopian clergy, though 6

Brown 1982, 215. www.stgregoriosnc.org/content/view/27/33. Accessed December 2006. 8 In early centuries it could apparently be of stone, copper or brass (Basilios 1991, 144). 9 Hadji-Burmester 1948, 382; Khs-Burmester 1967, 21; Viaud 1978, 73; Céres 1971, 104. 10 Butler 1884, 25. 11 Butler 1884, 27. He gives as his source Eusèbe Renaudot’s 1713 Historia Patriarcharum Alexandrinorum Jacobitarum a D.Marco Usque ad Finem Saeculi XIII, Paris, Franciscum Fournier. Recent excavations have shown that Old Dongola, Makaria’s capital, was in fact a substantial town with some fine churches. The Armenian Abu Salih (1895) mentions wooden tablets on altars in Egyptian churches at the end of the thirteenth century. 7

12

l’Art Copte 1964; Braun 1924; Buxton 1970; Hanssens and Raes 1951, Izzo 1975 plates 15, 16. 13 Chaillot 2002, 102. 14 Bantalem 2005, 74. 15 Welsh 1951.

28

CRISPIN PAINE: THE PORTABLE ALTAR IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND PRACTICE and + In honour of St Peter. In the mid-eighth century20 this oak tablet was encased in silver, the casing embossed with an image – perhaps of St Peter – on one side. The other side may perhaps have been left with a round window; the Celtic-style cross in a central medallion now covering it has been ascribed to the late eighth/early ninth century.21

The Argument for Portable Altars from Earliest Times The origins of the portable altar are controversial. The first scholar to study the topic, Giovanni Gattico in the mid-eighteenth century, argued that since there is plenty of evidence of Mass being said in fields, homes, prisons and so on in the early days of the church, portable altars must have been in use from the beginning. He pointed to a tradition that the wooden altar fragments in the church of St Praxedes in Rome were the remains of an altar used by St Peter16 and claimed that St Denis of Paris (d. c. 250) used one in prison. The church of S. Maria in Campitelli in Rome claims the wooden portable altar of St Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 328-389). Rather more persuasive of early use is the reference by the late sixth century Bishop Constantine of Assiut, Egypt, to a possible portable altar belonging to a village church, discovered by thieves in St Claud’s baggage. The canons attributed to St Clement, but perhaps of the sixth century, refer to churches having one fixed and one moveable altar. Korolevskij17 argues that portable altars originated in sixth century Syria, where the Jacobites and Monophysites were being persecuted. The lives of early saints sometimes mention their portable altars, but these were normally written, of course, some centuries later. The ‘Tripartite Life’ of St Patrick, written about 895 from older sources, tells how, in order to provide space for a leper for whom there was no room on the boat, the saint threw his stone portable altar into the sea. It floated around the boat, with the leper on it, until they reached Ireland.18 Patrick’s colleague Saint Carantoc lost his as he crossed the Severn estuary. It was washed up on the Somerset coast near Carhampton. Carantoc went to King Arthur to ask his help in recovering his altar, and the King asked him in return to tame a dragon that was troubling the neighbourhood. He did, of course.19

FIGURE 9. St Cuthbert’s portable altar, probably of c. 660 - the oldest portable altar known. (Drawing by S. M. Waterhouse from Radford 1956, 328).

Equally well dated, and almost as early, are three portable altars found at the other end of Christendom, at Takrit in Iraq. An early Christian site called al-Chenisa, outside the city on the east side of the Tigris, was excavated in the 1990s by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities. They were found near the altar of the church, and have been published by Amir Harrak (2001). They bear inscriptions dating them to 709-10, 774-5, and 887-903. These are all of marble, and the earliest seems the most sophisticated, with a top with a raised border and incised central cross, and an inscription on the underside. The size of these tablitho is not reported.

Portable Altars of the Seventh and Eighth Centuries Despite such claims, the argument for an early origin of the portable altar really relies on probability. The rival theory is that it originated in the missionary world of the seventh century, and it is indeed from the seventh and eighth centuries that the earliest reliable references and the earliest actual objects survive.

A wooden altar was found in the tomb of St Acca, Bishop of Hexham (died 740) when he was translated in the mideleventh century. It does not survive. Other seventh/eighth century examples include one mentioned by Bede: the Hewalds, companions of Willibrord martyred in 690 in Frisia, had with them ‘a consecrated table for an altar’.22 Willibrord’s own portable altar is allegedly preserved in the church of St. Mary ad Martyres

The oldest portable altar now known was found lying on the chest of St Cuthbert, when his coffin in Durham Cathedral was opened in 1827; it is now on display in the cathedral treasury. It comprises a small seventh century oak tablet, 134 X 120 X 6mm, inscribed with five crosses

20

Coatsworth 1989. Raleigh Radford (1956) suggested that the tablet was made for Cuthbert at Melrose when he was ordained priest in 651 and began his missionary work in the district, and that it was enshrined in silver at the time of his Translation into a new shrine in 698, and the silverwork repaired when the community was established at Chester-le-Street, having fled Lindisfarne in 875. However, Elizabeth Coatsworth’s (1989) discussion casts doubts on these links. 22 Symeonis Monachi Dunelmensis Histori Regum, s.a.740, Rolls Series, lxxv, ii. 33, quoted by Radford 1956, 329. 21

16

Gattico 1746, quoted in Welsh 1951. Quoted in Izzo 1975, 28. 18 Stokes 1887 2, 447. 19 Wade-Evans 1944. (British Museum Cotton MS Vespasian A xiv). Available at http://jrider.web.wesleyan.edu/wescourses/2001f/fren234/ 01/lifeofstcarannogenglish.htm. Accessed September 2006. Arthur had tried to turn the altar into a table – which suggests that the legend’s twelfth century author was not familiar with wooden portable altars. 17

29

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD at Trier.23 Finally for early western examples, Charles Thomas24 suggests a late seventh or early eighth century date for an altar stone dredged up near Wick, though he gives no reasons.

identical to a basic portable altar.29 From the sixteenth century these altar stones were common; they included a small plug concealing a tiny relic.

FIGURE 11. A modern Roman Catholic altar stone, let into a wooden altar. Marble, with five inscribed crosses and a small circular plug concealing relics. it is normally hidden by the altar cloth. (Photo: The Author, by kind permission of St Agnes’s Church, Liss, Hampshire).

FIGURE 10. Tablitho of 709-10 from Takrit – the second oldest portable altar known. (Drawn from Harrak 2001, 34).

Portable altars have continued, however, to be regularly used in missionary and military contexts until the present day. The first known bishop of Uppsala mentioned ‘portable altar-stones for Mass in locations other than a consecrated church’ in his 1157 will. They were clearly commonly used by Catholic priests in the Americas in the early days of European settlement. The missionary to Texas, Alonso de León, in 1689 found a Native American group revering one obtained a generation or more earlier.30 The portable altar used for the first Roman Catholic Mass in Australia, in 1788, survives in Melbourne.

It has been suggested that antimensia came into use in the eighth century during the Iconoclastic controversy to allow non-Iconoclast priests to celebrate the Liturgy without having to use churches profaned by heretics, perhaps originating in the cloth used to dry a permanent altar after its consecration with holy oil.25 But the earliest mentions of an antimension in Byzantine sources are by St Theophanes the Confessor (died c. 817) in his description of the coronation of the heir of Leo IV, and by St Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople 806-815.26 The oldest surviving one is in the Hermitage Museum and dates from 1148-9.27 In the Coptic church it has been suggested that the muqaddas originated from the need quickly to conceal sacred things from the Muslim invader.28 The Merging of Portable and the Altar Stone

and

In the Eastern churches there was a similar coming together of portable and permanent altars. In the Orthodox churches the antimension was probably generally found on every altar from the fifteenth century, whether that altar was itself permanent and consecrated

Permanent: The Portable Altar

29 Altar stones found in an archaeological context seem generally to be called ‘portable altars’ by their excavators, and sometimes perhaps they were. Many others, however, must have been firmly fixed in a permanent altar. For example, a very crude sandstone altar stone was found during a 1999 excavation in the early medieval church on Papa Stronsay in the Orkney Islands (Papa Stronsay means Priest Island in Old Norse, and this appears to have been the northernmost of all early Christian monasteries). The context of the altar stone itself is tentatively dated by the excavator to the eighth/ninth centuries – a probable church lying beneath the eleventh century church. It is made from a slab of yellow sandstone with chamfered edge and measures approximately 280 x 280mm. Now broken in pieces, about 2/3 of the whole survives, including - at least in part - four of the incised crosses; each cross design is set between four small perforations which are joined by a shallow incised circle. The excavator supposes that below the central cross would have been a small sealed cavity or sepulchre containing relics, though it seems more likely that if the altar did contain a relic, it was in a small cavity underneath the altar stone. www.stronsay.co.uk/ archaeology/1999/days/day19.htm. Accessed December 2006. 30 http://www.tamu.edu/ccbn/dewitt/alarconex.htm. Accessed September 2006.

The first Church Council to require that a consecrated altar should be of stone was the provincial council of Epeaune (Pamiers), France, in 517. It took another six hundred years for the requirement to be firmly imposed, but by the eleventh century the practical difficulties of providing a full-sized stone mensa led to the use of a small stone tablet set into a wooden table-top. These were

23

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/Alcuin-willbrord.html. Accessed July 2006. Thomas 1971, 194. 25 Izzo 1975, 62, 69. 26 Izzo 1975, 106. 27 Yurchysyn-Smith 2004, 99, 101. 28 Ex inf. Fr Gregory Tillett. 24

30

CRISPIN PAINE: THE PORTABLE ALTAR IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND PRACTICE Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, it returned its antimension to the bishop.35

or not; a decree of the Council of Moscow in 1675 made it obligatory.31 In the Coptic and Syriac churches the same thing happened with the muqaddas and tablitho.

Bishops also used the privilege as a gift to be bestowed. As the great Victorian museum curator and historian of liturgy Daniel Rock put it:

THE PORTABLE ALTAR AS A CONTESTED PLACE Like so many ‘sacred places’, portable altars have at times been the focus of intense struggle. In the medieval West the story of the portable altar is in part the story of a four-way struggle over their use between Pope, bishops, priests and powerful laymen.

The custom was for the bishops to consecrate a good number of these altar-stones at the same time, so that they might have them at hand ready for distribution through the diocese, or to bestow upon such of their flock among the laity whose wealth allowed them to keep a private chaplain, or whose old age, ill-health, the length and badness of the road to the parish church, warranted them to ask, and the prelate to grant, the leave of having Mass said at home within their private chapel. A like indulgence was sometimes too accorded in favour of guilds, the brethren of which, though individually poor, might thus have, through the services of the brotherhood’s priest, the same religious comfort in sickness as the knight or earl.36

Papal ‘Privilege’ For the Pope, the use of the portable altar was a valuable privilege he could grant to high dignitaries and as a reward for services. The granting of this privilege, noticeable even before the end of the eleventh century, ‘has long since become the most prominent of the characteristics touching on the use of the portable altar’.32 In 1221 Pope Honorius III granted the Dominicans the right to use portable altars as often as the need arose. Three years later this right was extended to the Franciscans.33 Despite episcopal opposition, Gregory IX (1227-1241) confirmed this, and later Popes extended the privilege to all monastic orders. By the time of the Council of Trent any priest-monk could use one anywhere, and though at that Council the bishops tried hard to rein in their use, the monastic orders soon regained their privilege.34

The Laity: Owners and Donors The laity – or at least the rich laity – were by no means the meanest participants in the struggle over portable altars. They had two main interests: securing private Masses, and making gifts. For both, portable altars could be the key.

The Bishop

The move towards privacy in the later Middle Ages saw even minor lords give up formal dining in their great halls surrounded by their retainers, and retreat with the family to dine in private in their Great Chamber. Similarly, they increasingly withdrew from their parish church to attend Masses in their private chapel, celebrated by their private chaplain.

It was not just the Pope who sought to exercise his authority on and through the portable altar. Since earliest times the portable altar has been first and foremost a symbol of the authority of the bishop. Because he is the one who, by consecration, ‘creates’ the altars, and his priests must use them, the bishop gains at least some degree of control over his priests. In every tradition the portable altar has to be consecrated with holy oil by a bishop; without that, it is just a piece of wood or stone or cloth; with it, it is a sacred place.

If they could obtain from the papal bureaucracy a grant to maintain their own portable altar, the nobility and gentry could hear Mass wherever they were, independent of the parochial clergy.37 Such people regularly mentioned portable altars in their wills. In 1535 Lady Elizabeth Bassett of Fledborough left her son John a chalice, vestment, altar cloths and super-altar,38 while John Howard, Duke of Norfolk, took one with him on his 1481 naval expedition.39

Clearly, however, the bishop had less control over a priest with a portable altar that he had over an immoveable church, while for a Pope the granting of the right to use portable altars was a way of extending his power over priests, over the heads of the bishops.

Mattox (2006) has shown the role played by the portable altar in creating sacred space within the houses of the

In the Orthodox churches antimensia have had, since at least the seventeenth century, to be signed and dated by the consecrating bishop. Often he also notes the church for which it is intended. The antimension is powerfully a symbol of the bishop’s authority. Thus when in 1999 a Canadian monastery wanted to withdraw from the

35

http://www.malf.net/isaacnews.htm. Accessed August 2006. Rock 1905, 195. Clarke 2008. 38 http://www.nottshistory.org.uk/articles/tts/tts1907/summer/ fledborough1.htm. Accessed July 2006. Marshall (1879) and Walcott (1879) give other references to wills and inventories. 39 ‘In a cofer, a harneis complyte, and a bykkete, and a standart of meyle, and a peire of gussetes, and a folde of meyle, a salade garnessed with golde, x.lb dates, and v.loffes of suger. A vestment, a super altar, a corporas, a chalys, a mesbooke, an auter cloth.’ (Crawford 1992). 36 37

31

Izzo 1975, 122. Welch 1951, 17. Bachrach 2004, 627. 34 Welsh 1951, 46. 32 33

31

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD elite of Renaissance Florence, and the role that played in local politics.

FIGURE 12. A twelfth century portable altar of porphyry, framed in wood, with plates of gilt copper, probably made for the Cathedral of Hildesheim since St Godehard, Bishop of Hildesheim appears prominently. Hildesheim in Lower Saxony was a crucially important centre of medieval ecclesiastical patronage in an area renowned particularly for its metalworking skill. (Photo and information: V&A).

At the same time, the wealthier laity sought the prestige and power that came from generous donations. As early as the ninth century portable altars had became, on occasion, extremely elaborate and costly prestige objects, at least in northern Europe. By chance perhaps, one of the earliest surviving is also unique and surprising in form. This is the ‘Arnulf Ciborium’, now in the treasury of the Residenz in Munich. Elaborately worked in gold and decorated with jewels, it comprises a model of a baldachino over a high altar, here used to honour a small portable altar framed in gold with cloisonné enamel panels. Lasko argues that it was given by King Arnulf of Bavaria to the Abbey of St Emmeram in 893, and was probably commissioned by Arnulf from a goldsmith in Reims not many years before.40 In practice it must have been very difficult to say Mass on,41 which suggests that already by this very early date portable altars were sometimes for show rather than for use; expensive gifts made to be given.

FIGURE 13. Portable altar of St Arnulf (Photo: Bayerische Verwaltung der staatlichen Schlösser, Gärten und Seen).

Signed Portable Altars When in 1100 Henry, Bishop of Paderborn, commissioned a portable altar from the great craftsman Roger of Helmarshausen, he had him add in niello on the top both his picture and the inscription Bishop Henry...May my prayers fly up as incense in your sight, O Lord God. When Gertrude, wife of Count Liudolf of Brunswick, founded the cathedral of St Blaise there, among her donations was a magnificent golden portable altar, now in the Cleveland Museum. The altar stone on the top is surrounded by an inscription: In order to live happily in Him, Gertrude presented to Christ this stone, glistening with gold and precious stone.42 It seems more than likely that the motive here was not simply worldly fame, but the desire to place one’s name in the closest proximity to the celebration of the Mass; the same motive that prompted so many of the rich and powerful in the Middle Ages to secure burial close to the altar, or close to the shrine of a saint.

40

Lasko 1994, 57. In 1217 the Synod of Salisbury tried to insist that portable altars be big enough to celebrate Mass on safely. Portable altars are generally rectangular, and placed lengthways before the priest (‘landscape format’). So it was with St Cuthbert’s, but when that relic was enshrined in silver, it was turned round and the short sides became bottom and top (‘portrait format’). That was probably because it was now a relic and more conveniently displayed that way. Rock (1905, 208) suggests that the landscape position reflects the ‘liturgical practice, which, up to the fifteenth century, was followed especially by the Roman use, of placing the chalice, not as now, behind, but on the right hand of the host...’ However, the Anglo-Saxon portable altar of c1125, now in the Musée de Cluny, is portrait format, as shown by its imagery; so is the Stavelot portable altar of c1154. So are most (but not all) of the medieval portable altars illustrated by Braun (1924). Lasko (1994, pl. 304-5) illustrates a mid-twelfth century portable altar into which a crucifix and figures of St Mary and St John could be slotted. 41

Though not common in the Catholic West, some of the most elaborate portable altars do bear the names of their donors. So, later, do comparatively simple ones. In the museum at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, are a number 42

32

Lasko 1994, 135; Stoddard 1972, 368.

CRISPIN PAINE: THE PORTABLE ALTAR IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND PRACTICE the latter is usually carried out by a priest using holy water.

of portable altars with inscriptions. The finest reads ‘Patricius Russell Archiepiscopus Dublinensis...me consecravit...1688. Jacobus Russell Decanius Dubliniensis...me donavit...colonetto Joanni Wogande... 1699’. Another, in English, reads ‘Thomas White and Elizabeth McMahunson, Francis pray for your parents...1728’.43 Perrin quotes Barbier de Montault’s statement that it was formerly the custom in France to inscribe the date and the name of the consecrator on the underside of altar stones.44

In both, the persons or things pass from a common, or profane, order to a new state, and become the subjects or the instruments of Divine protection... The new state to which consecration elevates persons or things is permanent,47 and the rite can never be repeated, which is not the case at a blessing; the graces attached to a consecration are more numerous and efficacious than those attached to a blessing; the profanation of a consecrated person or thing carries with it a new species of sin, namely sacrilege, which the profanation of a blessed person or thing does not always do. Inanimate things are not susceptible of Divine grace, but are a medium of its communication, since by their consecration they acquire a certain spiritual power by which they are rendered in perpetuum fit and suitable for Divine worship.48 The consecration of churches is first found soon after the conversion of Constantine in 313. The historian Eusebius preached the sermon at the consecration of the cathedral at Tyre in 314, while 21 years later flocks of clergy attended the grand dedication of Constantine’s new Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Down to the time of St Gregory the Great at the beginning of the seventh century the dedication of a church comprised simply the bishop saying Mass in it. Thereafter two traditions developed, the Roman adding the deposition of relics under the altar, and the Gallican adding the use of holy water and oil in blessing altar and building. The two merged into the standard, very elaborate, Western rite of the Middle Ages and later.49

FIGURE 14. The inscribed underside of a small 1728 black marble portable altar in the museum of St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, Ireland. c. 6 ins X 5 ins. It has no wooden frame. (Photo: Niall McKeith).

Syriac Orthodox tablitho are inscribed “The Holy Ghost has hallowed this tablitho by the hands of Mar...”, and the year;45 this formula appears already on the Takrit tablitho of the eighth to ninth centuries. The equivalent Tabotat in Ethiopia similarly – sometimes at least – record both consecrating bishop and donor or owner. One of those published by Hanssens and Raes (1951) is inscribed “Trinity – Tabot of Saint George – This tabot belongs to King of Kings Bakaffa” (reigned 1721-1730). Orthodox antimensia are of course always signed, but here the motive is more clearly authentification than the promotion of the bishop or donor. LAYERS OF SANCTITY: THE SACREDNESS PORTABLE ALTAR

The earliest known rite of consecration of a portable altar may be that attributed to Isho’yahb III, Patriarch of Seleucia, Iraq, 648-660.50 The bishop anoints the tablitho with holy oil, saying

OF THE

This [altar] is marked and sanctified so that its life-giving mysteries are made holy beyond its bounds, in the praise of the name of the Lord, strong in host, and so that it can be carried from place to place and from one region to another, in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, for ever.

Consecration Consecration or dedication through a formal rite executed by a bishop or priest is the classic way in which holiness is ascribed to the material in Christian tradition. Modern Roman Catholic teaching distinguishes between consecration and dedication.46 The former is the more elaborate and is carried out by the bishop with holy oil;

However, the earliest manuscript is dated 1496, and Sebastian Brock (pers. com.) points out that very many

43

http://www.nuim.ie/museum/alstones.html. Accessed July 2006. 44 Barbier de Montault 1877, vol. 1, 173, 175. 45 Besides the eighth to ninth century ones found recently, one of 1123-4 in the Beirut Museum was published by Mouterde in 1939. The two lines of its inscription form a cross across the middle of the stone. 46 A similar distinction is made by the Orthodox churches between holy objects and sacred objects, and between sanctified or blessed objects and consecrated objects. A holy and consecrated object can communicate its sanctifying power by contact (Izzo 1975, 78).

47 Though according to this same source, an altar loses its consecration if it is broken in certain ways. 48 Catholic Encyclopedia: Consecration. http://www.newadvent.org/ cathen/04276a.htm. 49 Willis 1968, 135. 50 Raes 1951, 68.

33

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD Syriac rites are attributed to Isho’yahb III. (If it is genuine it is the earliest reference to portable altars in Christendom.) The modern Roman rite has five parts:51 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Hallowing with water. The bishop traces with his thumb five crosses on the stone with holy water, saying ‘May this stone be hallowed...’. Formerly the bishop blessed salt, ashes, and wine, and mixed them with holy water, to represent the human and divine natures of Christ and also the mortal body and the immortal soul of man. Deposition of relics. The bishop deposits relics along with three grains of incense in the ‘sepulchre’ in the altar-stone, and fixes its lid with cement made with holy water. Consecration with holy oil. The bishop traces with his thumb five crosses on the stone with holy oil, saying ‘May this stone be sealed, hallowed, and consecrated...’ Blessing with incense. The bishop forms five crosses out of grains of incense and on each one he places a cross made of candlewax, which he lights so that they burn the incense. He prays ‘that your Holy Spirit may descend upon this altar, that He may sanctify thereon our and your people’s gifts...’ Celebration of Mass.

FIGURE 15. A bishop consecrating a portable altar. He is vested simply in an alb and stole, holding a bunch of hyssop, to be used as an aspergillum, in his hands. An illuminated initial from the office for the consecration of a portable altar, from a Pontifical made in central France about 1470. (Photo by kind permission of Phillip J. Pirages Fine Books and Manuscripts).

In the Orthodox churches the consecration of the antimension is very similar. 1. 2. 3. 4.

The bishop sprinkles it with Rose Water, The bishop anoints it with holy oil (the ‘Sacred Myron’) The bishop places relics in the tiny pouch sewn to the back. The bishop celebrates the Holy Liturgy.

The Orthodox put perhaps more emphasis on the power of the holy oil, which comprises olive oil, balsam, herbs, spices and white wine, boiled together by the bishop on Holy Thursday. St. Cyril of Jerusalem (died 386) said “After the invocation (of the bishop) this holy ointment is no more a simple or common ointment, but is Christ’s gift of grace and by His advent is able to impart the Holy Spirit”.52 The consecration of the antimensia also takes place on Holy Thursday, three days before Easter, when the institution of the Holy Liturgy by Christ at his Last Supper with his disciples is remembered. Printed on every antimension are the words: “By the grace of the All-Holy, Lifegiving Spirit, this Antimension, the Holy Table, is consecrated for the Offering on it of the Body and Blood of our Lord in the Divine Liturgy.”

51 52

FIGURE 16. An antimension is consecrated at the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in London, 2007. (Photo: Russian Orthodox Church in London).

The modern Coptic rite prays We ask and entreat Your goodness, O Philanthropic One, to hear us and bless this wooden board by Your invisible Hand, so that it becomes a holy table and a sanctuary that replaces the high altar built of brick and stone.53

Weller 1964. Mystagogical Catecheses 3.

53

34

Hanna 1994, 506.

CRISPIN PAINE: THE PORTABLE ALTAR IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND PRACTICE occasionally other precious woods, like ebony, were used. At Hedared stave-church in Västergötland, Sweden, there is a porphyry stone mounted into a substantial rectangular pine board.57 Frequently the base and frame were encased in silver.58

Here power clearly comes through prayer, but for the Syriac Church it is as much contact that consecrates as prayer; in this case contact with the Holy Oil. The Holy Chrism itself is consecrated in the longest of the ceremonies of Syrian Orthodox Church by the Supreme Head of Church viz, Patriarch of Antioch and All the East. In our Church, only the Patriarch consecrates the Holy Chrism. The Bishops alone can transfer into smaller bottles and duly ordained priests can only sacramentally handle. Other clergy or laity is forbidden to even to touch it. The Holy Chrism is kept in a special casket in the ‘Holy of Holies’ (madbho) in the church.54

Though they could be of any available hard stone, the stones of choice for portable altars in the Middle Ages were jasper and porphyry. Stones, and above all gemstrones, carried a hugely powerful symbolism and mythology from Antiquity right through the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Because the Bible mentions gemstrones as being washed out of paradise,59 in Western Christian tradition they ‘enjoy a status almost as a natural sacrament, a gift instituted by the Creator “in the beginning” to do good, capable of bringing about what their color signifies to the poetric mind’.60 Because they are made of earth and water, just as St Augustine claims that people are, gemstones have homeopathic healing powers. So medieval writers attributed particular powers to particular gems. Thus St Albert the Great (1206-1280), in his Book of Minerals, says rubies shine in the dark and dispel poison in air or vapour, while Abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) says garnet will ward off bad dreams and fantasies. According to Bishop Marbode of Rennes (1035-1123) emeralds (the best are robbed from griffins’ nests) can help foresee the future, inspire orators and avert storms. As St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) put it, ‘there is no doubt that gemstones have something of the hidden power of the bodies that are above the vault of heaven…they have something in them that is beyond the powers of the four basic elements of nature…some stones have something in them of the nature of the stars’.61

Contact with the Sacrament When the Mass or Holy Liturgy is of such immense power and importance, it is not surprising that the altar on which it is celebrated acquires great significance. Indeed, certain Orthodox traditions credit the altar with enormous power. One early Orthodox tradition lays the antimension on a consecrated altar for seven days, so that it gains its power from that; another made the antimension from the cloth with which the bishop dried the altar during the consecration ceremony. Yet other Orthodox writers, in arguing that the Liturgy is invalid if not celebrated on an antimension, seem almost to be saying that it is the altar that consecrates the bread and wine.55 From Wood to Stone and Cloth: The Symbolism of Material The material of which portable altars have been made has often been chosen for its powers or its symbolism.

So the use of gemstones in Christian art was by no means purely decorative. The stones did things.

We have seen that the earliest certainly known portable altars in the West were made of oak, while the earliest in the East were of stone. As early as 517 the Council of Epaone forbade the consecration with holy oil of wooden altars.56 This rule, though, did not become universal in the West for some centuries, and it was during the tenth and eleventh centuries that it became firmly fixed in Canon Law that Mass should be celebrated on an altar of stone. Clearly it is easier and cheaper to use a stone portable altar than to build a complete new stone altar, so the requirement gave a major boost, first to portable altars, later to the idea of the altar stone fixed permanently into the altar top.

Inability to analyse gemstones by their chemical composition led to a reliance on colour. ‘Ruby’ meant a red stone, ‘emerald’ a green one; hence the powers attributed to rubies were ascribed to porphyry, the powers of emerald to jasper.62 As well as healing and other powers, these coloured stones had symbolic value. Jasper was symbolic of faith: Jaspis colore viridi Praefert virorum fidei Quae in perfectis omnibus Numquam marcessit penitus; Cuius forti praesidio Resistitur diabolo (Bishop Marbode)

It does seem, however, to have remained universal practice during the Middle Ages in the West to seat the stone of a portable altar in a wooden base or frame. Usually this frame seems to have been of oak, but 54 http://syriacchristianity.com/visit2004/Holy_Mooron.htm. The making of holy oil in the Syrian Orthodox Church can be viewed at http://www.bethsuryoyo.com/, and in the Coptic Church at http://sttakla.org/Multimedia/09-Videos-Videohat-02-Coptic-DocumentaryMovies&Clips-Aflam-Al-Tasgileya-01.html. Accessed December 2006. 55 Raes 1951, 61, 65. 56 Pocknee 1963, 43.

57

Tesch 2001, 29. Rock 1905, 194. Genesis 2, 12. 60 Murphy 2006, 42. 61 Murphy 2006, 67. 62 Portable altars and reliquaries both deserve a much more profound analysis of the meanings of their gemstone ‘decoration’. 58 59

35

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD or satin.71 The antimension is usually seen as the shroud of Christ, though it can also be his tomb.

Green-hued jasper Surpasses human faith. In every way perfect Its heart never decays And by the strength of its protective powers The devil is resisted. Imperial Porphyry was perhaps chosen for its bloodcolour as well as its density, rarity and association with the Roman Emperor. It is a very hard purple-red igneous rock, much valued from Roman times and obtained from a single site in Egypt.63 The earliest surviving example of a portable altar of porphyry set in a wooden frame seems to be the late eighth century example from Adelhausen. This is decorated with silver plates with niello, gilding and enamels, and may be seen as the first of the classic western portable altars.64 Besides stone, in the West other materials were possible. Bishop Leofric (1016-1072) gave Exeter Cathedral a ‘bone altar’ – perhaps a walrus ivory65 portable altar (Dugdale ii, 527). In 1385 St George’s Chapel, Windsor, had one of alabaster,66 and Rock quotes a number of references to portable altars of jet.67 Some of the grandest medieval European ones had ‘stones’ of rock-crystal or enamel.

FIGURE 17. Portable Altar of walrus ivory, made in Cologne c. 1200-1220. (Photo: Cleveland Museum of Art).

While in the West wooden portable altars gave place to stone,68 in the East stone, it seems, largely gave place to cloth or wood. Writing about 809 to his disciple Naukratios, St Theodore, Abbot of the great monastery of St John Studios in Constantinople, refers to a ‘consecrated altar in the form of a wooden plank or a cloth’.69 Since at least the eleventh century70 the antimension has been almost always made of linen, silk

FIGURE 18. Late eighth century portable altar from Adelhausen. 377 X 133 mm. (Photo: Archiv der Stiftungsverwaltung Freiburg i.Br.).

The Coptic maqaddas is generally regarded as a practical piece of liturgical equipment,72 though it should be made of the wood of a fruit-bearing tree (Céres 1971, 104). The Syriac tablitho should be of an oily wood, and is held to symbolise the tree of life in the Garden of Eden.73

63

Maxfield and Peacock 2001, 2007. Lasko 1994, 4. 65 So John Cherry suggests, pers. com. 66 Rock 1905, 201. 67 Though these references could be to the decoration of a casket-form portable altar. 68 Izzo (1975, 175-182) describes the emergence in the twentieth century of cloth portable altars in the Roman Catholic church. First used during the anti-clerical persecution of the late 1920s in Mexico, ‘latin antimensia’ of linen or hemp with relics were permitted in World War II, and later in remote areas. 69 Izzo 1975, 29. 70 Raes 1951, 61. 64

71

Though a wooden antimension of 1653 is preserved in the Kykko monastery on Cyprus (Yurchyshyn-Smith 2004, 93). Izzo illustrates an eighteenth century Serbian one of wood and refers to very occasional paper ones (1975, 35). 72 Ex inf. Fr. Gregory Tillett. 73 The twelfth century commentator Abdullah ibn al Tayyib thought that wood replaced stone during the fourth century persecution of Sapor (Raes 1951, 67).

36

CRISPIN PAINE: THE PORTABLE ALTAR IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND PRACTICE of the Codex Aureus at nearby Echternach. The footshaped shrine is simply stuck, rather ludicrously, on top of a casket-shaped portable altar. The whole is richly decorated with gold plaques set with enamels, garnets, pearls and gems, plus a garnet brooch with a coin of Justinian II at its centre; it rests on four lion feet.

Crosses The cross can be merely a symbol of adherence to the faith, or even just decoration, but there has been a cult of the Cross since the beginnings of Christianity, and the Cross has been venerated as an instrument of very great power. Whether carved, painted, incised, or described by a gesture of the hand, the Cross can heal and protect, just as a relic can, so it is not surprising to find crosses permanently marked on portable altars. In the Western Catholic tradition portable altars, like the mensae of permanent altars, are engraved with five crosses, to mark the five spots the bishop anoints with holy oil. Occasionally the crosses are very crudely inscribed. This raises the question of where these altar stones were made. If they were blessed by the bishop, would they not have been produced at the centre of the diocese, and have been of consistent quality? It seems not, or at least not always; at Southdean in Scotland, the altar stone is made of the local stone. Eeles not only suggests that this altar stone was made locally and sent to Glasgow for consecration, but speculates that sometimes the bishop himself may have cut the crosses, quoting Legg (1903) for Irish and Scottish parallels.74 More probably they were cut by the maker; Nichols quotes an English churchwardens’ account of 1493: ‘For makyng of the crossys on the super-altaryes, 4d’.75

FIGURE 19. Shrine and portable altar of St Andrew’s sandal, c. 980. (Photo: Cathedral Information Office Trier).

This ‘casket’ style – reliquary box on four feet, with its ‘lid’ set with an altar-stone large enough to support chalice and paten – became the standard form for the greater portable altars of the Middle Ages. Great churches in the West owned many of them, and there seems little doubt that they were seldom used as altars, but were exposed for veneration like other relics.

The earliest of the Takrit tablitho, of 709-10, bears a large inscribed central cross patée inscribed in a circle; a cross appears, too, drawn on early Orthodox antimensia. Both may be based on that on the top of Byzantine altars. A drawing of an 1149 antimension from Suzdal shows a simple hand-painted six-branched cross in the middle and the letters IC XC NI KA above, and surviving fifteenth and sixteenth century antimensia from Greece, Russia and Macedonia bear a simple central cross and inscription.76 A cross is commonly carved on portable altars in the Coptic, Ethiopian and Syriac traditions.77 Saints and Relics By the ninth century in the West, the portable altar and the reliquary had begun to converge, so that the grandest portable altars always contained relics, and they became in form more like elaborate boxes than tablets or stone slabs. Charles the Bald (823-877) gave an altare portatile to the monastery of St Denis near Paris, square in shape, made of porphyry set in gold, and containing relics of St James the Less, St Stephen and St Vincent.78 This convergence is elegantly symbolised by the portable altar and reliquary of the sandal of St Andrew, commissioned by Egbert, Archbishop of Trier 977-988, from a local goldsmith who also produced the book-cover 74

Eeles 1911, 561, 565. Nichols 1797, 101. 76 Izzo 1975, 328; Raes 1951, 62. 77 Yuchysyn-Smith 2004, 101, Céres 1971, Braun 1924, 517. 78 Binterim 1825-41, 107. 75

FIGURE 20A. A portable altar of about 1200, from Hildesheim, Lower Saxony, Germany. (Information and photos  The Trustees of the British Museum).

37

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD It could have been at his original burial in 687, or at his 698 translation from tomb to shrine, or on some unrecorded occasion after that. Certainly it was there at Cuthbert’s second translation in 1107, but its encasement in silver – with a window – in the ninth century seems likely to have been not only to do it honour, but to protect it. There is no evidence, but one can well imagine it being displayed to, and kissed by, pilgrims in the way many other shrines were.

FIGURE 20B. The underside is inscribed with the names of forty saints in whose honour it was dedicated. In a cavity beneath the stone slab are relics of these saints, wrapped in textiles and labelled. Analysis has shown that the oldest textiles are likely to date from the ninth or tenth century, whereas the most recent may date from as late as the nineteenth. The relics themselves have been examined and consist mainly of bone but with hair (labelled as coming from St John the Evangelist) and semi-precious stones (associated with St Christopher).

FIGURE 21. The back of St Cuthbert’s portable altar, showing the remains of the ninth century silver ‘shrine’ work. (Photo: Durham Cathedral Library).

Many of the greater medieval churches claimed to have the portable altar of a saint. In the time of Abbot Henry of Blois (1126-71), so William of Malmesbury reports, a precious portable altar of sapphire, which Saint David had presented to Glastonbury, was rediscovered hidden in a doorway and was decorated with silver and gold and precious stones, ‘as can be seen today’.80 St Augustine’s portable altar (apparently round,81 of jasper framed in silver) was claimed by St Alban’s Abbey,82 while in the early eighteenth century Abdinghoff Abbey claimed the portable altar given to Augustine by Pope Gregory.83 Durham claimed Bede’s,84 while York went further in claiming St John’s (Dugdale vi 1205). The inventory entries make clear that what mattered was not that the saints had owned these altars, but that they had celebrated Mass on them.

Today all antimensia include relics of the martyrs, sewn into a little bag on the back. It is unclear when this practice started: Izzo suggests an early date, arguing that its provision of the required relics was a major reason for the adoption of the antimension. Other scholars suggest the late Middle Ages.79 Association with a saint, however, predates the inclusion of relics in the portable altar, in both east and west. Charles Thomas (1971, 191) wonders whether early Western portable altars could possibly have incorporated brandea – strips of cloth that had touched a relic and thus themselves become secondary relics. It seems more likely that the incorporation of relics was a later development, and that early portable altars were simply dedicated to a saint, just as tabotat are in the Ethiopian Church today.

A variation on this theme was the portable altar made of stone already sanctified by association with holy people. Peterborough had two made of the floor-stone on which St Thomas Becket lay dead, and one made of stone from the tomb of St Mary.85

Sanctity by Association: The Portable Altar Itself a Relic A further layer of sanctity is laid on certain portable altars by their association with holy men.

80 Scott 1981, 83. This portable altar was seized by the royal Commissioners at the dissolution of the Abbey in 1539: ‘Item a super altar garnished with silver and gilt the part gold called the great sapphire of Glastonbury’. 81 Not impossible: Braun (1924) illustrates a ‘quaich’-shaped one from Augsburg. Or perhaps it was just the stone that was round. 82 de Trokelowe 1866, 452. 83 Rock 1905, 199. 84 Rock 1905, 201. 85 Rock 1905, 203.

St Cuthbert’s portable altar, described above, is not only the earliest known portable altar; it is also the first known to have been ‘enshrined’ and – presumably – treated as a relic. It is not clear when it was put into Cuthbert’s coffin. 79

Izzo 1975, 48-54.

38

CRISPIN PAINE: THE PORTABLE ALTAR IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND PRACTICE Sanctity by association was by no means restricted to the Middle Ages. The Blessed Nicholas Postgate was an English Roman Catholic priest who walked round the North Yorkshire Moors for nearly fifty years, disguised as a tinker or travelling salesman, ministering in secret to Roman Catholics. He was eventually caught and executed at York for being a Catholic priest, on 7th August 1679. His portable altar survives (together with his hand) in St Joseph’s Catholic Church, Pickering, and is very much treated as a relic. As the parish priest told the local newspaper: “It hangs in front of our own altar, which means that, whenever I say mass, I say it on Father Postgate’s own altar - a very beautiful thought”.86

Iconography A further layer of meaning is given by the iconography of the decoration applied to the portable altar. We have seen that the oldest known portable altar was given an image of St Peter in the mid-eighth century. In the West the application of iconography was particularly prevalent in the Middle Ages, when gold and silver work, ivory and precious stones were especially applied to casket-type portable altars. Reference is usually made to the saints whose relics it contains; thereafter iconography appears to vary considerably, no doubt at the behest of the commissioner as well as the preference of each workshop’s Master. Joseph Braun, in his great study of the altar, points to three types of iconography: symbolic (for example the cross, the Lamb of God, the Pelican, the personification of the Four Cardinal Virtues), typical (for example such Old Testament types as Melchisedek, Aaron, Abraham, Moses, Job) and realistic (as Christ, St Mary, the Apostles, the Prophets).88

Generosity and the Sacred Gift As we have seen, many portable altars in the early Middle Ages were clearly primarily intended as luxurious gifts. Smith et. al. have drawn attention to the central role of gift-giving in upper-class piety in the early Middle Ages.87 Portable altars were one category of a whole range of altar furnishings, relics, plate and manuscripts which bishops and wealthy laymen were expected to commission - often from cathedral or monastic workshops - for donation to churches. Often these were almost unimaginably extravagant: huge golden statues, jewelled crosses, the most sophisticated of paintings. In a culture which stressed physical appearance and external gesture as expression of inner virtue, extravagant religious gifts were seen as a proper part of the religious life. ‘Piety was characterised then by active devotion rather than introspection, and it was made visible through public acts [which reflected] not greed or vanity, but one of the qualities that made a man or woman great – generosity...’ The adornment of churches was a deeply pious act - and in addition offered a way in which upperclass women could play a role in public religion, creating a sacred space and linking themselves firmly into the very core of religious practice.

Sometimes the iconography is very complex. Evan Gatti (2000) has shown that one of the earliest is also, iconographically, amongst the most sophisticated. The Reliquary of St Servatius is a key example of Carolingian ivory-carving. Made, probably at Fulda, some time after 870, it is today best known as a reliquary, but Gatti points out that it has the portable-altar style of top (though very narrow), and probably always did. The carved ivory panels on its sides represent Christ with the eleven apostles, linked to the twelve signs of the zodiac, which Gatti explains as referring to the presence of the eleven faithful apostles, Christ’s successors and the predecessors of the modern priest, at his Ascension. Moreover, she argues, the lower register relates to the end of Christ’s life as a man of flesh, while the zodiac in the top register refers to him as he will be in the Heavenly Jerusalem: in all, an elegantly appropriate programme for an altar. A late Anglo-Saxon portable altar, preserved in the Musée de Cluny in Paris, has an iconography which ‘links the redemptive message of Christ’s sacrifice with the Day of Judgement, symbolised in the figure of the Lamb of God which is both the symbol of the Second Coming89 and the redemptive Lamb of the Eucharist’.90 It also includes the symbols of the four evangelists, together with St Mary and St John with Archangels Raphael and Gabriel ‘symbolising heaven and earth united in grief and adoration of the cross’.

Extravagant gifts, too, had a direct impact on the viewer; ‘the objects adorning churches generated a religious enthusiasm by providing channels for personal devotion’. Smith, et, al. point out that ‘As a result of the great loss of devotional art, there has been a tendency to underestimate the mnemonic, emotive and didactic power of images and objects on their beholders’. They remind us, too, that many worship spaces were quite small, so that donors and others could see their gifts on and around the altar. Beautiful, glowing, rich church interiors helped the worshipper to approach the Divine.

The French art historian Emile Mâle drew attention to the dramatic influence on twelfth century art of the rediscovery by Abbot Suger of St Denis of ‘types’: the recognition of Old Testament scenes as prefiguring the New Testament. Thus the magnificent portable altar of Stavelot (c. 1154), now in Brussels, has the small rock-

Here, then, is another layer of sanctity: the role of the gift as an expression of piety and generosity.

88

Braun 1924, 501. Revelation 5, 6-14. 90 Webster 1984, 92.

86

89

Gazette & Herald, Ryedale, Yorkshire, 8th Aug 2002. 87 Smith et. al. 2001, 669.

39

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD crystal altar stone91 surrounded by four inner images - the Church, the veiled Synagogue, Samson and the Gates and Jonah and the Whale, both types of the Resurrection.92 Four outer images - Abraham and Isaac, Moses, Melchisedek and Abel - and six further scenes of the Life of Christ from the Last Supper to the Resurrection.93

appropriate to have them on an altar where Christ, the Great High Priest, was to offer and to be offered.

FIGURE 23B. The top of Daniel Rock’s portable altar.

FIGURE 22. The top of the portable altar of Stavelot. (Photo: Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels).

FIGURE 24. Antimension of Bishop Afanasii Puzyna of Luts’k and Ostrih, Ukraine, 1633, bearing the ‘Man of Sorrows’ image. (Photo: National Museum in L’viv).

FIGURE 23A. Portable altar from the collection of the Victorian antiquary Daniel Rock. Made in the Rhineland around 1200, it was bequeathed in 1472 by Cardinal Bessarion to the Abbey of Avellana in Gubio. In the eighteenth century it was in the possession of Count Cigognora; Rock acquired it sometime between 1825 and 1849, when he published this engraving in his Church of our Fathers. It is now preserved at St. John’s Seminary, Wonersh, Surrey, UK. (Information from a note by the Victoria & Albert Museum, dated 1971, at St John’s Seminary. Images from Rock 1905, 204).

Rock explains the iconography of his own twelfth century portable altar in terms of the Vision of St John in Revelation. The jasper altar stone is flanked by the Lamb of God and the Dove of the Holy Spirit, with two angels bearing sceptre and orb. In the corners are personifications of Fire, Water, Earth and Air. Moreover, Rock points to Bede’s claim that the Jewish High Priest wore symbols of the four elements, which made it

FIGURE 25. Antimension of Bishop Antonii Vynnyts’kyi of Peremyshl’ and Sambir, Ukraine, 1650. (Photo: National Museum in L’viv).

Medieval portable altars usually bear inscriptions as well as images. Robert Favreau notes that the oldest carry the names of donors and the saints to which they are dedicated and/or whose relics they contain.94 In the

91 Perrin (n.d.) thinks it so small the object should be considered a reliquary, not a portable altar at all. 92 Mâle 1978, 162. 93 Green 2003.

94

40

Favreau 2003.

CRISPIN PAINE: THE PORTABLE ALTAR IN CHRISTIAN TRADITION AND PRACTICE which it is dedicated. It can heal or kill, and it is regarded as literally terrifying.98

eleventh century they also commemorate the cross, God, the life of Christ, the cardinal virtues, and the rivers of Paradise, while the twelfth century adds Old Testament prophets, the apostles, the Church and Synagogue, but (reflecting current controversies) also the Real Presence in the Eucharist. Images seem to have begun to replace the simple central cross on antimensia in the late Middle Ages – often the dead body of Christ.95 From the seventeenth century they were increasing printed rather than hand-painted. Oksana Yurchysyn-Smith has drawn attention to an antimension of 1590 from Skopje, the first known example of what became a common type: the Man of Sorrows.96 Generally today antimensia depict the crucifixion and entombment of Christ, with the four Evangelists in the corners, the Instruments of the Passion on either side, and God the Father above. All relate to the sacrifice of Christ, recalled in the Holy Liturgy.

FIGURE 26. Wolfram’s Holy Grail? The ‘Paradise’ portable altar in Bamberg Diocesan Museum. (Photo: Henricus, Wikimedia Commons).

Identification with Sacred Things and Places A final way in which portable altars can gain sanctity is through their association with sacred places and things. In the medieval West there was much association of the altar with the Holy Sepulchre of Christ, and the cavity in which relics are deposited in an altar is today known as the sepulchrum.

Physically and functionally the tabot is closely similar to portable altars in other Christian traditions; symbolically it has become quite different. It is the tabot which is consecrated, rather than the church itself. When the tabot is taken out on procession, or overnight at the feast of témqät the church is unconsecrated and can be visited by anyone. When the tabot is in place, no lay person would dare to approach the sanctuary, and many will not enter the church building at all.

A fascinating slant on the identification of portable altars with other mysterious and holy things is offered by the Jesuit scholar Ronald Murphy in his study of Wolfram von Echtenburg’s Parzifal.97 Wolfram was a minor nobleman from South Germany, who in about 1210 twenty-three years after СalāΉ ad-Dīn captured Jerusalem, and six years after the Crusaders sacked Constantinople wrote a new version of the Holy Grail story. Wolfram is oddly evasive about what the Grail actually is, but it is clearly not the chalice or serving-dish of other storytellers. Murphy argues convincingly from Wolfram’s many hints that it must in fact be a portable altar. Moreover, Murphy thinks he has identified the very portable altar that inspired Wolfram.

Above all, the tabot is identified with the tabotä Muse, the Tabot of Moses, the mysterious object kept in a shrine at Aksum, and which is universally seen in Christian Ethiopia as the Ark of the Covenant, brought here from Jerusalem by Menelik the son of Solomon and the Queen of Sheba. The fluidity of all this symbolism means that tabotat can be the Ark, the Tablets of the Law, and the Womb of Mary, but also Christ, his tomb, his throne, the Virgin Mary, the Trinity, or the saints or angels to which they are dedicated.99 As with so much religious symbolism, identification can be more or less intense, so that when an Ethiopian theologian says that the tabotä Muse IS the Ark, he may be voicing a somewhat different understanding to that of the countryman who says the same thing.100

However, the most extraordinary layer of meaning imposed on portable altars in any tradition is the identification the Ethiopian Orthodox Church makes with the Ark of the Covenant. We have seen that tabotat in the Ethiopian tradition are materially very similar to portable altars in other neighbouring churches, and indeed in the Catholic tradition. But country people who worship in smaller churches throughout Ethiopia display an intense reverence and devotion to the tabot. For them, in the words of one Aksumite, ‘it is virtually God himself’. It is believed to possess the power of the saint or angel to

Preservation How objects are treated once they become damaged or redundant often throws light on how their sacrality is regarded. The strict rules in certain Muslim and Jewish 98

Grierson and Munro-Hay 2000, 252. However, despite this deep public respect, 41 tabotat were stolen from churches in Southern Gondar Diocese in 1991-95 (Bantalem 2005, 77). 99 Griaule 1932, Schneider 1988. 100 This rich tradition and fluid symbolism has also given a field-day to romantic Westerners to write reams of nonsense on the “Lost Ark of the Covenant”. Almost the only writer worth reading on the subject is the late scholar Stuart Munro-Hay; see his convenient summary: MunroHay 2003.

95

Izzo 1975, 38. Yurchysyn-Smith 1998. 97 Murphy 2006. 96

41

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD took on that role, while the portable altar itself has retained its original function.

traditions governing disposal of sacred texts illustrate this well. Izzo discusses whether the antimension should be washed or repaired once it has ‘become too soiled or worn to be decently used. Washing might damage the relics and would also probably remove the Holy Myron with which it has been consecrated’.101 So, he concludes, it should probably be sent to the bishop’s chancery, ‘where it may be kept in the bishop’s chapel, usually under an altar’. However, ‘due to the vicissitudes of ecclesiastical as well as political life in Eastern Europe’, many antimensia have in fact ended up in museums102 or private collections. In Serbia it was the custom for redundant antimensia to be burned.103 Recently there has been concern at antimensia being sold on e-Bay.104 For the Syriacs a dirty tablitho can be washed clean by the rain, but if pagans have eaten off it, it must not be used again.105

We have seen too, in what a variety of ways they can become holy. Portable altars are consecrated by a bishop, but whether the consecration results from the bishop’s prayer to God, or from the touch of the holy oil, or from his various ritual actions, notably signing with the cross, is not always clear. They become holy, too, by being used for the most sacred rite of all, the Mass, but also maybe from contiguity with the consecrated Body and Blood (bread and wine) of Christ. If they were so used by a holy man, that is another addition to their sanctity. Dedication as formal, ritual, gifts to a church invokes yet another. Their design and decoration with sacred and powerful images, especially the cross, gives them added power, as often does an inscription invoking the blessing of God, or Christ, or the saints. Yet even these are not always deemed enough: portable altars have also been shrines, incorporating relics and absorbing their sanctity. Scarce wonder that in the Ethiopian tradition the tabot acquires terrifying power. Rather the surprise is how ordinary a liturgical object the portable altar can seem in other traditions. Indeed, sometimes its significance seems to lie more in the way such an object can symbolise orthodoxy and episcopal or papal power, than in its sanctity. On one level, indeed, a portable altar is a simple piece of liturgical equipment like any other - ‘sacred’ only insofar as it is used for a sacred purpose. But of course it is far more than this. On a second level, it shares many of the characteristics of a relic - indeed we have seen that portable altars often actually incorporate a tiny relic, merging the two even more closely.

FIGURE 27. Tabotat being carried in procession under ceremonial umbrellas, in a témqät (Epiphany) ceremony at Gondar, Ethiopia. (Photo: Jialiang Gao www.peace-on-earth.org).

The thirteenth century writer Bishop Guillaume Durand said that if the stone was lifted from its wooden frame, ‘which represents in a sense its seal’, and then replaced, it should be reconsecrated;106 by the nineteenth century the Catholic Church had elaborate rules on just what damage meant loss of consecration.107 For the Orthodox churches, only total destruction removes consecration.108

On a third level, though, the portable altar is a sacred place, a movable ‘place’ it is true, but carrying all the characteristics of a sacred place along with its sanctity. Like a sacred place, it may be made sacred by a ritual act, or association with sacred person or thing, or by a combination of these. Like many a sacred place, possession of the portable altar, or the right to use one, becomes a symbol of rank and independence - it takes on a political power. Like a sacred place, it must in many traditions be reverently and fearfully approached, and only by those worthy by rank or ritual purity.

CONCLUSION We have seen that portable altars are found in most of the ancient Christian traditions, and in all of them have followed the classic trajectory from occasional to permanent use. Using a portable altar makes it possible to obey the rule that the Mass can be celebrated only on a consecrated altar, even where no permanent altar is available. In the Eastern churches they have ended up as a requirement even when a permanent altar is available. In the Western Church the altar stone with embedded relics

God, the Creator of all things visible and invisible, and the consecrator of all that is holy, be pleased to assist at the dedication of this altar of the Lord, and to pour out on it your consecratory and sanctifying power, as we, all unworthy, anoint it with holy chrism. Grant that all who approach this altar in order to pay homage to you may experience your merciful aid; through Christ our Lord.109

101

Izzo 1981, 5. The National Museum in Lviv has 500. Yurchyshyn-Smith 2004. 104 http://www.euphrosynoscafe.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2384&post days=0&postorder=asc&start=7&sid=796d67c6ce0a55c1b7b73ced926f 8441. Accessed August 2006. 105 Raes 1951, 66. 106 Durand 1843. 107 Schulte 1907, 232. 108 Izzo 1975, 80. 102 103

109

Rite for Consecrating a Portable Altar, from The New Roman Pontifical of 1962.

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II. Holiness in Circulation

Telling Jerusalem: Miracles and the Moveable Past in Late Antique Christianity Georgia Frank As any reader of pilgrims’ accounts can attest: it wasn’t just pilgrims who were on the move. From their letters and travelogs, we know a host of objects were also in motion, not least souvenirs and relics. By souvenirs, I mean the small objects or substances pilgrims acquired from hosts and holy places. Pilgrims referred to these as eulogiae, or “blessings”, small pieces of wood, clay, earth, water, oil, or textile that had come in contact with a holy place or the body of a holy person (whether alive or dead). Bodily relics were also known to travel. Both types of sacred objects soon took on lives (and legs!) of their own. Such fragments held an inexhaustible store of sacred power, unleashed even when they were divided or disseminated.1 Recent studies have focused on the role of relics in shaping a piety of pieces, by which Christians in distant places sought contact with the sacred past.2 In this essay, I focus on the mobility of these sacred objects, specifically tales about the transport and relocation of these objects as they journeyed westward. Once moved, these objects would be rehoused, relocated, and their initial power eventually retrievable. Thereby collected and contained, they were soon fixed in place anew. Jerusalem and the Holy Land provide an interesting test case in this regard. Once home to these objects, Jerusalem would become a memory to be accessed within the objects. My remarks focus on holy objects that eventually found their way to sixth-century Gaul, as reported in the writings of her prolific bishop, Gregory of Tours. As I 1

For a clarifying treatment of this paradox of empowerment through fragmentation, see P.C. Miller, “‘Differential Networks’: Relics and Other Fragments in Late Antiquity”, Journal of Early Christian Studies 6, 1998: 113-38, esp. 122. On eulogiae and pilgrimage, see B. Leyerle, “Pilgrim, Eulogiae, and Domestic Rituals”, Archiv für Religionsgeschichte 10, 2008: 223-37; and my “Pilgrimage”, in The Oxford Handbook of Early Christian Studies, ed. by S. Ashbrook Harvey and D. Hunter, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2008, 826-43; and “Loca Sancta Souvenirs and the Art of Memory”, Pèlerinages et lieux saints dans l’antiquité et le moyen âge: mélanges offerts à Pierre Maraval, ed. by B. Caseau, J.-C. Cheynet and V. Déroche, Paris, Travaux et Mémoires; Association des amis du Centre d’histoire et civilisation de Byzance, 2006, 193-201. 2 Notably, A.J. Wharton, Selling Jerusalem: Relics, Replicas, Theme Parks, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 2006, 9-38; P.C. Miller, The Corporeal Imagination: Signifying the Holy in Late Ancient Christianity, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009, esp. 42-52.

shall suggest, stories about fragmenting, retrieving, and relocating these fragments reveal much about the dynamics of remembering Jerusalem. In a culture that regarded memories as moveable objects to be fragmented, stored, retrieved and reused, the pilgrim’s souvenir and the westward relic can nuance our understanding of the reception of Jerusalem’s past in the western empire. Although moveable, these objects were hardly meandering. CONTAINING AND TRANSPORTING HOLINESS As a way to understand the destinies of these moveable – though never meandering – objects, I begin with a fascinating object from the Treasure of the Sancta Sanctorum. The box, measuring roughly 24 x 18 cm,3 contains pieces of wood, earth, and cloth, each labeled according to their origins: “from the Mount of Olives”, “from Sion”, “from the life-giving Anastasis”. In contrast to the disarray of the box’s contents, the interior of the lid is neatly divided into three bands, containing five scenes from the life of Christ. The lower left frame shows the Nativity, next to the baptism on the right. The crucifixion occupies the entire middle band. The top band includes the Women at the Tomb on the left and the Ascension in the upper right. The box, then, was a container for eulogiae, the bits and pieces from places that bore connection to a past. Labels were not enough to evoke the pilgrim’s experience; the images would reflect the holy sites as encountered. The Anastasis Rotunda appears as it would have at the time of the painting, some time around 600: ornamental columns, grillwork, the pointed roof, marble revetment, and the curtains all find their way here.4 The box’s contents are fragments, but the images within the lid are miniatures. In this sequence of miniatures, the lid’s interior compresses space. As cultural theorist Susan Stewart describes beholding a miniature, “The observer is offered a transcendent and simultaneous view of the miniature, yet is trapped outside the possibility of a lived 3

G. Vikan, Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, rev. ed., Washington, DC, Dumbarton Oaks Publications, 2010, 18-20; H.L. Kessler and J. Zacharias, Rome 1300: On the Path of the Pilgrim, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000, 51-5. 4 Vikan Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, 19-20.

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD reality of the miniature”.5 Yet, the box permits some access to a “lived reality” insofar as its labels assure that the bits of earth, pebbles and dirt contained offer contact with materiality from the past. The box and its contents, then, offer its beholder both a relic and a souvenir. It contains pieces of holy places but also signs of those places.

originally attached to the necks of individual ampullae indicate the name of the saint whose oil is contained.9 Although the notula refers to saints’ tombs in Rome, the function is analogous to Palestinian collections. By grouping the saints according to their topographic collection in Rome, as Elsner notes, “Rome is recapitulated through a locational dispensation as the sum of its relics and saints”.10

As art historian Annabel Wharton distinguishes the two classes of objects, a relic does not need to travel to be powerful. A souvenir, however, is designed to travel, to be dislocated, and thereby to serve as a “mnemonic device” of an experience. According to Wharton, the souvenir is “the personal repository of a special memory. The souvenir only fully realizes its purpose through dislocation”.6 The box not only contained the dirt and fragments, but its images rendered it a repository for memory. Thus the box’s portability and relocation not only eased transport of its contents, but also extended their power away from the holy places. The neat bands of images both ordered and guided the rush of memories triggered by the box’s disheveled contents. Thus, the box combines several important functions: to gather and store labeled fragments, to narrate (with images) the source of their power, and to relocate the fragments and images.

Like these boxes, which collect objects in order to recollect a distant place, miracle narratives serve similar functions. Thus, we turn to a roughly contemporaneous collection of miracle tales found in Gregory of Tours. JERUSALEM IN TOURS For relics in motion, a fine example from Late Antiquity would be the opening chapters of Gregory of Tours’s late sixth-century miracles collection, known as The Glory of the Martyrs, one of seven books of miracles, composed by the author better known for his History of the Franks.11 Written near the end of his life, the Glory of the Martyrs is a collection of miracle tales about relics and holy places in Gregory’s native Gaul, as well as in Greece, Asia Minor, Syria and Palestine. Despite this wide geographical lens, Gregory’s focus is mainly on Gaul and the Gallic church. The opening chapters of the collection tell stories of objects that originated in Jerusalem, specifically relics related to Jesus, the Virgin Mary, and John the Baptist. Gregory pays careful attention to the object’s origins or discovery, but also to their subsequent relocation, storage, miracles, and the local relics they generated. Rather than begin in Jerusalem, however, Gregory opens the collection by repudiating mythological wanderers, notably the “wars, shipwreck, and kingdoms of Aeneas” or “the trickeries of the man from Ithaca”.12 Instead, Gregory’s hero is Christ, the Word incarnate (John 1:14), of whom Simeon prayed, “Lord, now send your servant away in peace, because my eyes have seen your salvation” (Luke 2:29-30).13 In the tales that follow it becomes apparent that what gets “sent away” are Jerusalem relics, which, like the pagan heroes, also took unexpected routes, but eventually settled in Gaul.

Another box, a wooden casket was unearthed in the crypt of the basilica of San Columbano in Bobbio in Lombardy near Milan in 1910. Although the casket appears lost, it once contained some twenty small pewter flasks, or ampullae, and relics, including pieces of earth, dust and small objects in wood, metal and terracotta, commemorating Palestinian holy places attached to events of Christ’s ministry and death.7 Like the bits of earth in the box from the Sancta Sanctorum, the ampullae are labeled with inscriptions indicating their contents and place of origin (“oil of the wood of life from the holy places”). As art historian John Elsner observes, “as a collection, these relics and reliquaries make the Holy Land accessible in Lombardy through its tangible mementos. Moreover, what they evoke is not simply a single site or group of sites, but rather a myth of completeness, a sense of the totality of Palestine being in some sense available to the worshipper at Bobbio”.8 That “myth of completeness” was effected by the convergence and containment of label, relic, and place. Similarly, a collection of relics, metal ampullae, and glass ampullae from the late sixth century were found at a treasury in a basilica in Monza, also near Milan. Like the contents of the boxes, these objects are also labeled. The treasury includes a papyrus fragment of a letter dated to 599 with a notula or a catalog of the saints and martyrs who came in contact with the oil in the ampullae. Moreover, several papyrus strips (pittacia), which are believed to have been

9

Ibid. Ibid., 122. 11 On the miracle books, see R. Van Dam, Leadership and Community in Late Antique Gaul, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1985, esp. 177-300; D.R. Shanzer, “So Many Saints—So Little Time: The Libri Miraculorum of Gregory of Tours”, Journal of Medieval Latin 13, 2003: 19-60; P. Brown, “Relics and Social Status in the Age of Gregory of Tours”, in Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity, Berkeley, University of California Press, 1982b, 222-50; idem, “Gregory of Tours: Introduction”, in The World of Gregory of Tours, ed. by K. Mitchell and I. Wood, Leiden, Brill, 2002: 1-28; on the experimental nature of these cures, see E. James, “A Sense of Wonder: Gregory of Tours, Medicine and Science”, in The Culture of Christendom: Essays in Medieval History in Commemoration of Denis L. T. Bethell, ed. M. Anthony Meyer, London, The Hambledon Press, 1993, 45-60 (I thank Dr. Danuta Shanzer for this reference). 12 GM prol. (Krusch, 487-88; ET: 19). 13 GM prol. (Krusch, 488; ET: 20). 10

5

S. Stewart, On Longing: Narratives of the Miniature, the Gigantic, the Souvenir, the Collection, Durham, Duke University Press, 1993, 66. 6 Wharton, Selling Jerusalem, 50. 7 I draw here from J. Elsner’s “Replicating Palestine and Reversing the Reformation: Pilgrimage and Collecting at Bobbio, Monza, and Walsingham”, Journal of the History of Collections 9, 1997: 117-30, esp. 119-21. I thank Derek Krueger for this reference. 8 Elsner “Replicating Palestine”, 121.

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GEORGIA FRANK: TELLING JERUSALEM In a long excursus on the nails that affixed Christ to his cross, Gregory stresses that there were only four: one in each hand and two in the bound feet. He credits the empress Helena with their discovery at the time she discovered the True Cross.19 As Gregory reports, she quickly put the nails to good use: two nails secured the bridle of the emperor’s horse as a way to protect the regent from hostile peoples. Of the two remaining nails: one was tossed into the Adriatic, to still the deadly waters of that “whirlpool of sailors”. And the fourth nail was affixed to the diadem or helmet of a statue of Constantine overlooking the city of Constantinople. Thus relocated, the nails now secured Constantine’s empire by protecting his borders, his waters, and his capital. The fate of the four nails would have served Constantine’s biographer Eusebius well.

In the opening stories of this miracle collection Jerusalem’s objects take center stage, as Gregory recounts events from the life of Christ and the last days of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. The first moveable object that finds its way to Gaul is the most famous: the cross of Jesus.14 The voracious appetite for fragments of the True Cross was legendary already by the fourth century. Egeria described how deacons carefully guarded the relic as pilgrims approached to kiss for fear someone might take a bite out of it again.15 By the fifth century, fragments of the cross were known to have reached Syria, Asia Minor, Italy, Gaul, and Africa.16 Gregory focuses only on those fragments that found a Gallic home. Specifically, he is concerned with relics brought to Poitiers by the Frankish Queen Radegund. Like the Emperor Constantine’s Mother Helena and her legendary discovery of the true cross, sixth-century Queen Radegund extended Helena’s promotion of the cross westward. According to Gregory, Radegund dispatched envoys to Jerusalem to secure relics of the Cross that she would eventually install in her convent in Poitiers.17 By the sixth century the legend of Helena’s discovery of the true cross was widely translated and circulated in both the East and West. As Gregory himself reports, the reliquary is credited with miraculously healing a blind nun, one eye at a time. Twice in the collection, Gregory also reports that, like the lamps in front of these relics in Jerusalem, the oil lamps near this reliquary boil over continuously such that the excess oil may be collected.18

So why would a Gallic bishop devote so much attention to these four nails if none found their way to Gaul? To some extent, the story follows Gregory’s narrative path: to discuss the origins, retrieval, relocation, and miracleworking of a holy land object. Yet, he precludes the final stage, in which a “next generation” of charged substances emerges to continue the work. Liquids may flow, but the nails are adamantine. Unlike the story of the silk wrapping the True Cross, no one drinks the water of the Adriatic for healing or strokes the horse’s bridle for personal protection. The nails of Christ will remain four in number and find new homes before reaching Gaul. Not surprisingly, then, Gregory cuts short the tale before any regeneration of relics, choosing instead to retrace his steps back to the Cross.

The narration of the True Cross relics establishes a pattern Gregory will repeat for other holy land relics. His stories will combine allusions to the gospel story, the holy place, the relic’s new home west of Jerusalem. Often, Gregory will mention not only the new setting (a town, church, convent, or cathedral), but also the type of container that housed it. A miracle comes next and some kind of collectible abundance as the Jerusalem object generates further relics. Weaving together path and proliferation, Gregory’s stories set several objects in motion.

With the wood of the Cross, Gregory follows a similar pattern: to recount how the wood’s power was retrieved, relocated, and regenerated. Gregory describes at length how he encountered a traveler offering him a dirty robe that the traveler claimed once wrapped a portion of the True Cross in Jerusalem. At first, Gregory was skeptical. He “dared” to wash the robe and dispensed the waters to the sick, who immediately experienced healing. Amazed by the robe’s powers, Gregory cut off pieces and distributed them to an abbot and monks, who used their portions to heal many. As one abbot reported to Gregory, his swatch healed no less than “twelve possessed people, three blind people, and two paralytics”.20

That momentum, however, is also interrupted. The nails from Christ’s cross offer a good example of an early halt. 14

The first miracle, properly speaking, regards the star of Bethlehem appearing to pilgrims at Mary’s well. Gregory mentions that his deacon also witnessed that star, but does not specify whether the deacon was in Bethlehem or elsewhere when it happened. 15 It. Eg., 37.2. 16 John Chrysostom, Quod Christus sit Deus, 10 (PG 48, 826); Gregory of Nyssa, Vita Macrinae 30; Paulinus of Nola, Ep. 31.1; CIL 8.9255; cited in E.D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire, 312-460, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1984, 128-36. 17 Thanks to recent work on Radegund, her impact and contributions are far better understood. Vitae by Venantius Fortunatus (587) and Baudonivia; B. Krusch, ed. Monumenta Germaniae Historiae, Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum, 2, Hanover, 1888, 364-77, 377-95; ET: Handmaids of the Lord: Contemporary Descriptions of Feminine Asceticism in the First Six Christian Centuries, ed. and trans. J.M. Petersen, Kalamazoo, Cistercian, 1996, 381-428. On Radegund’s patronage of the True Cross, see C. Hahn, “Collector and Saint: Queen Radegund and Devotion to the Relic of the True Cross”, Word and Image 22, 2006: 268-74; Wharton, Selling Jerusalem, 30-35; Brown 1982b, 239. 18 GM 5 (Krusch, 489-90; ET: 22-23).

The instruments of Christ’s passion, by contrast, do not find their way to Gaul. Portable objects like crown of thorns, the lance, reed, and sponge all stay in Jerusalem. Yet stationary objects like the column at which Christ was scourged has the potential for mobility: pilgrims wrap the column with a cord and are permitted to take these cords away from the holy place “to help against

19

Rufinus (Hist. Eccl., 10.7-8), Socrates (HE. 1.17; PG 67, 117ff), Sozomen (HE 2.1-2) Theodoret (HE 1.18), Ambrose (De obitu Theod., 40-49), Paulinus of Nola (Ep. 31.4-5), and Sulpicius Severus (Chron. 2.22-34). See J.W. Drijvers, Helena Augusta: The Mother of Constantine and the Legend of Her Finding of the True Cross, Leiden, Brill, 1992. 20 GM, 5 (Krusch, 491-92; ET: 26).

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD various illnesses”.21 Still, Gregory makes no mention of how far such wonderworking cords traveled. He is more specific regarding Christ’s seamless tunic, which migrates from Jerusalem to its final resting place, a town outside Constantinople, called Galatea, where the garment is kept in a wooden box storied in an “obscure crypt”. Christ’s tomb is also moveable. According to Gregory, the ground surrounding the Lord’s tomb is “sprinkled with water and dug up, and from it tiny tokens are shaped and sent to different parts of the world. Often ill people acquire cures by means of these tokens”.22 And the tokens are especially effective at warding off snakes.23 Gregory is silent, however, on whether any such tokens turn up in Gaul.

Gregory does not specify which relics, there is no doubt they have been relocated to Gregory’s person, wearer of the cross. One day while traveling, he came upon a cottage engulfed in flames; no sooner had he lifted the cross than the flames were extinguished immediately.28 Viewed together the sequence of stories about Mary’s church, the inviting relics at Clermont, and the firefighting follow the relics as they occupy a series of shrinking spaces: from a massively columned church near Jerusalem to a private oratory in Clermont, then at last at a cottage in the countryside. Although it is unclear which specific relics are working these wonders, Gregory assures the reader of their safe location, as the narrative steadily moves them from Jerusalem to Tours.

It becomes clear that, according to Gregory, Holy Land relics’ power is not diminished when they hit the road. Gregory often follows their travels beyond Jerusalem, even if it means stopping short of Gaul. For some relics, he seems more intent on describing their journeys than their contents. Since Gregory was familiar with the tradition that the Virgin Mary’s body was translated to Paradise,24 we may presume that the Virgin’s relics were contact relics rather than body fragments. His tale begins in Jerusalem about her dream appearance to a despairing architect charged with building her church with oversized and immoveable columns.25 Like a construction site manager, Mary guided the architect through the proper scaffolding, pulleys, and ropes, and even the personnel required to get the job done (three young school boys). The architect awoke, followed the Virgin’s instructions, and the three boys managed to install the columns. Gregory makes no mention of what Marian relics (if any) would be contained by that church.26

For an even firmer sense of relocation, one need only consider the tales related to relics of John the Baptist. In Gregory’s version of the Baptist’s beheading there is an additional character inserted into the narrative: an eyewitness from Gaul. An unnamed woman from Bazas set out from Gaul to Jerusalem in the hopes of seeing the Savior. When she heard that John was to be executed, she went directly to John and bribed executioners to allow her to collect John’s blood. “As the executioner struck”, Gregory reports, “the woman held ready a silver vessel and piously collected some blood after the head of the martyr had been cut off. After carefully storing the blood in a flask, she brought it to her homeland. Once a cathedral had been constructed in his honor at Bazas, she placed the flask (ampulla) in the holy altar”.29 In these gruesome details, Gregory has captured the making and movement of a relic. These brief lines follow the pattern emerging from these tales: 1) gospel story (if modified to include a pilgrim), 2) retrieval in a silver vessel, 3) containment in a flask, and 4) relocation in a cathedral altar.

His silence on the types of Marian relics continues in two more miracles related to her wonderworking relics in Gaul. At an estate in Clermont, Gregory found himself locked out of an oratory that housed her relics. While waiting for assistance from an attendant, Gregory lit a candle and the door swung open on its own.27 In another account, he mentions that he himself wore relics of the Virgin along with those of the apostles and the local saint, Martin, all encased in a gold cross. Although

Once in Tours the blood can do its work of regeneration. Gregory goes on to describe how that blood protected Bazas as it endured a long siege. Once the siege ended, during a celebratory mass, three crystalline drops formed in the vault over the altar. As they descended in a swirl, a deacon tried to catch them in a silver paten, where they coalesced into a brilliant gem.30 This gem, a visible second-generation relic, finds its final home in a jewelstudded gold cross. The relics proliferated from there: water and wine used to wash the cross were dispensed to the sick for rapid healing.31 From Jerusalem to Bazas, the audience follows the trail of blood from the drippings of an executioner’s blow to its hardening in the form of a

21

GM, 6 (Krusch, 492; ET: 27) GM, 6 (Krusch, 492; ET: 27). 23 Their power over dangerous snakes evokes Jesus’ post-resurrection prophecy (“they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover”. Mark 16:8). 24 GM 4, 8 (Krusch, 489, 493; ET: 21-22, 28-29). 25 On dreams and saints’ shrines in Gregory of Tours, see I. Moreira, Dreams, Visions, and Spiritual Authority in Merovingian Gaul, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2000, esp. 108-35. 26 D. Frankfurter notes an analogous phenomenon in Egypt, where living saints were authenticated shrines to a “scriptural saint” in the absence of actual relics of the biblical saint (“Urban Shrine and Rural Saint in Alexandria”, in Pilgrimage in Graeco-Roman and Early Christian Antiquity: Seeing the Gods, ed. by J. Elsner and I. Rutherford, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2005, 435-49, esp. 447). 27 GM 8 (Krusch, 493; ET: 28-29), a story reminiscent of the blind nun who regained her complete vision close to the relics of the cross in Radegund’s convent: “suddenly she was awakened by the sound of a door being unlocked and regained the sight of one eye” GM 5 (Krusch, 491; ET: 24). 22

28

GM 10 (Krusch, 495; ET: 32). GM 11 (Krusch, 495; ET: 32). 30 That Gregory regards this incident to be a clear and divine indictment of Arianism is a fascinating matter, but one we shall put aside here. 31 Relics’ powers of discernment are a feature of Gregory’s tales that are beyond the scope of their mobility. E.g., they discern moral states (the “blackness of [Gregory’s] sins” GM 8; Krusch, 493; ET: 29) by extinguishing lights; turn opaque when approached by anyone attempting to conceal a sinful act (GM 12; Krusch, 496; ET: 34); or thwarting the efforts of a church official to relocate the reliquary with John the Baptist’s thumb to the cathedral at Turin, a more prestigious setting. When he touched the reliquary it burned him with a fever and he died (GM 13; Krusch, 497-98; ET: 35). 29

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GEORGIA FRANK: TELLING JERUSALEM theatre of the mind and imagination, in which there was no distance because the specific locality in Jerusalem was, in the ritual process, erased”.37 In medieval France, Germany, Italy, and Britain, immobile replicas became repositories for memories of Christ’s resurrection.

gem now lodged in a jeweled cross with inexhaustible powers to heal so long as there is water and wine to wash it. The fecundity of John’s bodily relics also travel westward, as in the story of another Gallic pilgrim, a woman who set out to Jerusalem in search of bodily relics of the Forerunner. For three years she knelt fasting and praying before his tomb, until one day, she beheld over the altar, in Gregory’s words, “a gleaming thumb, wonderfully bright and clear”.32 Before she returning home, she procured a small gold reliquary in which to transport the thumb. Once home in her native town of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne, the thumb attracted visitors, including three bishops who held constant vigils in the hope of gaining relics. They brought along linen cloth to place beneath the thumb. When they tried to extract a piece from the thumb, it yielded only one drop of blood. Undeterred (and remarkable to me, unpunished!) they kept vigils for two more nights until two more drops fell from the thumb. Once soaked with the three drops, the cloth was divided and each bishop went home with a portion. Together these relics addressed a locational problem: how to move an immoveable holy place. Moveable objects addressed that problem by fragmenting and disseminating holy places to new and distant locales. As Gregory of Tours insists, all these objects retained the sanctity of Jerusalem even in their fragmentation.

THE WORK OF MEMORY AND THE MOVEABLE PAST Recent studies of pilgrims’ souvenirs have called attention to the convergence of story, place, and ritual. For pilgrims like Egeria there was a particular excitement of hearing the biblical story in ipso loco.38 As historian of religion Jonathan Z. Smith describes this frisson, “story, ritual and place could be one”.39 Such exquisite convergence is also found in art historians’ efforts to reconstruct pilgrims’ experiences. Calling attention to the anachronisms between image and gospel that electrify pilgrims’ souvenirs, Gary Vikan claims an “experiential reality…more or less seen and experienced on the spot”.40 Art historian Cynthia Hahn also points to an experiential effect of these images, which she describes as an “efficacious simulacra of the potent spiritual experience of the pilgrim”.41 And as Late Roman historian E. D. Hunt suggests, “Any relics originating from the Holy Land…were treasured possessions precisely because they were capable of arousing the kind of vivid reaction which the holy places themselves stimulated”.42 All these interpreters call attention to the replication of raw experience, assuming that images conjure a lived past. Underlying this impulse to copy Jerusalem, according to recent interpreters, is a strong desire for a particular experience of immediacy. Whether describing this desire as a yearning to conjure the past, stimulate “prototypical experience,” or to relive a past, these interpreters suggest that the traffic in relics fostered a translocative piety, where nostalgia for one place could efface any need for a sense of place. Yet, if a past can be relived through its objects, what is the value of remembering it?

There were other responses to Jerusalem’s immoveability. Creating copies was one means of extending Jerusalem. In the West, apse mosaics of the Jerusalem skyline, such as the fifth-century church of Santa Pudenziana in Rome, could bring Jerusalem to Rome.33 Large-scale architectural replicas of Jerusalem’s monuments offered another means to access Jerusalem’s past. The eleventh-century Neuvy Holy Sepulchre displayed a fragment of Jesus’ tomb and earth from Calvary.34 Some architectural replicas, such as the twelfth-century Temple Church in London were modeled on the Anastasis Rotunda, but contained no Holy Land relics.35 Small-scale models became incorporated within larger church buildings in the West as early as the eleventh century, as in a two-meter high replica of the Holy Sepulchre in the Aquileia Cathedral.36 As historian of religion J. Z. Smith interprets these replicas, they “sought to stimulate the prototypical experience which lay behind the monument, thereby creating a utopia, a

The mobility of pilgrims’ souvenirs and holy land relics runs counter to this type of space-effacing immediacy. As Gregory’s stories insist: once moved, the holy objects stayed in place, became bound to new place, and became nodes from which new relics proliferated. This pattern of retrieval-relocation-regeneration suggests that precisely because of their movement, objects regained a locative quality. Like the modern collection through which individuals or museums “assembl[e], organiz[e], and

32

GM 13 (Krusch, 497; ET: 35). On Sta Pudenziana, see G. Hellemo, Adventus Domini: Eschatological Thought in 4th-century Apses and Catecheses, Leiden, Brill, 1989, 41-64; F. Schlatter, “Interpreting the Mosaics of Sta Pudenziana”, Vigiliae Christianae 46, 1992: 276-95; T.F. Mathews, The Clash of Gods: A Reinterpretation of Early Christian Art, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1993, 92-114. 34 J. Hubert, “Le Saint-Sépulchre de Neuvy et les pèlerinages de Terre Sainte au XIe siècle”, Bulletin monumental 90, 1931: 91-100, cited in J. Z. Smith, “Constructing a Small Space”, in Sacred Space: Shrine, City, Land, eds. B.Z. Kedar and R.J. Zwi Werblowsky, New York, New York University Press, 1998, 18-31, esp. 21. 35 Wharton Selling Jerusalem, 74-88. 36 P. Sheingorn, The Easter Sepulchre in England, Kalamazoo, Medieval Institute Publications, 1987, 8-11. 33

37

Smith Constructing, 24. E.g., It. Eg., 3.6; 10.7; 14.1. J.Z. Smith, To Take Place: Toward Theory in Ritual, Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1987, 86. 40 G. Vikan, “Pilgrims in Magi’s Clothing”, in The Blessings of Pilgrimage, ed. R. Ousterhout, Urbana / Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1990, 97-107, esp. 101-2; reprinted in idem, Sacred Images and Sacred Power in Byzantium, Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS 778; Aldershot, UK/ Burlington, VT, Ashgate Publishing, 2003. 41 C. Hahn, “Loca Sancta Souvenirs: Sealing the Pilgrim’s Experience”, in The Blessings of Pilgrimage, ed. R. Ousterhout, Urbana / Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 1990, 93. 42 E.D. Hunt, Holy Land Pilgrimage in the Later Roman Empire (AD 312-460), Oxford, Clarendon, 1982, 129. 38 39

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD control […] a portion of the world”,43 late ancients were taught to gather, store, and retrieve Jerusalem.

similar acquisitiveness. But as recent studies of educated memory remind us, the need to re-place memory may also be interpreted as an effort to reorder in order to secure memory. As I have suggested here, objects in motion would have been embraced by a world that regarded memory as a moveable object. Like memory, the moveable Holy Land relic was subject to fragmentation, containment, and retrieval in order to be relocated and thereby become the matrix for new relics. The parallels we can detect between the “life” of a relic and the work of memory opens up a wider range of motivations for acquiring and proliferating contact relics. Rather than infer experiential realism as the sole motive for this relic piety, we may consider how these sixth- and seventh-century objects in motion may point to a profound impulse to fragment, store, transport, and reuse the biblical past with the aim of creating a material piety capable of knowing Jerusalem in a foreign land.

Recent work on medieval memory by historian Mary Carruthers may lend insight into how the movements of such objects shaped perceptions of Jerusalem’s sacred past.44 Memory in antiquity, she stresses, was a creative and disciplined practice. Hardly a matter of passive retention or rote learning, memory was regarded as an active, inventive craft, out of which emerged new compositions, sermons, stories, pictures, and hymns. Adapting methods of memory from the ancients, medieval memory theorists regarded memory as a locational system, in which memories were segmented, stored, recollected, and thereby rearranged to craft new ideas. The basic unit of the memory, then, had to be sufficiently compact, flexible, and stable to allow it to be divided and reorganized. This tradition of locational memory relied on architectural schemes to house memories. Thus, preachers and orators pictured in their minds (and on parchment) imaginary buildings. Favorite schemes included Noah’s Ark, a five-story house with a fixed number of rooms on each floor, the rungs of a ladder, or a world map: each diagram contained enough segments and ordered tiers by which to see all memories at once (conspectus) and cull at will. To store vast amounts of scripture, books, music, and arts, medieval students were taught to break down these behemoths into small, manageable segments. Some segments were transformed into visual cues that could be rearranged, stored, and scanned for reuse as new works. So long as memories could be kept “orderly and distinct from one another”, they would endure and adhere better.45 The work of memory, then, involved storing, gathering, collecting and rearranging. According to this reasoning, any memory left out of place was doomed to be forgotten. Memory was never fettered by these schemes; their relocation ensured a disciplined mobility. That is not to say, however, that a memory could remain homeless. Its survival depended on proper lodging. As two scholars of medieval memory put it, “To do their work, memories require ‘location’”.46 This locative basis of memory provides a useful model by which to interpret sacred objects in motion. Like memories, relics required storage, gathering, and differentiation. Their invention, then, was not simply an act of recovery, but also an act of creativity, by which they were culled, recombined, and relocated in order to be drawn together in new places. The desire to possess the past in the form of objects may be motivated by a 43 R. Belk, “Collectors and Collecting”, in Handbook of Material Culture, eds. C. Tilley et. al., London, Sage, 2006, 534-45, esp. 541. 44 Notable works: The Book of Memory: A Study of Memory in Medieval Culture, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Culture 10, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1990; The Craft of Thought: Meditation, Rhetoric, and the Making of Images, 400-1200, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1998. This overview relies on the “General Introduction” to The Medieval Craft of Memory, eds. M. Carruthers and J.M. Ziolkowski, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, 1-31. 45 Carruthers and Ziolkowski 2002, 7. 46 Ibid., 7.

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The Matter of Ivory and the Movement of Ideas: Thoughts on some Christian Diptychs of Late Antiquity Anthony Cutler Sitting inanimate in the vitrine or, if possible, even more inert in the simulacrum that is the scholar’s photograph, the ivory object is immune to motion. Intentionally, these modern prisons protect the object; they preserve it from the sort of shocks that it endured across the centuries, down to the day when it entered the museum, not to speak of its earlier life when, as a constituent of the elephant’s tusk, it collided with trees or the défense of another animal. Except on those rare occasions when, on parole and under the properly watchful eye of the conservator, it is briefly allowed out for scholarly examination or its likeness is captured by a professional photographer, it cannot be touched, turned over, or looked at obliquely. Its life is constrained by the fiber optic cable that enables its brief visibility. It is even more unchanging in the photograph. Apparently preserved for posterity, the ivory is shielded against a threedimensional reading; it may seem to come to life, but then in fact is no less uncaring, when momentarily affected by new learned interpretation. The essay that follows is an attempt at reanimation. I try to restore action and motion to the immobile ivory by looking at its movements – first, and briefly, across space as a raw material; then as it was shaped not only by the craftsman’s hands (still an approach rarely practiced in scholarship) but also by the content that he, or the client who commissioned it, chose (a more customary scholarly exercise); the ends that it served; the use to which it was put; and, finally, in terms of the movements that we make, in our own day, as our eyes and minds wander across and around it – “it” in this case being the diptych,1 (and especially the “five-part” variety), the largest, most numerous and most familiar object-type in this material. No less important, physically and intellectually it was the most complex use to which ivory was put in late antiquity.

1

The most recent survey of the type is provided by the papers by various hands in David 2007. For the most part, however, these concentrate on the consular varieties as against the “non-consular” and especially the Christian examples of the species discussed in the present essay.

ARS NESCIENDI By now, the movement of ivory as a commodity in this period is something that is fairly well understood, if only in outline.2 Given that diptychs consisted of (often hinged) planes of the material, cut along the longitudinal axis of the tusk, and that the maximum diameter of Asian tusks does not exceed 11 cm,3 it follows that the origin of the material that constituted a leaf, where it exceeds this dimension, can be known in principle. Yet the corollary of this fact is that where a leaf is less than 11 cm wide we cannot identify its source by this means.4 Even if the physical origin of a panel of ivory is of little interest to most art historians, it is of concern to historians of material culture and trade and one that has bearing on the vexed question, discussed below, of the locus at which it was carved. It is therefore a problem that deserves acknowledgment. The size of a leaf is intrinsically related to the question of its date. Of course this latter point is generally not an issue, where, as datable productions, consular diptychs are normally not matters of contention.5 But as usually anonymous objects, non-consular expressions of the genre, like most of those treated in this essay, do not readily allow such inferences and therefore, at least in the past, have been subject to widely varying opinions. A sort of rough consensus now attends their relative chronology. But as commissions of importance they figure in the larger question of the dating of late antique ivories, a problem that involves the issues raised by the term used to denote the period. Refusing to let the ivory tail wag the chronological dog, scholars today apply the label “late antique” to works that they suppose to have originated in this era: the canonical view of this time span reaches from the end of the fourth century to the middle of the sixth. But I cannot help worrying, first, about a sequence of objects of superb quality that seems to appear ex nihilo 2 Chraznovski in David 2007, 195-216; Cutler 1994, 20-29. With the aid of DNA analysis it is now theoretically possible to distinguish between African and Asian ivory: see Cutler, Götherström 2008. Yet because the tests involve destroying small quantities of the material the technique is unlikely (to say the least) to be applied to specimens in museums or private collections. 3 Cutler 1993, 8. 4 Cutler 1998, 4. 5 But see Cameron, Schauer 1982.

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD about 390,6 especially in light of the subtle theological content of the Brescia lipsanothek, always assigned to this decade, which displays ideas already detectable in Patristic thought – notably in Clement of Alexandria and Origen;7 and followed closely in time by the “Carrand diptych” in Florence which depicts Adam naming the animals and incidents from the life of St. Paul (Figs. 1A1D), a texture scarcely less richly in early Christian ideas.8 The series approaches its close with the year 541, a conclusion determined in the case of the Basilius diptych by a political decision.9 The implication is that ivory carving of high quality disappeared about the time that this diptych was carved, leaving a motley bunch of problematic pieces at least one of which could well have been produced as late as the middle of the seventh century (Cutler 2009).10 What we don’t know may not hurt us, but it surely impairs our definition of what constitutes a late antique ivory.

method of investigation with one, well established in the natural sciences, whereby problems that are soluble take precedence over those that are not.17 Even if we chose to stay within the traditional confines of art historical enquiry (I question these confines below, and no less the ends toward which our enquiries have been directed), it has yet to be shown that the significance of an object is contingent upon its specific geographical origin. The great cities of the late antique Mediterranean world – Alexandria, Antioch, Constantinople, Milan, Ravenna, Rome – in all of which ivory working has either been supposed to have been practiced or demonstrated empirically18 – for all their internal civil and ideological strife, participated in a vast commercial and intellectual network.19 Given the known movement of the material and the usually surmised circulation of the craftsmen who worked it,20 it makes little sense to suppose that artistically they stood apart from such a koinē. And if these cities shared many aspects of their visual culture, the question “where was the diptych made” should be preceded by another: does it matter very much where?21

The motley bunch includes not only pyxides,11 notoriously difficult to date, but also book covers, diptychs and orphan panels12 which raise difficulties unresolved by arbitrarily assigning them to the realm of “Mittelalterliche Kunst”.13 These lack fixity not only in time but also in space and in this respect resemble the diptychs that are my immediate concern. Heuristically, questions of chronology and localization are of course not independent variables, but so central is the latter in scholarly discussions, inasmuch as the majority of the literature on this topic is in German it could be called the Königsproblem among the many raised by the diptychs. And, as rulers in our period received the greatest attention at the hands of their chroniclers, so art historians have paid greatest heed to this “royal” question, a concentration that has failed to produce anything approaching agreement as to the sites of the plaques’ manufacture. Of the Murano diptych, partly preserved in Ravenna (Fig. 2A), for instance, it was asserted over forty years ago that an origin in the eastern Mediterranean can hardly be doubted, with an inclination toward the region of Syria-Palestine.14 Earlier, a preference for a Coptic Egyptian workshop had been declared.15 And most recently, and less clamorously, an argument in favour of Constantinople has been advanced.16 True, these are hypotheses based on quite different criteria, but would it not make more sense to leave the issue aside, turning instead or at least in advance to questions that extend some hope of being answerable? To do so would be to admit ignorance, not defeat. It would, moreover align our

In arguing that we should recognize that which we do not know, and probably never will, in order to pass on to a more promising area of investigation, I am advocating something akin to what Keats nearly two centuries ago called “Negative Capability”22 — a state of openmindedness that allows us to transcend ignorance upon a specific point. Traditionally in our discipline the two paths forward have been consideration in terms of an object’s style and its iconography. At least as far as distinction between local manners is concerned, the first of these seems to me fatally flawed in light of a problem recognized by a specialist in late antique portrait sculpture: confusion between the categories that we perceive and those that would have been meaningful to viewers in the period that the works in question were produced.23 The utility of its content in this respect is a 17

See P.B. Medawar, The Art of the Soluble, London, 1967. For Alexandria see Rodziewicz 1998; Abū Mīnā: Engemann 1987; for Rome, Palatine East: St. Clair 2003; Crypta Balbi: Ricci 2001. Grabar 1966, 292-93, argued for Constantinople as the point of origin of both the Eǰmiacin and Saint-Lupicin panels. Against the notion of Ravenna as a centre of ivory carving, see Deichmann 1989, 347-48. 19 On this koinē see, e.g., Horden, Purcell 2000, 346 and passim. 20 Speculation on the latter has sometimes attained levels of unnecessary complexity. Thus Delbrueck 1952, 184-85, attempting to reconcile what he saw as the “eastern” system of hinging the Stilicho diptych with the military leader’s supposed “western” physiognomy (i.e. “racial” characteristics, although in 1952 could no longer put it this way as he had done in the incipient Nazi era [Delbrueck 1929, 248 no. 63]), argued that is was carved in Italy but by a craftsman from the east. 21 An analogy from the domain of modern popular culture – one to which only the unbearably stuffy will object – suggests itself: given the shared culture of North American cities, does it matter that the figure of Superman originated in Cleveland rather than elsewhere in the United States? 22 The passage, in a letter of 21 December 1817 to his brothers George and Tom, reads “I mean Negative Capability [italics in the original], that is when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable teaching after fact and reason.” See Selected Letters of John Keats, revised ed. G.F. Scott, Cambridge, MA, 2002, 60. 23 The point made by Smith 1985, 213, is important enough to be cited in full: “[W]hile it is legitimate for us to make the most sophisticated 18

6 To be noted is Constantine the Great’s edict of 337 exempting eborarii from public service. See Cod. Theod. XIII, 4.2, trans. Mango 1972, 15. 7 Tkacz 2002. 8 Shelton 1986; Maguire 1987. 9 Cameron, Schauer 1982. 10 Essential to the problem raised by these pieces are the ivories of the “Grado throne,” a question hardly considered since Weitzmann 1972. But see now Williamson 2010, nos. 9, 10. 11 Volbach 1976, nos. 194-201a. 12 Volbach 1976, nos. 217-255a. 13 Volbach 1976, 129. 14 Steenbock 1965, 75, no. 6. 15 Wessel 1958. 16 Caillet 2008.

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ANTHONY CUTLER: THE MATTER OF IVORY AND THE MOVEMENT OF IDEAS these diptychs—and these, in turn, may or may not be expressions of local preferences—as markers of their sites of manufacture.27 Much has been made of the trapezoidal gable of Lazarus’ tomb on Murano, this being associated with the form found in “Coptic” depictions of the miracle.28 But, in terms of meaning, is the trapezoid to be distinguished from the triangular pediment that frames the dead man’s head on Saint-Lupicin? Are they not elective expressions of the same idea? This would seem to be the case when, as has been proposed, a comb with iconography that is not overtly Christian is admitted into the discussion (Figs. 5A, 5B).29 The critical point here is not that the comb in Athens is “sicuramente copto”. Rather, it is that the personifications of Roma and Constantinopolis – for such they certainly are30 – are respectively ensconced beneath a triangular gable and another that takes the form of a shell. Cognitively, the two sides of a figured comb are functional equivalents of the two leaves of a diptych—at once distinct and synergic.

more complex business and one that requires more extensive scrutiny. ICONOGRAPHY AND THE ONUS PROBANDI Geography, it has been said, is destiny. But this does not mean that our ignorance as to that part of it which is applicable requires that we abandon it as an element in a larger argument. (We do not know where the Rubicon flowed, but this in no way diminishes the significance of Caesar’s return to Italy from Gaul). When iconography is correlated with its known patterns of distribution, as was undertaken in one of the many studies devoted to the Murano diptych, the results can be suggestive if still far from conclusive.24 To note, for example, that the especially splayed form of the canopy (the so-called Muschelbaldachin) above Christ and his attendants on the leaf in Ravenna (Fig. 2A), and Mary, the magi and the angels on its counterpart in Manchester (Fig. 2B) was widespread in Egypt could be the basis for an interesting act of discrimination, although it should be observed that equivalent architectural settings grace a number of other plaques of the period.25 The important point, surely, is not the precise form of the baldacchino but that in whatever region these ivories were carved it was considered desirable that the holy figures required some sort of covering over their heads. Tellingly perhaps, the glorifying canopy is lacking on the bookcovers from Eǰmiacin (Figs. 3A, 3B) and Saint-Lupicin (Figs. 4A, 4B).26

Another consequence of the Mediterranean network is the exchange not only of the raw material but of the craftsmen who fashioned it and the ideas which they embodied. I know of no early Christian or early Byzantine ivory that can be localized on grounds of its theological or narrative content.31 Despite or because of the fact that ideas were disputed, they travelled: indeed, the rich body of testimony to ideological contestation is in itself evidence of their migration. That a particular tenet was “Antiochene” or “Alexandrian” no more certifies that its visual representation was produced in that place than it proves that elephant ivory was available there. Our diptychs are not different species as were the finches and flora that Darwin studied on the various islands of the Galápagos.32 They did not evolve over time as a result of geographical isolation; instead, they share a visual lexicon even as they present shared techniques of carving and construction.

The presence or absence of a particular iconographical feature may or may not have bearing on the locus of an object’s origin. The prominence of the Raising of Lazurus on the upper right side of the leaf from Murano (Fig. 2A), in contrast to its removal to the end of the predella on the Christ leaf of Saint-Lupicin, and the fact that the scene does not appear at all on Eǰmiacin, could as well be expressions of the diverse iconographical programme of

This shared vocabulary is the outward expression of ideas held in common. The five-part diptychs, as against that in the Bargello (Figs. 1A, 1B), are therefore neither as directly dependent on specific points of theology, nor (to

comparative analysis of formal style and detail of the best pieces (with known provenance), in order to try to define differences within the empire, we should remember that this may often be mainly for the benefits of our art-historical categorization and may not correspond to any real difference of meaning (intentional or unintentional) that would have occurred to an ancient observer. In other words there is a danger of confusing correct art-historical interpretation and correct historical interpretation. Without known provenance, it is often very difficult to tell if the best examples are metropolitan or not, and even when strongly modulated to tell which particular province they came from.” 24 Rizzardi 1994. 25 Volbach 1976, nos. 131-33 and not least no. 137, the great diptych of Christ and the Virgin in Berlin. 26 So, too, the Three Hebrews, acclaiming the cross-bearing angel who saves them on the Murano diptych and thus represents the Christ seated immediately above them, do not appear on Eǰmiacin or Saint-Lupicin. The scene is therefore of no help in determining an eastern or western origin for the object. The search for “parallels” quickly leads back to the Brescia casket, its most important and at the same time ambiguous occurrence on a late antique ivory. The very identity of this image has been challenged (cf. Tkacz 2002, 84-85, 150-67, 210-11). Many scholars regard the plaque as a representation of the Seven Maccabees in the fire, an interpretation that I prefer on visual grounds – it shows, after all, seven figures, not the holy trio with an angel –, although Tkacz puts up a spirited, if text-driven, defence of the view that it represents the Three Hebrews. A yet larger problem is the origin of the box as a whole. It, too, has been claimed for both the east and the west.

27 As much may be true of whether Christ is shown bearded (Fig. 4A) or otherwise (Fig. 3A). The matter is rarely investigated – other than to point out that both options were available – but is touched upon by Spieser 2007, 71, 74. 28 Rizzardi 1994, 493. 29 Most recently on this comb, see Baralas 2002. 30 Bühl 1995, 156. 31 Thus to claim, as has often been done, that the cathedra of Maximian was prepared in Alexandria because it depicts on its sides the story of Joseph in Egypt, seems to me to be no more compelling than that the Flight into Egypt on two of our diptychs (Figs. 3A, 4B) demands that these objects should be similarly attributed. Deducing a specific conclusion from a broad generalization, Buschhausen 2001, 141-42, argued that the Eǰmiacin diptych was to be ascribed to the “armenischsyrischen Kaum” on the grounds that the Protoevangelion of James, the “source” of some of the scenes on its Virgin leaf, was unknown in the West; see also note 32 below. Cf. Baumstark 1998, 86, where R. Kahsnitz showed the impact of eastern theology (Ephrem Syrus) on an ivory that is always supposed to be of Roman origin (Fig. 6). 32 Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the “Beagle”, New York, 2003, 40607.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD wreathes on the four upper registers of Saint-Lupicin and Eǰmiacin (Fig. 3E), familiar from monuments of imperial and Christian triumph throughout the empire.41

use Erich Auerbach’s term) as deutungsbedürftig—in need of interpretation—as they have been painted in scholarship. They do not stress, and therefore are unlikely to have been designed to promote, sectarian beliefs. One should not confuse demonstration with doctrine and that which our objects demonstrate in the carapace of healing scenes around their central images of Christ is God in his earthly manifestation, engaged in what has been called “une activité quasi-humaine”.33 Apostolic succession to these powers is manifested on the Bargello leaf (Fig. 1B) where Paul on Malta heals the magistrate Publius’ father, a man with a paralyzed arm, and a youth with a wasting disease. These cures specifically enact the generality of Acts 28: 9 concerning the “others, also, which had diseases in the islands [who] came and were healed”.34 The imagery is grounded not in Patristic texts but in a broader understanding of the Logos, the relation between Christ’s divine and human natures. Jesus’ miracles played a more compelling part than doctrine in the conversion of pagans to Christianity, while strengthening the faith of those who already believed.35

SEEING AND TOUCHING The most obvious difference between the monumental representation of a scene or motif and its appearance on a carved ivory is the difference in size between the image and the context that it inhabits. But the truism requires analysis: relative scale entails consequences – including legibility, the perception of relations between constituent parts, and affect – that have direct bearing both on the way diptychs were understood and used in their own time and our own responses to them. Issues of visuality and tactility are central here (and certainly more important than the place where a diptych was carved or the “source” of the iconography that it contains). “Others merely hear; we see and touch” was the way Cyril of Jerusalem put the matter toward the end of the fourth century.42 Insofar as the ivories with which we are concerned and which, at least in secondary use, served as bookcovers there can be little doubt that they were objects for display: in the procession of the Little Entrance, the deacon, as he does today, carried the gospel book on high from the altar into the nave and back again so that all could see it. But were our diptychs originally employed in this way?43 The question has received remarkably little attention even while it is often assumed that this was the case.44 A more prudent observer and specialist in bookbinding has warned that not before the mid-ninth century, and then only in the West, do we have a surviving example of a cover made for the manuscript that it now contains.45 This implies that there is no necessity that the five-part diptychs of the fifth and sixth centuries began life with this function in mind.

No less ubiquitous was attention to the life of Mary, whose biblical and apocryphal narratives – conveyed in the vignettes that enclose her on the Eǰmiacin and SaintLupicin diptychs (Figs. 3A, 3B, 4A, 4B) and the portions detached from Murano —were, by the time our ivories were carved, commonplaces throughout the eastern Mediterranean and beyond. Thus the midwife Salomé, her arm cured of the withering it endured when she denied the Virgin birth, adoring the child in his crib on the predella of the leaf in Manchester (Fig. 2B), and the Trial by Water, once on the register below it and now in the Louvre (Fig. 2C), were no arcane elements from esoteric sources but stories widely known from what we call the Protoevangelion of James and the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew.36 Similarly, the angel’s annunciation to Anne (Fig. 2D) – in which the visual salutations of the protagonists anticipate those in the Visitation below37 – alludes in the discourse of the doves on the tree to a fecundity better-known in a twelfth-century icon at Mount Sinai.38 If the flight into Egypt on the lowest registers of both Saint-Lupicin and Eǰmiacin already signified the church being carried to the gentiles,39 it required no more exegesis than the Three Hebrews and the angel on the Ravenna leaf (Fig. 2A), an image that we think of as an “Old Testament” theme.40 The presence of the latter shows that, like the apocryphal scenes once conjoined to it, their designers felt free to draw on a wide variety of stories, unconstrained by a limited, canonical body of material. An even wider trawl is represented by the angels bearing the cross-enclosing, lemniscate

St. Jerome’s thundering against books on purple parchment, with letters painted in gold and adorned with gems – on the grounds that it was a poor and naked Christ who died for our sins – surely means that such luxurious embellishments were customary,46 but it does not prove 41 Cf., e.g., the Victories on the spandrels of Trajan’s arch at Benevento (Elsner 1998, fig. 51) and the base of the column of Arcadius in Constantinople (Grabar 1936, 34 and pls. XIV, XV). Still associated with the idea of triumph, as is made clear either by inscription (Volbach 1976, no. 49) or visual context (ibid., no. 50), the cross in the medallion could be replaced by personifications of Constantinople or, as on the Barberini ivory (ibid., no. 48) and the apsidal arch at Sinai (Forsyth, Weitzmann 1973, pls. CLXXIV-CLXXVII), by a bust of Christ. 42 Catechesis 13.22 in Patrologia graeca 33, col. 800B. Frank 2000b acutely analyzed Early Christian “seeing and touching,” concluding on the basis of texts that the former subsumed the latter in what she calls the “haptic gaze”, i.e., that the eyes functioned as hands. My findings, based on objects, do not so much contradict as complement hers. 43 It is self-evident that the paintings of the Raising of Lazarus and St. Augustine on the reverse of the Boethius diptych (Volbach 1976, no. 6) and the seventh-century inscriptions on that of the Barberini ivory (Cutler 1998, 3) could not have been made if these ivories had originally served as book covers. 44 For example, Spier 2007, 10 and 256, no. 76. Ep. 22. 23 ad Eustochium in Patrologia Latina 22, col. 418. 45 Steenbock 1965, 57-58. 46 If some relationship between the iconography on ivory covers and the book that they contained is supposed, then the fifth-century “Cross and

33

Spieser 2007, 58. Nauerth 1983, 345. 35 Veyne 2007. 36 On the diffusion of the Apocrypha and Protoevangelion of James see Kazhdan et. al. 1991, 1, 132-33, 2, 1744-45. For the pervasive distribution (not to say banality) of Gospel imagery in manuscript illumination, see Lowden 2007, esp. 61-63. 37 Volbach 1976, no. 129. 38 Sinai icon: Maguire 1981, 48, 50-52 and fig. 42. 39 Cf. Glossa ordinaria in Patrologia Latina 114, col. 75D. 40 See note 46 above. 34

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ANTHONY CUTLER: THE MATTER OF IVORY AND THE MOVEMENT OF IDEAS can see,53 that is, diptychs, usually of the five-part sort, some of which are still, or were until recently, attached to wooden boards, their leather coverings or, in the case of Saint-Lupicin, replacement cartonnage.54 I shall concentrate upon Saint-Lupicin and Eǰmiacin,55 comparing them with others with which I am directly familiar; I shall not discuss diptychs that I have not had ad manum. In an essay of the present length, it is not possible to treat all the known varieties.

that ivory was used for this purpose. And a century later (before which time all the figured diptychs with which we are concerned had been made) Cassiodorus, leaving the “external beauty” of their “sacred letters” to the choice of his Christian intellectual readers, makes no mention of ivory (or any other material) in his discussion of the practices of skilled binders.47 If it is objected that the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, the witness of the East should be considered. In Egypt where, above all regions, one might suppose ivory to have been used for this purpose, the textual evidence is at best ambiguous, while that of the objects speaks against it.48 An early seventh-century Armenian apologist for images, Vrtanēs K’ert’oł, declares that “when we prostrate ourselves before the holy Gospel, or when we kiss it, we are not prostrating ourselves before the ivory and the lake [paint] brought from the country of the barbarians, but before the word of the Lord written on parchment”.49 This, the earliest sure testimony to the use of ivory bindings, also signals its exotic nature, a quality explicit in the report of Halitgarius, bishop of Cambrai, who in 828 received ivory tabulae from the emperor Michael II and took them home to have book covers made50 – a story which suggests that sections of tusk, cut but not yet further worked, were prized commodities in Constantinople at the time.

Variety, indeed, characterizes the carpentry with which five-part diptychs were assembled – a migrant and transferable concept56 – although in this regard only the Barberini ivory in the Louvre and a fragmentary diptych in Berlin seem to have been closely studied.57 The joinery, best seen on their reverses,58 is, however, not the point here. (One recalls Max Ernst’s remark that “ce n’est pas la colle qui fait le collage”).59 We do not need to turn the plaques over in order to perceive differences in their methods of carving which were ideas that travelled as much as the imagery they convey, or in the “wear marks” (as anthropologists put it) they have received. The latter speak not only of the diverse experiences they have undergone following their manufacture but also – since most of this wear could hardly have occurred after they had been confined to museum vitrines – of the uses to which they were put in the first millennium of their existence. What we seek, in other words, are palpable traces of how they were worked and the manner in which they were handled.

If they were not originally made to cover books,51 to what uses were our ivories initially put? Libanius of Antioch knew what to do with the surely non-Christian diptych (dithyron grammateion) he received from Tatianus: effectively, he set it up on his mantelpiece thereby becoming “an object of envy for the compliment” that the consul of 391 paid him (Ep. 1021).52 Since we have little testimony of this sort, it is not surprising that scholars have fallen back on the evidence of what they themselves

The way to comprehend the first of these chronologically distinct phenomena lies through the second. The uncritical mind serving the unobservant eye might, nonetheless, suppose that the two leaves of a diptych would show roughly the same amount of wear. This is the case with the two aspects of the comb in Athens (Figs.

Lamb” diptych in the cathedral treasury at Milan (Steenbock 1968, no. 5) is the only plausible late antique candidate: the medallions in the corners show busts of the four evangelists and their animal symbols holding books. But see also note 79 below. 47 Inst. Div. litt. 1.30.3 in Mynors 1937, 77. See now the translation in Halporn, Vessey 2004, 165. Cassiodorus compares these bindings to the raiment of the guests at the heavenly banquet of Christ’s parable (Matt 22: 11). 48 The opinion of Regemorter 1958, 15, no. 9 and pls. 3, 4, that the wooden boards of a binding in the Chester Beatty Library were once inlaid with ivory plaques, was criticized by Powel 1965. Not having examined them, I can only say that on the basis of photographs these vestiges appear to be of bone, rather than ivory. In any case, this decoration employs geometrical forms rather than human figures. In the Martyrdom and Miracles of St. Mercurius ivory plaques (petalōn hilefantinōn), without further description, are described as attached to a funerary bier: see K.H. Kuhn, “A Coptic Jeremiah Apocryphon,” Le Muséon 83, 1970, 303. (I am grateful for Chrysi Kotsifou and Arietta Papaconstantinou for advice on matters Coptic). Finally, it is worth noting that all of the objects found in association with books at the provincial site of Nessana are of bone, not ivory. See Colt 1962, 52 and pl. XXI, 17, 18. 49 Der Nersessian 1944-45, 65, 76. 50 Gaborit-Chopin 1989, 277. 51 The opposite assumption has a long history in scholarship. For example, G.B. Passeri (in Gori 1759, 3, 47-48), discussing the “loving couples” diptych in Brescia (Volbach 1926, no. 66), suggested that such ivories were made to adorn gospel books, the writings of the Fathers, as well as of poets and physicians. 52 Autobiography and Selected Letters, trans. A. F. Norman, Cambridge, MA 1992, 2, 390-92.

53 Further evidence on this point is available, although hitherto unexploited, in the physical form of the reverses of some five-part diptychs. On the back of Murano, for instance, the central plaque is surrounded by what Martini and Rizzardi 1990, 62 and fig. 2b, call “una specie di cornice.” A different sort of cornice appears on the (unpublished) reverse of the uppermost register of a so-called imperial diptych in Berlin (Volbach 1976, no. 49). Such niceties would have been invisible (and without function!) if, in their original use, these objects had been applied to book covers. 54 M.P. Lafitte in Durand 1992, no. 27. 55 My warm thanks to Jannic Durand for the opportunity to study these two diptychs directly when, in the winter of 2007, they were brought together for an exhibition at the Musée du Louvre. See now the catalogue of that show, Durand, Rapti and Giovannoni 2007, 105-07, no. 32. I am grateful, too, to Sandy Amariglio for the photographs she took on that occasion. 56 Cf. the cognitive equivalents that are the tight right-angled intersections between warp and woof in weaving, the mortise and tenon in shipbuilding and carpentry, and the orthogonals of such ancient city plans as Selinus. See Sennett 2008, 128. 57 Cutler 1991, 335-36; cf. Cutler 1998, 2, 3; Sevrugian, Jehle 1994. 58 Despite the variant ways in which the members of five-part diptychs, employing an essential system of tenons and mortises, were assembled, it is evident that there are what could be called morphic resonances between them. The system is strikingly akin to that used in the construction of some early icons on wood, on which see Mathews 2006, esp. 41-42. 59 “Au-delà de la peinture”, 1936, reprinted in Ernst’s Ecritures, Paris 1970, 256, and reprint in A. Breton, Dictionnaire abrégé du Surréalisme, reprint Paris 1991, 7.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD the Journey to Bethlehem (Fig. 3C), for example, on the Virgin leaf, the incised features of the ass’s head and chest have been rubbed and the face of the servant who follows the creature has been worn down to the point where his left eye displays neither a lid nor iris. Yet on the other leaf even such recessed areas as Christ’s long undergarment and the hatching of the mattress on the bed hoisted by the Paralytic, as well as the latter’s eyes, those of Christ and the attendant apostle show almost no wear (Fig. 3D).66 The difference between these respective states of preservation can be explained in terms of abrasion caused by the fingers when the gospelbook was carried and/or when the Virgin side was repeatedly rubbed when set face down on some surface. But these wear marks in themselves are insufficient to justify taking a dogmatic position on this point. As in the matter of the diptychs’ place of origin, considered above, an agnostic attitude seems preferable.67

5A, 5B) – as it is generally with this sort of object – but it is so only because both sides were subjected to rubbing by the user’s thumb on one side and his or her fingers on the other.60 Quite otherwise were the experiences of the several parts of the Murano diptych. On the Ravenna leaf (Fig. 2A) the folds of Peter’s and Paul’s mantles remain in almost pristine condition, while those over Christ’s legs still offer a richly plastic display. By contrast, the trousers of the magi attending the Virgin (Fig. 2B) have been reduced to what is essentially their contours and the drapery of Mary’s lower garments to little more than a set of shallow layers.61 No less worn are the face of the angel addressing St. Anne; the feathers on the bodies of the birds above them have all but disappeared (Fig. 2D). This differential abrasion is no doubt due to the way in which the book – which remains unidentified, but the sometime existence of which can be inferred from the position and uniform size of the holes drilled for its attachment and evident on all the surviving plaques – housed by these leaves was used. Laid flat on surfaces (altars and the shelves in treasuries) in a succession of monasteries in north-eastern Italy62 but inevitably moved when the book was in use, the Virgin side must have been repeatedly rubbed, while the upper cover was not subjected to such stresses.63 If this reading of the book’s history is correct – even though it tell us nothing about the original purpose of the ivories – it says much about the iconographic priority accorded to the respective leaves during their long service as complementary parts of a binding: Christ and his ministry occupied the upper cover, his mother and her biography inhabited the lower.64

Similar observations can be made, and the same conclusion reached, in the case of Saint-Lupicin. For example, the rump of the blind man at his healing (Fig. 4C), even while it rises above the level of the image’s right frame (a rare feature on our diptychs), remains unabraded while, by comparison, the face of Joseph in the Trial by Water or that of the angel to Mary’s right (Fig. 4D) are both quite worn, as against those of most of the figures on the Christ leaf. Once again, in the long service of these ivories at the priory of Saint-Lupicin as parts of the binding of the ninth-century gospel that now bears this name, the leaf depicting Mary and events of her life would have constituted the book’s underside. If they were applied to the manuscript when it was written, then they performed this function, as they still do, for a period much longer than the interval between this application and the creation of the diptych in the middle or third quarter of the sixth century.

Logic suggests that the same order of precedence was observed on the diptych from Eǰmiacin (Figs. 3A, 3B). But we do not need to depend on this mental operation alone to make the case. The reading is sustained by two measurable sets of data: first, the thickness of the panels originally employed, that is, after they had been cut from the tusk but before their figural and ornamental content was carved; and, second, the depth of the “step”,65 that is, the height of the relief or, better put, the distance between the frontal plane of the plaque and the ground against which the figures are set. In neither case do their component scenes rise higher than the framing strips that enclose them, a factor that helps to explain why, overall, Eǰmiacin shows relatively little abrasion. Nonetheless, in

Close inspection, then, can tell us much about the “afterlife” of the ivories. But the quantitative data they offer also serve to distinguish one pair from another in terms of the way they were originally prepared. At their thickest, the diptych leaves in the Matenadaran measure 11.9 cm, and, where the relief is highest68 in its uppermost register (Fig. 3C), present a maximum step of 4.9 mm. By contrast, the relief in the corresponding area on the Christ leaf in the Bibliothèque nationale occupies a step of 4.0 mm set within a plaque that is no more than twice this thickness. In other words the carvers of the two diptychs, even while they produced works that adhere to the same overall design, exhibit quite different attitudes

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Notably worn are one side of Roma’s helmet and the right leg and lower half of Constantinopolis’ face. 61 Looked at in this way, the two leaves might seem to have belonged to different diptychs. But their association, correctly pointed out by Strzygowski 1902, 85-90, is now universally accepted. 62 Steenbock 1965, 73. 63 Injury of another sort has, of course, exposed the broken mortises and tenons where they were enjambed on the Christ cover below the Three Hebrews and the Paralytic. Similar breakage occurs below the ass of the Nativity on the predella in Manchester (Fig. 2B) which, together with the other members of this leaf, has endured several sorts of later indignity, not least the ubiquitous painted stars and, on the fragment in St. Petersburg (Fig. 2D), the excision of the upper frame. 64 For Delbrueck 1929, 116-20, priority – the distinction between the front and back leaves of a diptych – was a matter of their epigraphy and the way in which they were hinged. These criteria were expanded to include the composition of their images by Engemann 1998. 65 Cutler 1994, 102, 104, 287.

66 Exceptions are the faces of the second apostle from the left in the scene of the Samaritan woman and the figure behind Christ as he raises Lazarus. These are possibly due to the action of the bearer’s thumbs as the book was lifted and carried. 67 Following the cautious hypothesis of Engemann 1998, 128, that the Christ leaf was deployed on the underside of the book in its medieval arrangement, Buschhausen 2001, 128, regarded this arrangement as a matter beyond question. 68 In head-on photographs (Fig. 3A) the Virgin plaque may appear to be more deeply carved. This illusion is due to the fact that it is concavely bowed, a warping exacerbated in the past by the loss of the mortise from the magi register below it.

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ANTHONY CUTLER: THE MATTER OF IVORY AND THE MOVEMENT OF IDEAS between scenes that are the summary groundlines of Carrand diptych (Figs. 1A, 1B), and far less absolute than the architectural bands that partition the iconographic units on Eǰmiacin and Saint-Lupicin, billowing clumps of earth denote the terrains that at once separate and unify the zones in which the Three Marys and the apostles witness Jesus’ resurrection and apotheosis.

toward the business of creating the illusion of figures that inhabit successive planes of recession. Likewise distinct is their treatment of bodily forms in relation to the inanimate architectural and ornamental frames that encloses them. Particularly when viewed obliquely, the heads of the wreath-bearing angels of Eǰmiacin (Fig. 3E) as well as those of the same creatures and the Virgin in the central plaque, evacuate arc-shaped cavities in the mouldings above them (Fig. 3A), echoing the openings cut to accommodate the heads of Paul and his companions in the Bargello ivory (Fig. 1B). So too, the dentils in the Journey to Bethlehem (Fig. 3C) are excavated in order to accommodate the heads of three of the travelers, whereas those of the figures in SaintLupicin abut, without entering, the rigid geometries above them. When to these niceties are added countless other nuances – for example, the much greater corporeality of the angels in the upper registers – it is clear that the two diptychs are the work of distinguishable craftsmen.

No less notable than the features recorded by the Carrand master are those that he decided to modify. Pentimenti occur here and there on this diptych: we have observed the alteration to Adam’s right hand (Fig. 1C); another occurs to the left of Paul where the sculptor has reduced the height of the book held by the apostle’s auditor (Fig. 1D). But as against these occasional amendments, the Munich master’s creation abounds in adjusted details. The right foot of the ascending Christ, for instance, has been reworked71 in order to give him purchase on a level part of the mountain (Fig. 6B). Similarly, the feet of the women below tilt as they encounter the uneven ground beside the Lord’s aedicula.72 The back of the head of the guard who rests on this structure has been recut: where before it described a perfect arc, its contour now suggests a depression leading down to the nape of the neck and thereby a keener demonstration of the sleep of one who was charged to remain watchful.

More is at stake here, however, than simply a matter of artistic “personality.” The depiction of figures in their physical setting is a matter not only of form but also, or rather initially, of conception, one that involves, even if unconsciously, a concern for the relationship between perception and its representation. Part of this way of thinking is what can be seen as a homeostatic process in which an artist may (or may not) adjust his version of “reality.” Pentimenti are too often and too narrowly understood to be merely acts of self-correction. But at the hands of a master craftsman, they point to an act of collation, a cross-checking between an image and that which it is intended to denote, even if the latter exists only in the artist’s mind. Manifestations of this agency appear (and can be touched) on the Carrand diptych in Florence where, for example, the sculptor changed his mind about the position in which Adam’s relaxed right hand should rest (Fig. 1C). This involved removing the projecting foliage nearly. Indeed the very stem of that plant has been shifted to the left, while the record of its previous position is still visible nearer to Adam’s right leg.69

MENS ET PRAETEREA NIHIL? Each of the modifications noted immediately above seems prompted by the desire to lend a greater degree of realism to the detail in question and thus to the totality of the image. Their immediate source – and I employ the term in a less recondite sense than its customary use among art historians to denote an iconographic model – lies in the craftsman’s material consciousness, the awareness of the motions of his hand that, over time and as the result of both his training and experience, turn into a tacit but transmitted body of knowledge.73 At the same time, of course, this awareness is predicated on the expected response, taken in by the eye and transferred to the mind, of the beholder. It is to the agency of the spectator that we must now turn.

Palpable traces of moments when intentional judgements are levied on the sub-intentional, that is, on those gestures that any practiced artist makes almost automatically as he lays out his figures for the first time, are best evidenced on a plaque in Munich often identified as the central member of a five-part diptych (Fig. 6A).70 The Women at the Tomb and Christ’s Ascension represent one of what is arguably the finest, and certainly the most ambitious, of late antique ivories. Instead of the shorthand distinctions

First and foremost is the fact that nothing in the content of the ivories would have been entirely novel to the Christian viewer. He or she would be more or less familiar with their subject matter, the iteration of which constituted what, in the language of the Internet, we can call links, visual cues to both other representations and the interrelations between the successive scenes in the object at hand. There is no need to suppose a perfect identity between our own kinesthesia, our perception of movement, and that of its first beholders. But unless we presume that the diptychs were regarded as things utterly inert – the modern situation mentioned at the start of this

69 Once carved in ivory, such vestiges cannot be entirely erased. Two of the paws of the lioness beside Adam’s hand were similarly raised, leaving traces on the ground between their current positions and the back of the larger lion below. 70 Gaborit-Chopin 1978, no. 15; R. Kahsnitz in Baumstark 1998, no. 9. This may well have been the case, but, if so, the mortises in its lateral edges point to a form of construction distinct from that of other five-part diptychs where, as on Eǰmiacin and Saint-Lupicin, tenons project from the central plaque.

71 This is why it lacks most of the strapwork evident on the sandal of his left foot as well as those of the apostles. 72 A less significant adjustment is the modification of the hood of the first Mary, reduced from its originally peaked form to a more rounded shape in conformity with those of her companions. 73 Sennett 2008, 119-23.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD below, we do not interpret these zones as dissociated from each other: the emperors from whom their consular authority proceeds and the scenes of largesse and/or theatrical merriment that flow from their annual appointments are presented in a sort of cause-and-effect relationship. The “standard” Byzantine system of reading inscriptions on objects has been said to involve a motion from left to right at the top, down the right side, followed in the same direction at left, and finally from left to right at the bottom.77 If this was the case, the order was certainly not yet observed on late antique and early Byzantine ivories. If read in this way, the five-part diptych in the treasury of Milan cathedral78 would proceed from an extensive Nativity in the upper register, then down the right side with Mary’s entrance into the temple (clearly “out of sequence”), through Christ teaching the elders (an event connected only by this juxtaposition of two events in the same locale), and conclude with the Entry into Jerusalem (a sequence out of Gospel order). Had the triad of images on the left been designed to follow the series on the right, then we would advance to an (apocryphal) scene of the Annunciation at the Well, followed by the magi gazing at the star and the Baptism of Christ – a sequence inconsistent not only with that on the right, but one in which neither side leads to the Massacre of the Innocents in the lowest register, an image that pertains much more clearly to the Nativity in the uppermost tier.79

essay – then the originals were surely regarded as presenting a narrative. Connective tissues were woven between seemingly discrete scenes on diptychs like the Carrand: in all three registers gestures serve as pointers to the level above (Fig. 1B). Thus Publius’ open hand as he interrogates Paul directs attention to the preaching of the apostle enthroned in his lyre-backed chair while Paul’s perfection is attested by the viper that leaves him unharmed.74 In the lowest register one of the candidates for healing looks upward to the miracle in the centre of the plaque, even as his older companion instructs him to do. A more complex cognitive process is demanded of the viewer in the design of the Munich plaque (Fig. 6A). Wherever he or she begins to read, visual echoes, analogies and responses criss-cross the field of perception. The wakeful guard raises one hand to salute the women below. The head of his counterpart is downcast, mirroring the posture of the huddled apostle who shields his eyes from the event occurring just above him. The Marys, two of them raising their hands to their chins in fear or wonderment, look past the empty tomb with its closed door75 toward the angel who, instead of simply serving as the motionless object of the beholder’s gaze (Figs. 6A, 6B), informs them of the miracle and, with the same gesture, launches the great ascending axis that dominates the entire composition and imparts its final significance. In terms of visual organization, and rehearsing their construction, the five-part diptych, work quite otherwise. There, crowned by wreathed crosses displayed to the viewer as emblems of victory, the central figures gaze out at us, even as we contemplate them, personages in heavy frames that separate them from peripheral nuggets of information. That the latter are designed as units is evident not only from the fact that each has its own clearly defined border but is also subdivided, one story to a frame. Each event is an island, inhabited by scurrying persons whose busyness could hardly offer greater contrast to the iconic fixity of the figures at the heart of the diptychs’ archipelagoes. Yet of course the small scenes are not independent of each other, their insularity being bridged by our optical movements. These encourage the mind not only to find coherence among them but also to understand how they proceed from and express the immobile dignitaries at the node of each composition.

One can conclude either (or both) that the Middle Byzantine order of reading, as summarized above, did not yet apply to late antique objects; or that it is a misreading to construe physical direction as a metaphor for temporal sequence – in which case it can be said (no less justly than in the first alternative) that our minds work differently yet again. Nonetheless, our current cognitive system is not offended by the order of the scenes, or the disposition of the elements within them, on what was once the lowest register of the Murano diptych where the Annunciation at left is followed by the Trial by Water and the Journey to Bethlehem (Fig. 2C), all reading from left to right.80 Conflicting sequences likewise characterize the bas de pages of Saint-Lupicin and Eǰmiacin . On the former, the narrative runs consistently from left to right: below the enthroned Christ, he is shown (albeit beardless) 77

Pentcheva 2007, 114 note 22. Volback 1976, no. 119. Similar temporal “confusion” can be recognized in the “Cross” leaf where, for example, in the right triad, Christ offering wreaths to two of the Blessed (Volbach 1976) appears above the Last Supper, followed in turn by the Widow’s mite, neither of which events precedes the miracle at Cana shown in the lowest register. No less “inconsistent” is the distribution of the evangelist busts and the animal systems on the two halves of the diptych: on the Cross leaf the lion is directly (and “correctly”) above St. Mark, on the Lamb leaf the winged man is diagonally across from Matthew and the ox from Luke. On the various textual orders of the evangelists and their symbols see Galavaris 1979, 36-49 and Nelson 1980, 15-34. 80 Notwithstanding, the lowest register of the Ravenna leaf from the same diptych (Fig. 2A), moves from the right where Jonah is thrown overboard, to his repose under the pergola at left. Far from being the marker of an illustrated “Old Testament” source or an immediate Jewish model, this direction had been observed in much earlier Christian art, e.g. in a wall painting in the Callistus catacomb in Rome (Finney 1994, fig. 6. 32). 78 79

This mental unification raises, in turn, the question of sequence, the manner in which the leaves were (and are to be) read. Being larger and occupying less cluttered settings, the central figures are of course the first to be perceived, much as the consuls on their “tribunal” diptychs76 loom over the marginal elements in these plaques, the games over which they preside and even the imperial medallions above them. Yet despite the fact that we confront them, as it were, on the same eye level, even while we look “down” on the activities in the circuses 74

Maguire 1987, 367. Kahsnitz 1998, 86. 76 Gabelmann 1984. 75

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ANTHONY CUTLER: THE MATTER OF IVORY AND THE MOVEMENT OF IDEAS encountering the Samaritan woman (John 4: 5-29) before he raises Lazarus (John 11: 1-44), clearly in the order of the Gospel (Fig. 4A). On the other leaf, an extensive Entry into Jerusalem underlines the monumental Virgin, tended by angels, who presents her son (Fig. 4B). Both lower registers progress from left to right. The Entry on Eǰmiacin, while circumstantially different, still preserves this ductus, but, as if to foil any desire for uniformity of direction, the magi, followed by the angel that has guided them, advance toward Mary at their left, the back of her chair functioning effectively as one wall of a room in which Joseph is concealed (Fig. 3B). One could argue that the resulting sequence, a sort of boustrophedon, issues from the maker’s concern to accommodate the action of turning over the book to which these ivories hypothetically attached. Yet that would mean that Christ and the healing scenes that flank him were displayed on its front, not its back. Moreover, it is clearly an insufficient explanation, accounting as it does for only small portions of only these two diptychs. As to the relationship between the units that they comprise, it will be observed that the scenes on their lowest registers precede the events depicted above them. This should suffice to rule out the internal chronology of the gospel narratives as determinative in their overall planning. If we are not to resort to the nihilistic idea of mere bricolage, then it must be admitted that we can uncover no single intellectual principle underlying the design of our diptychs. Yet perhaps there was no such principle – a heretical concept from the point of view of scholarship, but perhaps another necessary aspect of ars nesciendi. The mind, after all, is not limited to the intellect and can make associations, as between the two leaves of the Carrand diptych (Figs. 1A, 1B), that are not the fruit of reasoning alone; and pursue journeys, as in the schema set out on the Munich plaque (Fig. 6A), that are not confined by the maps of modern logic. Instead of this process, and in an attempt to move beyond the traditional concern with localization, I have in mind the notion of “symphrasis,” a modern term even if it sounds as if it belonged to the lexicon of ancient Greek rhetoric.81 Whereas ekphrasis, a “speaking out,” is a verbal or written description of a work of art, symphrasis is a “speaking with” – an act in which form, idea and image co-exist in a single expression. A generation ago, reflecting on the way history is studied, Peter Brown opposed this “discipline of mind alone” to one that concerns itself with “the slow and erratic processes which go to the enrichment of the imagination”.82 It may be that the study of Christian diptychs can contribute to such an effort.

81

I borrow the term, and amend the author’s Greek, from a review by K. Grovier, “Budding more, and still more” of an exhibition of Cy Twombly’s paintings of roses at the Gagosian Gallery in London in 2009. See the Times Literary Supplement no. 5535, 1 May 2009, 17. 82 Brown 1982a, 3.

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FIGURE 1A. Florence, Bargello. Carrand diptych, Adam leaf.

FIGURE 1B. Florence, Bargello. Carrand diptych, Paul leaf.

FIGURE 1D. Florence, Bargello. Carrand diptych, Paul leaf, detail. FIGURE 1C. Florence, Bargello. Carrand diptych, Adam leaf, detail.

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ANTHONY CUTLER: THE MATTER OF IVORY AND THE MOVEMENT OF IDEAS

FIGURE 2A. Ravenna, Museo Nazionale. Murano diptych, Christ leaf.

FIGURE 2B. Manchester, John Rylands Library. Murano diptych, Virgin leaf, Magi and Nativity.

FIGURE 2D. St Petersburg, State Hermitage Museum. Murano diptych, Virgin leaf, plaque, Annunciation to Anne.

FIGURE 2C. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Murano diptych, Virgin leaf, plaque; Annunciation, Trial by Water, Journey to Bethlehhem.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD

FIGURE 3A. Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Christ leaf.

FIGURE 3B. Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Virgin leaf.

FIGURE 3C. Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Virgin leaf, detail, Journey to Bethlehem.

FIGURE 3D. Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Christ leaf, detail, Healing of the Paralytic.

FIGURE 3E. Erevan, Matenadaran. Diptych, Virgin leaf, detail, wreath-holding angel.

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ANTHONY CUTLER: THE MATTER OF IVORY AND THE MOVEMENT OF IDEAS

FIGURE 4A. Paris, BnF. Saint-Lupicin diptych, Christ leaf.

FIGURE 4B. Paris, BnF. Saint-Lupicin diptych, Virgin leaf.

FIGURE 4C. Paris, BnF. Saint-Lupicin diptych, Christ leaf, detail, Healing of the Blind Man.

FIGURE 4D. Paris, BnF. Saint-Lupicin diptych, Virgin leaf, detail, Trial by Water.

FIGURE 5A. Athens, Benaki Museum. Comb, Roma.

FIGURE 5B. Athens, Benaki Museum. Comb, Constantinopolis.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD

FIGURE 6A. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. The Woman at the Tomb; Christ’s Ascension.

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ANTHONY CUTLER: THE MATTER OF IVORY AND THE MOVEMENT OF IDEAS

FIGURE 6B. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. The Woman at the Tomb; Christ’s Ascension, detail, the Ascension.

FIGURE 6C. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum. The Woman at the Tomb; Christ’s Ascension., detail, the Women at the Tomb.

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The Art and Ritual of Manichaean Magic: Text, Object and Image from the Mediterranean to Central Asia Matthew P. Canepa THE REDISCOVERY OF MANICHAEAN ART AND MAGIC The purpose of this study is to investigate the global phenomenon of Manichaean magical practice. Studies of magic in the Classical, Semitic, Iranian and South Asian cultural spheres have, to a large extent, ignored the parallel traditions of Manichaean magic that grew up alongside these more dominant traditions. While an impressive body of literature has accumulated around pagan, Jewish, and Christian magic in the antique Mediterranean and Mesopotamia, since 1947 only a handful of articles have been published dealing with Manichaean magic. This is in part because of the small corpus of Manichaean magical texts that survive and because of the formidable challenges that the material’s array of languages and cultural influences presents. In this study I look globally at the different manifestations of magic in Manichaean communities from the earliest traces of evidence in late antique Egypt and Mesopotamia, to the last manifestations on the early Medieval Silk Road. In doing so I hope to understand what was a constant in Manichaean magic throughout this expanse of time and cultural and linguistic alterations and analyze how these cultural goods traveled and transformed across Eurasia.1 A handful of recent articles generated by the Egyptian finds have contributed to a significant recent reevaluation of Manichaean magic in general. To my knowledge, since W.B. Henning’s publication of the two Central Asian texts in 1947 there has only been one short article which has seriously dealt with (albeit limitedly) the Middle Iranian texts directly, rather than as a footnote to the Coptic or Mesopotamian material.2 The goal of this paper is, therefore, to situate the evidence from the two (perhaps three) fluorescences of Manichaean magic of which we have evidence, in their own specific temporal and cultural environments, and then put them into 1 On the problem of cross-cultural interaction see M.P. Canepa, “Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction Among Ancient and Early Medieval Visual Cultures”, in Theorizing Cross-Cultural Interaction among the Late Antique and Early Medieval Mediterranean, Near East and Asia, ed. M.P. Canepa, Washington D.C., Smithsonian Institution, 2010, 7-29. 2 D.A. Utz, “Powers, Watchers, and Archangels: the Paradox of Manichaean Magic”, in Philadelphia Seminar on Christian Origin 25, 1988, http://.ccat.sas.upenn.edu/psco/year25/8803c.shtml, 1-4.

dialogue with each other and with what one might see as a larger interlocking world of Eurasian magical practice. Manichaean magic presents an intriguing inversion of Late Antique Judeo-Christian magic. Whereas the canonical texts of Christianity or Judaism remained intact and in use to the present and the concomitant magical tradition had to be recovered archaeologically; in the case of Manichaeaism all texts, canonical or otherwise, were lost until their rediscovery in the early part of the last century in the deserts of Egypt and Central Asia. Despite the fact that Manicheaism once flourished from Rome to China, the bulk of extant records of Manichaean magical practice come from Central Asia and Egypt.3 The Central Asian material came to light with the corpus of Manichaean texts and art which early twentieth century Prussian archaeological expeditions recovered from ruined desert towns centered around the ancient oasis city of Qočo (a.k.a. Kocho) on the northern rim of the Tarim basin, the contemporary geographical site of Manichaeism’s Medieval_flowering.4 Four expeditions took place between 1902 and 1914 under the leadership of Albert Grünwedel and Albert von Le Coq.5 They recovered a large number of documents of a Manichaean, as well as Christian and Buddhist, provenance.6 These expeditions are called the “Turfan Expeditions” and the 3 This material along with a single Latin Manichaean Treatise on Biblical exegesis and church order found in Algeria, “the Tebessa Codex”, and a few hymn scrolls and a monastery typikon in Chinese, make up the primary sources. This is supplemented by the original sources of Manichaean scholarship, the Christian heresiological tractates. 4 This corpus is augmented by a few finds from Dunhaung and has been catalogued and defined by Zsuzsanna Gulácsi according to criteria designed to provide for a secure Manichaean rather than Christian or Buddhist origin. Z. Gulácsi, “Identifying the Corpus of Manichaean Art among the Turfan Remains”, in eds, P. Mirkecki and J. BeDuhn, Emerging from Darkness: Studies in the Recovery of Manichaean Sources, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1997, 177-215; idem, Mediaeval Manichaean Book Art: a codicological study of Iranian and Turkic illuminated book fragments from 8th-11th century east Central Asia, Nag Hammadi and Manichaean studies 54, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 2005. 5 A. von Le Coq, Türkische Manichaica aus Chotscho I, Berlin, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Georg Reimer, 1912; idem, Turkische Manichaica aus Chotscho II, Berlin, Akademie der Wissenschaften, Georg Reimer, 1919; idem, Türkische Manichaica aus Chotscho III, Berlin, Akademie der Wissenschaften in Kommission bei Georg Reimer, 1922. 6 H.J. Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Road: Gnostic Texts from Central Asia, New York, Harper Collins, 1993, xvii.

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD Mani Codex, CMC), a small codex that contains long quotations from five Jewish Adamite apocalypses, quotations from St. Paul, and, most importantly, the beginning of Mani’s gospel – one of his five canonical books.

documents found there are the “Turfan Texts”, named after the main find site. The documents recovered from Turfan consist of manuscripts in three Middle Iranian languages (Persian, Parthian, and Sogdian), Uighur (Old Turkish), and Chinese. This fluorescence of Manichaean texts and artwork is associated with Manichaeaism’s fluorescence there under the protection of the Uighur Qaghan, first during the period of the Uighur steppe empire (762-840 CE) and, after its destruction, during the smaller Uighur Kingdom of Qočo, which lasted until it was subsumed by the Mongol Empire.

How it came into the possession of the Papyrussammlung of the Universität Köln as well as its archaeological context is unknown. However its original editor, A. Hendrichs related that the remains of the codex might have come from the area around Luxor, and that “it is a reasonable guess that they were found in the vicinity of ancient Lycopolis, a stronghold of Manichaeism in Upper Egypt”.10 The CMC is particularly intriguing for the study Manichaean magic because its small size, only 38 x 45 mm (making it one of the smallest texts to survive from antiquity), is approximately that of Christian amulets like P. Ant. ii 54 (26 x 40 mm, Pater Noster) or P. Oxy. xvii 2065 (Ps. 90).11 The possible magical context of the CMC, as opposed to its textual contents, has remained largely unnoticed and unstudied.

From this corpus of Central Asian material only two fragments (M 781 and M 1202) have been both identified and published as Manichaean magical material. Both fragments are in a Middle Iranian language and no magical material has been yet identified in Old Turkish or Chinese. As a tantalizing but inaccessible supplement to this, in her 1960 catalogue of the Iranian Turfan texts, Mary Boyce listed five additional fragments that she tentatively identified as magical.7 However these fragments still remain unpublished and, unfortunately inaccessible. The present small but strikingly brilliant magical corpus has an equally abbreviated but exceptional bibliography. In 1947 W.B. Henning produced a detailed and remarkably learned article length-study of the two fragments and since then, despite serving in compilations of Manichaean literature as the sole representatives of Manichaean magic, they have not generated any further scholarly study nor has the subject of Central Asian Manichaean magic in general.8

The latest and still continuing development in the story of Manichaean textual discovery comes from the excavations at the Roman site of Kellis, the modern site of Ismant el-Karab, which lies within the oasis district of el-Dakhleh about 800 km south of Cairo.12 The modern town of Asyut covers the site of the ancient Lycopolis, long known from the Panarion of Epiphanius and other anti-Manichaean writings as an important center of the religion.13 From Kellis the literary remains of a fourth century Manichaean community has taken form in Coptic, Greek (totaling about 3000 papyrus fragments), and Syriac (consisting of several inscribed wooden boards).14 In addition to these scriptures, prayer books, psalms, and personal letters, Kellis has produced three texts, two Greek and one Coptic, which have been identified as magical.15

The story of the recovery of the Coptic and Greek texts is somewhat similar to the Central Asian material but on a smaller scale. Egypt has provided us with the remains of a smaller community and literary corpus than Central Asia and has not produced such elements liturgical implements, art, and religious structures to the degree that Turfan has. Nevertheless the Egyptian Manichaean material, which includes the Medinet Madi Library, the Cologne Mani Codex, and the Dakhleh Oasis material, offers new evidence for Manichaen spiritual practice including some evidence for magical practice. In 1929 a group of workman digging for fertilizer discovered a group of Coptic Manichaean, codices in a chest complete with their covers, at the site of Medinet Madi in the Fayyūm.9 These included a large collection of psalms, and the Kephalaia, an apocryphal work purporting to be Mani’s secret instruction to his inner circle of disciples. Supplementing this core find was the 1969 discovery of the Greek Codex Manichaeicus Coloniensis (Cologne

Several Mesopotamian incantation bowls provide an interesting but inconclusive supplement to the Egyptian and Central Asian material. In contrast to the majority of the apotropaic incantation bowls that were written in Judeo-Aramaic, Mandaean, and Syriac, nineteen have 10

A. Henrichs, “The Cologne Mani Codex Reconsidered”, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 83, 1979: 349; Lieu 1994, 80. Lieu 1994, 79. 12 Ibid., 87. 13 Ibid., 87 and for the spread of Egyptian Manichaeism, P. van Lindt, The Name of Manichaean Mythological Figures: a Comparitive Study on Terminolgy in the Coptic Sources, Weisbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1992, 225-231. For Kellis, C.A. Hope et. al., “Dakhleh Oasis Project: Ismant el-Kharab 1991-92”, Journal for the Scientific Study of Egyptian Antiquities, 19, 1989: 1-26; idem, “A Brief Report on the Excavations at Ismant el-Kharab 1991-1992”, Bulletin of the Australian Centre for Egyptology 4, 1993: 17-28. I.M.F. Gardner, “A Manichaean Liturgical Codex Found at Kellis”, Orientalia 62, 1993: 30-59. 14 Lieu 1994, 88. 15 For the Greek: I.M.F. Gardner, Kellis Literary Texts Volume 1 Oxbow Monograph 69, Oxford, Oxbow Books, 1996, 132-140; for the Coptic: P. Mirecki, I. Gardner, and A. Alock, “Magical Spell, Manichaean Letter”, in eds. P. Mirecki and J. BeDuhn, Emerging from Darkness: Studies in the Recovery of Manichaean Sources, Leiden, Brill, 1997, 132. 11

7 M 341 b, M 389, M 781, M 1202, M 1314, M 1315, M 5568, M 7917, and M 8430. M. Boyce, A Catalogue of the Iranian Manuscripts in Manichaean Script in the German Turfan Collection, Berlin, Akademie Verlag, 1960, 148. 8 W.B. Henning, “Two Manichaean Magical Texts and an Excursus on the Parthian Ending: -ēndeh”, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, 12, 1947: 39-66. The compilations: J.P. Asmussen, Manichaean Literature, Delmar, N.Y., Scholars Facsimiles and Reprints, 1975; Klimkeit 1993. 9 S.N.C. Lieu, Manichaeism in Mesopotamia and the Roman East, Leiden, Brill, 1994, 64.

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MATTHEW P. CANEPA: THE ART AND RITUAL OF MANICHAEAN MAGIC is possible that Manichaeans did not consider protections and medical magic to be in the same category. Late antique Manichaeans could have understood Mani’s polemic only as anti-Zoroastrian or anti-Magian, since the Persians and the Zoroastrian high priest Kerdīr in particular, were the ones who martyred Mani and were the religion’s persecutors in its Mesopotamian homeland.21 Mani’s own writings and saying indicate the intimate relationship between medicine and what is now considered magic. While at the Sasanian court, Mani described himself simply as ‘a doctor from Babylon,’ and made his final defense at court before his execution on the virtue of his medical-magical services: “Many and numerous were your servants whom I have [freed] of demons (dyw) and witches (drwxs). Many were those from whom I have averted the numerous kinds of fever. Many were those who were at the point of death, and I have revived them”.22 Like Jesus and the Buddha, whom Mani considered his heralds and predecessors, Mani performed many miracles, healings and exorcisms which religious and political adherents and opponents each defined differently as magical or religious according to their polemical bent.

been discovered written in a script that Manichaeans developed and used for the creation of their sacred texts.16 However, the script itself does not implicitly indicate that the consumer of the bowl was Manichaean, nor even that the magician who created the bowl was Manichaean. In all but one of the nineteen bowls, the contents of the invocations contain nothing explicitly Manichaean and seem to parallel the language, cosmology, and cast of characters of the Judeo-Aramaic, Mandaean and Syriac bowls. MANICHAEAN MAGIC AND MANICHAEISM’S HISTORY There are a number of possible reasons for such a small number of Manichaean magical texts to survive relative to the sizable corpus of the PGM and PDM in the Egyptian context, and the ubiquity of Buddhist dhāranī and rakΒa formulas in Central Asia. First of all Mani himself made it very clear that a devout Manichaean should have no dealings in the “magic arts and enchantments of darkness,” and one should shun those who do.17 According to Mani the soul of one who practices magic will be bound into the damned mass of matter along with the “King of the realms of Darkness” which after the Apocalypse, would be forever consigned to the darkness of the void after the apocalypse. The Old Turkish version of the Xwastwanift, or Confession of Sins, teaches the lay member of the Manichaean community to ask forgiveness for any breach of the Manichaean ŚikāΒpada, or ‘Ten Commandments,’ which included, according to the tenth century Persian geographer Ibn an-Nadim an injunction to refrain from practicing magic, especially enchantments and illusions.18 It is possible that Mani’s original identification of and hostility towards magic created an environment where magical practice was not quite as prevalent or as easy to ignore compared to other religious communities. However despite this direct injunction and rather terrifyingly explicit explanation of ignoring its consequences, Manichaeans obviously did indeed practice what fits both Mani’s and our modern definitions of magic. Any awareness of the injunction and the definitions of what actually counted as magic would likely have eroded even further as the religion moved east since these distinctions did not exist in Buddhism, a religion whose practices (both magical and “religious”) Manichaeism readily appropriated.

Barring any lasting impact of Mani’s original prohibition, the small number of magical texts could be explained partially by the fact that there might be other texts in the Egyptian and Central Asian material that could have belonged to a magical provenance but go unrecognized because of misidentification. When one scrutinizes the liturgical or hymnal texts one is reminded of the somewhat arbitrary divisions between magic and religious practice that govern these judgments, which, to a large degree, a Judeo-Christian mindset informs. Finally it could be that these texts do not survive because, as protective and medical spells, they were in active use on individual’s bodies. Manichaean Magic in its Global, Historical Context

It is highly possible that the Manichaeans of Kellis or the Tarim Basin, if they were aware of such prohibitions, did not consider what they practiced to be magic of the sort prohibited by Mani.19 According to Ibn an-Nadim, Mani specifically proscribed ‘enchantments and illusions’.20 It

From its inception the Manichaean religion depended on travelers for its propagation and demonstrated a remarkable ingenuity for syncretism. Mani, its founder, was born on the 14th of April 216 CE.23 He was of royal Arsacid descent through his maternal line and raised in a Jewish-Christian baptismal community in the Southern region of Mesopotamia in the vicinity of Ctesiphon.24 Mani spent his life spreading his religious message throughout the Sasanian empire (224-651CE), even gaining royal patronage during the reigns of Šābuhr I (r. 241-272) and Hormizd I (reg. 272-273).25 He sent missionaries as far west as Alexandria, and as far east as the KuΒāna kingdom. In 241 Mani sailed to India. He

16 J.D. BeDuhn, “Magical Bowls and Manichaeans”, in eds. M. Meyer and P. Mirecki, Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, Leiden, Brill, 1995, 419 and 427. 17 Mirecki et. al. 1997, 10-11. 18 Utz 1988. P.A. Mirecki, “Manichaean Allusions to Ritual and Magic: Spells for Invisibility in the Coptic Kephalaia”, in The Light and the Darkness Studies in Manichaeism and its World, eds. P.A. Mirecki and J. Beduhn, 173-80, Leiden, Brill, 2001. 19 Mirecki et. al. 1997, 10-11. 20 Utz 1988.

21 J.M. and S.N.C. Lieu, “Mani and the Magians (?)- CMC 137-140”, in eds. A. van Tongerloo and S. Giversen, Manichaica Selecta I, Louvain, International Association of Manichaean Studies, 1993, 210-13. 22 M3 V as quoted by J. BeDuhn 1995, 426; for his discussion of Mani as physician, 425-7. 23 K. Rudolph, Gnosis. The Nature and History of an Ancient Religion, Edinburgh, T. & T. Clark, 1983, 328. 24 Ibid. 25 H.-J. Klimkeit, “Manichaean Kingship: Gnosis at Home in the World”, Numen 29.1, 1982: 17-32.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD an unusual exception to this linguistic division of labor and appear in both Greek and Coptic.

travelled to the southern Indus valley and there converted a Buddhist king.26 Under Wahrām I (r. 273-276) Mani fell out of royal favor due to intrigue on the part of the Zoroastrian clergy and died in prison during the spring of 276.27 His missionary work, however, was continued in both the east and west.

Manichaeans integrated themselves into Egyptian society. There they participated in both Egypt’s spiritual revolutions and on the more mundane level of rural village life. Manichaeans distinguished themselves in the Late Antique Egyptian phenomenon of ascetic desert monasticism and patristic authors point the differences in their rather impressive yet Godless austerities and those of Christian holy men.35 Like Christians, Egypt’s Manichaean communities suffered from the persecutions of the emperor Diocletian (302 CE), and it is possible that the community at Kellis might have been formed by refugees from the original center at Lycopolis.36 Once settled there their letters give the impression that the community was well integrated into normal village life.37 The archaeological finds from Kellis include a sample of everyday accoutrements and as is to be expected Manichaean material culture is largely indistinguishable from that of the rest of the village. Kellis’ inhabitants appeared to have abandoned the site sometime around 400 CE after which time sand gradually covered the remnants of the buildings.

The Manichaean community at Kellis owed its origin to missionaries from Manichaeism’s original Mesopotamian communities and the material found there derives from members of a community that flourished during the religion’s period of growth and evangelical success in the fourth century.28 Manichaean missionaries most likely relied on the established trade routes between Rome and the Persian Gulf and having secured the protection of the Arab client rulers of Palmyra, the Lakhmids, made Syria their base of operations for further missionary excursions to the west.29 The languages of the Egyptian communities, Syriac, Greek, and Coptic, reflect this progression. The first generation of Manichaean missionaries in Egypt seems to have focused on translating their faith into a native discourse.30 Bilingualism, even trilingualism, was a common phenomenon in Upper Egypt and there seems to have been no shortage of capable translators within the clergy of Manichaean communities as professional scribes traveled abroad to translate Manichaean Syriac texts.31 The evidence at Kellis suggests that there was both direct translation from Syriac into Coptic, and Greek into Coptic, as well as composition of new literature in the Coptic idiom; there is even evidence that some members of the community were in the process of learning Latin.32 Syriac seems to have been confined mainly to the scriptorium.33 Whereas the Greek documentary texts consist of prosaic formal letters or economic legal texts, thus devoid of Manichaean terms and sentiment, the Coptic documentary texts from Kellis are mostly personal letters, and it is in these that Kellis’ Manichaeans more often express the terms and sentiments of their religion.34 The magical texts present

Like the Egyptian Manichaeans the Sogdians, an eastern Iranian people, were often converted by Manichaeism’s early missionary efforts and themselves became instrumental in spreading the Manichaean religion even further east. Mani’s disciple, Mar Ammo, the missionary to the east, was active in Abarshahr and Merv where a fragment of a missionary history claims that he “ordained numerous kings and rulers”.38 Although the triumph of Christianity and the rise of Islam ultimately persecuted the Manichaean religion out of existence in the Mediterranean and Middle East, it continued to thrive in the Far East, even China, for another thousand years. During the time period in which the Middle Iranian spells took shape, Central Asia became the religion’s new center. In Central Asia the Religion of Light overshadowed the Nestorian Christian Church and rivaled Buddhism.39 The Sogdians were a merchant people acting as middlemen on the Silk Route between the Persians, Romans, Central Asian nomadic kingdoms, and Chinese.40 From the third century through the peak of their expansion in the seventh century, there were many Sogdian colonies extending from their homeland near the Aral Sea into the

26

Rudolph 1983, 330. 27 Ibid. 28 Gardner 1996, vi. 29 A fragment of a Sogdian missionary history describes how the Manichaean missionary Addā successfully cured the sister of the wife of a Caesar (Sogd. Kysr). This most likely refers to the Palmyrene client rulers. Gallienus granted Odaenathus, the Emir of Palmyra the title of Caesar following his victory over the invasion of Šābuhr I. A portion of a Coptic missionary history describes how the Lahkmid ruler invited the Manichaeans into his kingdom on the grounds that they were healers. He later became a great protector of the sect and granted them help in all parts of his kingdom. Lieu points out that Egypt, for a short time, fell under Palmyrene influence (269 CE) and this could have facilitated Manichaeism’s entrance. Lieu 1994, 28, 30 and 35. 30 Gardner 1996, vii. 31 Lieu 1994, 90 and Mirecki et. al., 7. 32 When translating the biblical quotations embedded in the Cologne Codex from Syriac, the translator took care to consult the standard Greek versions of the time and did not translate the Biblical quotations directly from Syriac. Lieu 1994., 91-2 and Mirecki et. al. 1997, 7. 33 Ibid. 34 Ibid.

35

Lieu 1994, 94-6 and 99. Ibid., 97. 37 Ibid., 98. 38 Klimkeit 1982b, 20. 39 Ibid., 214-15. 40 The Sogdians trading network has been the best studied of such networks: É. de la Vaissière, Sogdian Merchants: A History, Leiden, Brill, 2005, 35-37. J.K. Skaff, “The Sogdian Trade Diaspora in East Turkestan during the Seventh and Eighth Centuries”, Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 46.4, 2003: 475-524. See above for further bibliography on the Indian Ocean and Silk Road trade. Semenov 1996, 4. R.N. Frye, The Heritage of Central Asia, Princeton, Marcus Wiener Publishers, 1996, 187. 36

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MATTHEW P. CANEPA: THE ART AND RITUAL OF MANICHAEAN MAGIC interior of China.41 The Christian, Buddhist, and Manichaean texts found in Turfan and Dunhuang were the products of these expatriate Sogdians’ missionary activity who, far from home, devoted themselves to foreign religions and combined their merchant activity with missionary activity.42 Although Sogdians were also the great middle-men of the Buddhist religion, Manichaeism came to be regarded as a characteristically Sogdian religion.43 The Sogdians, either as silk-road merchant lay-people or Manichaean clergy, were thus mediators of culture between east and west; portions of the magical material were an aspect of their cultural imports.44

empire in 840 CE.50 This area was populated predominantly by Indo-European peoples like Tocharians and Scythians.51 The Sogdians, of course, were another such group that dwelt here in trading colonies along this northern section of the Silk Road. In 840 CE, after their defeat by the Khirghiz and the breakup of their once powerful steppe empire centered in Mongolia, a portion of the Uighurs migrated to the relative periphery of their former empire: the Tarim basin oasis-states.52 They made Qočo the new capital of a Uighur kingdom and the northern section of the Silk Road took on a Turkic character. This kingdom gained recognition from the Chinese in 856 and lasted for almost four hundred years by paying tribute when necessary to more powerful neighbors and minding their own business politically. The kingdom survived until 1209 CE when it was peacefully incorporated into the Mongol Empire.53

Manicheaism owed its Medieval flowering and propagation to a Turkish people: the Uighurs. After the seventh century collapse of the second Turkish Steppe empire the Uighurs assumed the mantle of Mongolian and Central Asian power from the succeeding empires of other altaic peoples: the Hephthalites and Turgesh (640 CE).45 The Chinese “recognized” the Uighur khan who had propped up the foundering Tang Emperors when, on several occasions, other bellicose barbarians assailed the Middle Kingdom and internal insurrections threatened to destabilize its social order.46 The result of one of these campaigns was particularly fateful for a religious as well as political outcome. The Tang government had requested the Uighur army to help suppress a revolt by a halfSogdian usurper, An Lushan.47 In 762 the Sino-Uighur forces took Louyang and it was here that the Uighur khan, Bogu Qan (Mou-yu in the Chinese sources) encountered Sogdian Manichaean Electi. Subsequently, Bogu Qan embraced the Manichaean religion and made the Religion of Light the official religion of his vast steppe empire.48

The Uighur overlords ruled an extremely diverse population who maintained a variety of cultural and religious traditions. These included, “West-Turken, Sogder, Chinesen, Mongolen, und Tocharer, geringerer Anzahl auch Tibeter, Si-Ha, ferner, Syrer und anderer, westliche, nestorianische Christen und Kaufleüte”.54 The proper names found in contracts excavated from Turfan attest to the diversity both of Qočo’s residents and temporary merchant population. These names are preserved in Turkish, Chinese, Mongolian, MiddleIranian, Syriac, and Arabic, while Uighur is the language of the contracts.55 Whereas Uighur eventually became the language of politics and trade in Qočo, Middle Iranian languages retained their dominance as liturgical languages despite a growing use of Uighur for this function too. In this regard, the magical material resembles the religious material, and, as always, it is debatable whether there should be a division between them. All of the extant Manichaean spells are in western Iranian languages, the ‘Latin’ of the eastern Manichaean church, which would suggest that they were a reflection of an older, or conservative, strain of Manichaean religious life.

Various Manichaean centers along the Silk Road, though on the peripheries of the Uighur empire, were overcome with a new zeal for the religion. A colophon written in Middle Persian and preserved in a hymnbook lists such Manichaean principalities and rulers. Written during the reign of Bogu Qan’s tenth successor (lt. eighth, early ninth centuries CE), the colophon mentions not only him but also the rulers of various small kingdoms along the northern Silk Road, including the rulers of the main cities in the Turfan Oases at that time.49 As this colophon attests, in the Oases of the Tarim Basin small cities already existed before the destruction of the Uighur

Manichaean Belief and Society Manichaeism proclaimed two basic doctrines: the doctrine of the Two Principles and the doctrine of the Three Times.56 The first doctrine refers to Manichaeism’s 50 P. Zieme, Religion und Gesellschaft im Uighurischen Königreich von Qoco: Kolophone un Stifter des alttürkischen buddhistischen Schrifttums aus Zentralasien, Opladen, Westdeutscher Verlag, 1992), 9. 51 Ibid. 52 Frye 1996, 236. 53 Due to their respectable steppe pedigree and considerable bureaucratic skills, the Mongols made great use of the Uighurs in running his empire. The Mongols took over the Uighur script for Mongolian and put the Uighur’s chancery practice and scribal tradition to use in the organization of their empire. A.V. Gabain, Das Leben im uighurischen Königreich von Qoco, Weisbaden, Otto Harrossowitz, 1973, 15-16 and 19. D. Morgan, The Mongols, Cambridge, Blackwell, 1986, 45 and 67. 54 Gabain 1973, 31. 55 Ibid. 56 Klimkeit 1983, 5.

41

Vaissière 35-37; Frye 1996, 185-7. Frye 1996, 5 and 185-7 C. Mackerras, The Uighur Empire According to the T’ang Dynastic Histories, Columbia, University of South Carolina Press, 1972, 10. 44 Whereas the Sogdians are famous for importing Manichaeaism, Nestorian Christianity, and re-importing Buddhism to the east, silk, spices, and chess were among their imports to the west. Semenov 1996. 45 D. Sinor, “The Uighur Empire in Mongolia”, in The Cambridge History of Inner Asia, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, 317. 46 Mackerras 1972, 14-24. 47 Klimkeit 1982b, 21. 48 Ibid., 217. 49 Klimkeit 1993, 272. 42 43

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD And to dear brother Zurvāndād I am very, very grateful because he, in his goodness has watched over all the brothers. And I have now dispatched him to Zamb, and sent him to dear Mār Ammō, and to (the province of) Chorasan. He has taken (The Book of) the Giants and the Ardahang with him. I have made another (copy of the Book of) the Giants and the Ardahang in Merv.63

belief in a strict universal dualism. The basic division was between good and evil. From this followed other dualities that structured Manichaean belief and articulated it symbolically: light and dark, matter and spirit, saved and damned. Humanity’s present condition is a mixture of the two principles whereupon each human consists of fragments of the primordial light trapped in matter. This is the source of all suffering. Salvation from this fallen state can only be achieved through a combination of knowledge of the reality of this mixed condition and correct behavior in one’s life. In Eastern Manichaeism this was often characterized in the Buddhist terms “wisdom and skillful means”.57

Such a scribe included our Middle Persian fever spell on a page of a book which, judging from the few lines of another spell or invocation preserved above it, he seems to have intended as a sort of Central Asian Manichaean version of the Egyptian PGM/PDM ‘cookbook’.64

The doctrine of the Three Times refers to Manichaeism’s sacred narrative.58 The first “time” refers to the primordial state of universe where good and evil were separate. The second time refers to the present where, due to a cosmic accident they have mingled, and the third refers to Manichaeism’s eschatological conviction that eventually after a final battle, all light will be purified from matter and the two will remain separate for eternity. Mani set out and explained this fundamental doctrine in an intricate mythological system that assimilated different elements of various mythical traditions. The Kingdom of Light is ruled by the Father of Greatness and is inhabited by divine beings that have emanated from the Father.59 These emanations aid mankind in the struggle to separate light from matter, included in which are several sacred personages appropriated from other religions. Mani considered himself to be the successor of earlier “buddhas”, Śākyamuni, and Jesus, who were sent during their respective eras to awaken mankind.60

Manichaeism in the Uighur kingdom of Qočo developed amidst a diverse religious atmosphere. Despite fragmentary sources, we know that a small Nestorian Christian community existed in both the Uighur steppe empire and kingdom of Qočo.65 Although the Manichaean creed was the official state religion, Buddhism was the faith most widely diffused in the Tarim basin. Whereas Christianity’s Central Asian presence was limited to small communities ever peripheral to that religion’s development, the Buddhist communities in the Tarim Basin enjoyed a long and prominent position in the diffusion and evolution of Mahayana thought, literature, and art. The multilingual scholar-monk of these Central Asian Buddhist centers translated the sutras from their original Sanskrit or Prakrit into the Tarim vernaculars.66 On a local level, in the Kingdom of Qočo, the Manichaean religion competed with Buddhism for adherents and the favors of the Khan, who was greatly revered by Qočo’s Buddhist community as well.67 This environment engendered an atmosphere of simultaneous syncretism and competition. In keeping with the general spirit of the Manichaean religion, the Manichaeans of Qočo adopted some of the same practices as Buddhism. Like the literary appropriations, however, the use of temple banners, cave sanctuaries, even Buddhist derived iconography, expressed entirely Manichaean concepts

Manichaean society was divided into two groups: the “the elect” and “the auditors”.61 Each group conformed to a different set of commandments and cultic practices. The electus was the highest grade of Manichaean society, and his or her duty was to live a pure life, pray, and importantly for this study, copy books. The auditores were pious lay-people who supported the Elect economically in return for religious instruction and cultic service, such as confessional absolution. This injunction to provide for the elect is present in writings from the Mediterranean to China.62 In a situation similar to Egypt, there seems to have been a class of multilingual scribes, drawn from the electi, who were responsible for the religion’s propagation. The most direct evidence comes from letters that the clergy-scribes wrote to one another listing texts taken with missionaries:

63

Translation in Klimkeit, 1993, 260. See translation below. The Syrian Katholikos, Timotheus, informed his Bishop Sergios that he had sent a Metropolitan to the land of the Turks and had also prepared to annoint one for the Land of the Tibetans. They built a church in front of the walls of Qočo no later than 900, and decorated it with frescos. G. Uray, “Zu den Spuren des Nestorianismus und des Manichaismus im alten Tibet (8.-10. Jh.)”, in eds, W. Heissig and H.-J. Klimkeit, Synkretismus in den Religionen Zentralasiens, Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1987, 198. W. Hage, Wolfgang, “Das Christentum in der Turfan-Oase”, in eds, W. Heissig and H.-J. Klimkeit, Synkretismus in den Religionen Zentralasiens, Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1987, 46. See also W. Hage, “Kulturelle Kontakts des ostsyrischen Christentums in Zentralasien”, in ed. René Lavenant S.J., Symposium Syriacum 1980: Les Contacts du Monde Syriaque avec les Autres Cultures Orientalia Christiana Analecta 221, Rome, Pontificia Institutum Studiorum Orientalium, 1983, 143-59. 66 H.G. Franz, Kunst und Kultur entlang der Seidenstrasse, Graz, Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1987, 80. 67 Klimkeit 1988, 273. 64 65

57

H.-J. Klimkeit, “Buddhistische Übernahmen im iranischen und turkischen Manichäismus”, in eds. W. Heissig and H.J. Klimkeit, H.-J., Synkretismus in den Religionen Zentralasiens, Wiesbaden, Otto Harrassowitz, 1987, 60-1. 58 H.-C. Puech, “The Concept of Redemption in Manichaeism”, in The Mystic Vision: Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, ed. J. Campbell, Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1983, 267. 59 Ibid., 267-8. 60 Ibid., 282. 61 Klimkeit 1993, 20-1. 62 For the Mediterranean: St. Augustine, Contra Faustum, 277.21. For China: E. Chavannes and P. Pelliot, “Un traité manicheen retrouvé en Chine”, Journal Asiatique 11.1, 1913: 573.

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MATTHEW P. CANEPA: THE ART AND RITUAL OF MANICHAEAN MAGIC despite their superficial similarity to Buddhist material.68 The appropriation of Buddhist magical texts, such as that of Mahāmāyūri or Candragarbhasūtra that we see in the Turfan magical material, is entirely consonant with this sort of selective appropriation and incorporation of ritual paraphernalia.

such as the Mani’s own writings and letters to the community as well as certain hymns, were present in all communities from the earliest days of the religion. Likewise certain ritual traditions took place in every Manichaean community from late antiquity to the Late Middle Ages, and were attested to by such geographically and temporally disparate writers as Augustine (354-430 CE) and Ahmad Ibn-Tayyib (d. 898).73 Magical practices follow a slightly different pattern.

Manichaean Ritual Practice What is known of the Manichaean liturgical life is incomplete and reconstructed largely from the Turfan manuscript fragments. The cult’s most important forms of expression were regular prayers, services, and fasts. Unlike Christianity it was not normally centered around sacraments: activities, like the Christian mass, effecting a breach in the divide between heaven and earth which would bestow transformitive divine grace on the participant. Unlike Buddhism, its liturgies were not the “skillful means” by which a transformation of an individual’s consciousness might be achieved. Rather Manichaeism’s daily cult activity consisted of fasting and prayer accompanied by the singing of hymns. These activities were essentially instructive and commemorative.

MULTIPLE CULTURAL CONTEXTS THE INTERRELATIONS OF MANICHAEAN MAGIC

AND

Manichaean Magic in Late Roman Egypt I will analyze the Egyptian material first because of its antiquity and the possibility that it participated in a tradition that eventually informed the Central Asian material. The Egyptian Manichaean magical corpus as I am defining it here consists of 1) the Cologne Manichaean Codex, 2) P. Kell. Copt. 35, 4) P. Kell. Gr. 91, 3) P. Kell. Gr. 92, and 4) P. Kell. Gr. 94. Within the Egyptian material I will deal first with the Codex Manichaeichus Coloniensis then the Kellis fragments whose magical context is more secure. It is uncertain and unfortunately unprovable whether the patrons of the CMC commissioned or used the miniature codex as an amulet considering we know nothing of its context and its text contains no solid clues of its use. There are other possible functions that its small size would have made possible (portability on missionary activity, to be easily hidden during persecutions, a display of scribal virtuosity for the religion’s competitors) any of which could function concurrently with a magical use. In this section I merely consider a magical function to supplement the long-studied textual significance of its contents.

According to the Arabic historical work, the Kitab alFihirst, four to seven daily prayers were prescribed (for elect and auditors respectively).69 Such prayers included hymns of praise to the Father of Light and the saving deities, especially Jesus and Mani. According to H.Ch. Puech, the recitation or singing of hymns was the principle manifestation of Manichaean piety. Certainly prayers also played a role in weekly Monday services, along with hymns, scripture readings, and sermons. Although it is possible that there was a place for spontaneous prayer, on the whole Manichaean spiritual life depended on the traditional patterns of prayer that had developed over the course of centuries.70 Periods of fasting were superimposed on this weekly cultic routine. There were seven two-day yimki fasts every year, which had developed out of five two-day periods of commemoration of specific “martyrs” of the Church.71 In the seven yimki days, specific deities and Church leaders were commemorated side by side. There was also a thirty day fast in the Spring which led up to the religion’s high holiday, the Bema.

Several intriguing parallels between the codex and contemporary Christian practices emerge upon comparison. Amulets (phylaktēria) were common throughout the fourth and fifth centuries especially in the lower strata of society despite the fact that the Christian Church Fathers and councils routinely condemned their use.74 The CMC’s small size, only 38 x 45 mm (making it earliest days of the religion the nature of the Bema liturgy is not entirely clear, as its characteristics are known primarily from the manuscript fragments from late antique Egypt and the Tarim Basin, and secondarily through Christian apologetic material and Arabic historical works. For the Coptic Bema hymns see G. Wurst, Der Bemafest der ägyptischen Manichäer, Altenberge, Oros Verlag, 1995. For the Central Asian material see Klimkeit 1993. For the Latin apologetic material see J. Zycha, S. Aureli Augustini De utilitate credendi, De duabus animabus, Contra Fortunatum, Contra Adimantum, Contra epistulam fundamenti, Contra Faustum CSEL 25.1, 1891; S. Aureli Augustini Contra Felicem, De Natura boni, Epistula Secundini, Contra Secundinum accedunt Euodii De fide contra Manichaeos Vienna, CSEL 25.2, 1892. Greek apologetic material see A. Adam, Texte zum Manichaismus (Kleine Texte für Vorlesungen und Übungen 175), Berlin, 1969. For the Arabic sources see G. Flugel, Mani, seine Lehren und seine Schriften, Leipzig, 1862; K. Kessler, Forschungen uber die manichäische Religion, Berlin, 1889. 73 Wurst 1995, 22 and 28. 74 Such as Severus of Antioch (PO 29.1:79 [583]f) and the council of Laodikeia I, canon 36). G. Vikan, “Amulet (phylaktērion)”, in The

In cult practice Manichaeism adopted many of the outward rituals and conventions of its religious competitors, such as hymn singing or even ritual meals. “The Manichaean church recognized both public and individual confessions: every Monday the congregation confessed to the Elect: and all confessed publicly to Mani- whose spirit was believed to attend the ceremonyat the end of the thirty days preceding the festival of the Bema”.72 Elements of the Manichaean body of scripture, 68

Klimkeit 1987, 60. Ibid. 70 Ibid., 24. 71 Klimkeit 1993, 23. 72 Peuch 1983, 311. Note on the Bema: Although the Bema festival was celebrated by Manichaeans from North Africa to Central Asia, from the 69

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD one of the smallest texts to survive from antiquity), approximates that of Christian amulets like P. Ant. ii 54 (26 x 40 mm, Pater Noster) or P. Oxy. xvii 2065 (Ps. 90).75 However the CMC differs from such Christian amuletic use of scripture in the sheer volume of scripture that it employs; it contains almost two hundred pages. The only parallel that is available, Christian, Manichaean, or otherwise, is unfortunately textual rather than artifactual. John Chrysostomos (ca. 340/50-407 CE) alludes to a similar Christian phenomenon in his seventysecond homily on the Gospel of Matthew.76 In it John describes the vain practices of the Scribes and Pharisees, “proof of their wickedness (hē tēs kakias autōn tekmēria ēn)”.77 John explains that the Scribes and the Pharisees wore phylacteries on their hands on which they had inscribed “God’s marvelous works”. He describes these phylacteries as “little books” (bibloi mikroi) which were worn, “as many women now wear the Gospels hung on their necks (ōs pollai nun tōn gunaikōn Euaggelia tōn trakhēlōn exartōsai ekhousi)”.78

Mani’s words would provide his presence and a corresponding prophylaxis, just as the Christian analogue of the Gospels where the book that contained Christ’s word provided his presence to the congregation.81 Although Manichaeans were inveterate appropriators of other religion’s liturgical and artistic elements but it is likely that the use of miniature books would have rested in the more ecumenical common ground of ritual practice than anything defined by orthodoxy.82 This is as far as I am prepared to go in reconstructing a magical context for the CMC with available evidence. However there is one last point that needs to be made. Considering the enormous cost of a book’s creation, the use of the CMC as an amulet, like the use of the Gospels by Chrysostom’s Christian women, would have been a practice reserved only for those of the faithful who were extremely wealthy. A multiplicity of uses would increase the value of such a codex to the relatively modest means of the Egyptian Manichaean communities. Several Greek amulet texts (P. Gr. 91, 92, and 94) found in the Manichaean community of Kellis parallel the CMC in their assumption that there was power inherent in wearing Holy Scripture. The texts seem to parallel Manichaean hymns or scripture such as the Kephalia.83 For example P. Gr. 91 invokes several epithets of

Despite the fact that the practice met John’s disapproval (who seems to be continuing the Classical literary trope of women as especially susceptible to mageia) the relative size of a miniature Gospel book would match that of the Manichaean codex. The way contemporary Christians employed miniature Gospel books as phylaktēria could provide a possible context for the CMC and seems to be consonant with the esteem that Manichaeans held for books. Augustine remarked on the immense resources that the Manichaeans put into the creation of their books and the high standard of Manichaean illuminated manuscripts was so well known in the Medieval Muslim world that it became an aphorism. The Islamic writer al-Jahiz (died 868) reports that Ibrahim al-Sindhi once said to him: “I wish the Zindiks (the Manichaeans) were not so intent upon spending much money buying clean white paper and using shining black ink, and that they would not lay such great store on beautiful script, and in inciting their scribes to zeal; for truly, no paper that I have seen is comparable to the paper of their books and no beautiful script with that which is used there”.79 Manichaean communities often invested the entirety of their resources into the creation of manuscripts and books took on an iconic significance in the highest of their rituals: the Bema Liturgy where the book provided Mani’s personal presence for the congregation.80 In this context a book of

thousand lost, another thousand recovered; for they will find them at the end. They will kiss them and say: ‘O Wisdom of Greatness, O Armor of the Apostle of Light! When you were lost…where did they find you?’…And you shall find them reading them aloud, uttering the name [of each book] among them: the name of its lord…and the name of those who gave all [for it to be written], and the name of the scribe who wrote it…and of the one who punctuated it…” (Homilies 24.13-25.19 quoted in P. Mirecki and J. BeDuhn, “Emerging from Darkness: Manichaean Studies at the End of the 20th Century”, in Mirecki and BeDuhn 1997, xii. 81 Whereas other books were used only in reference to what was inside them the Gospel lectionary was used in rituals with reference to its objecthood. Because the Gospel contained the Word of God, the Byzantine and Armenian Christians treated the Gospel Lectionary as an eikon of Christ, with all the significance that icons carried. When the Lectionary was displayed, the faithful kissed it (aspasmos) and bowed before it (proskynesis ) much like an icon. J. Anderson, The New York Cruciform Lectionary, University Park, Penn State Press, 1992, 5-7. C. Rapp, “Christians and their Manuscripts in the Greek East in the Fourth Century”, in eds. G. Cavalo, G. de Gregorio, and M. Maniaci, Scritture, libri e testi nelle aree provinciali di Bizanzio, vol I, Spoleto, 1991, 12760. Fr. K.H. Maksoudian, “The Gospel Book in Armenian Worship”, eds. T.F. Mathews and R.S. Wieck, in Treasures in Heaven: Armenian Illuminated Manuscripts, New York, 1994, 35. 82 There was a great deal of exchange between Manicheaism, Christianity, and Buddhism on both an artistic and textual level. In most cases Manichaeism was the assimilator. Manichaeism, as embodied in its Parthian and Uighur writings, utilized Sanskrit-derived Buddhist terms to express its ideas such as ‘buddha’, which could refer to Mani, Jesus and Śākyamuni, or parinirvāna, used interchangeably with crucifixion, to refer to Mani’s death. In keeping with the general spirit of the Manichaean religion, the Manichaeans of Qočo adopted some of the same practices as Buddhism. Like the literary appropriations, however, the use of temple banners, cave sanctuaries, even Buddhist derived iconography, expressed entirely Manichaean concepts despite their superficial similarity to Buddhist material; H.-J. Klimkeit, “Buddhistische Übernahmen im iranischen und türkischen Manichaismus”, in Heissig and Klimkeit 1987, 60-1; Rudolph 1983, 330. 83 See Gardner’s commentaries on the texts for the parallels: I. Gardner, Kellis Literary Texts, I, Oxford, Oxbow Books, 1996, 134-6 (P. Gr. 91), 130 (P. Gr. 92), and 144 (P. Gr. 94).

Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1991, 1: 82. 75 Lieu 1994, 79. 76 Ibid., 80. 77 In. Mt. Hom. 83: 1-3, Patrologiae Graecae 58.669. 78 Ibid. 79 Quoted in Kessler 1889, 336. 80 One of Mani’s homilies uses books as an expression of hope and as an investment for the future survival of the religion as well as alluding to the great cost and value of book. “A thousand books will be preserved…they will come into the hands of the just and the faithful: [the] Gospel and the Treasury of Life, the Pragmateia and the Book of Mysteries, the Book of Giants and the Epistles, the Psalms and [the] Prayers of my lord, his Icon and his Revelations, his Parables and his Mysteries…How many will be lost? How many will be destroyed? A

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MATTHEW P. CANEPA: THE ART AND RITUAL OF MANICHAEAN MAGIC Valens, and Pshai/Psai) and the recipient’s address all written parallel to the fibers.89 The writer, Vales, seems to have to deliberately arranged the ritual text on the papyrus in relation to the letter in such a way that upper half of the papyrus sheet could be torn away to provide a ready made-made amulet for Pshai.90 Mirecki et. al. suggest that Vales might have copied the ritual text from some sort of magical textual source, either another amulet or a source-book and in the letter Vales mentions that he has around his house another amulet text which he promised to send to Pshai as soon as he would find where he misplaced it.91 As Mirecki translated it:

Manichaean divinities entreats them for deliverance (Gardner’s translation): “I glorify you: the firstborn word; the father of the intellectual man; the mother of life; the first apostleship; the splendour of the enlighteners; our holy spirit; the salt of the church; the pilot of goodness! Make us worthy to be your faithful: those who are justified in you; those who are renewed in you; those who are perfected in you; those who are rejoicing in you; those who are sanctified in you; those who are sober in you; those who hasten to you! Deliver us. Amen”.84

1/01. To my lord brother Psais, 1/02. (from )Vales your brother. 2/01. I call upon You, the one who rules, 2/02. the one sitting above 2/03. the Cheroubin and Sarouphin, the one who stands (in judgement) 2/04. over disputes and quarrels, the one who has stopped 2/05. the winds with his great power. Just 2/06. as you made the Land of Egypt lord, you cast 2/07. quarrels over the Chaldeans. You (pl.) 2/08. are the ones over whom I utter these names, 2/09. you (sg.) [are the one who makes (?)] what is generated black (?), Let “so & so” the son 2/10. of “so & so”, let their heart be black for each 2/11. other. Oh timely (?) natron of Arabia! Just 2/12. as you will wash every thing, (so) you can 2/13. wash (away) the desire which is between them for each 2/14. other. And you are the burning of the mustard, 2/15. as you can put burning and scorching into their heart 2/16. for each other. The house in which I will place 2/17. you (sg.), do not come out of it without having 2/18. instigated a dispute and a 2/19. quarrel with thundering. And four times (speak) 2/20. the other (man’s name), four-times (speak the

The ‘firstborn word’ (here ton prōtotokon logon, in Coptic Shamise) is an epithet for the first man and Jesus; the ‘Mother of Life’ (tēn mētera tēs zōēs) is the female partner the high god, and ‘the first apostleship’ (tēn prōtēn apostolēn) could refer to either of the true apostles - Jesus or Mani, etc.85 The texts themselves are thus closer to Manichaean canonical texts than the mass of ‘mainstream’ late antique magical texts such as the PGM or PDM. However, what the owner of the texts did with them completely coheres with the expectations of other strains of late antique Mediterranean magic. In terms of ritual practice they certainly relate to the common activity of taking advantage of such powerful texts (either canonical scripture or spells) by wearing them on the body either as rolled-up papyrus or on a wooden block. Like the Greek Kellis texts, P. Kell. Copt. 35 was possibly intended to function as an amulet.86 Unlike the Greek amulets, P. Kell. Copt. 35’s textual contents seem to be taken straight from a late antique magical ‘cookbook’ such as those of the PGM or the Christian Coptic material. However it is unique among magical material from any cultural context, in that it consists of a personal letter written by a practitioner to his client/friend on which the practitioner includes spell that his friend had commissioned. The inclusion of the letter on the back of the spell seems to have not compromised its efficacy.87 Dating to approximately 389 CE on prosopographical grounds, the papyrus measures 24.0 by 8.0 cm and is largely intact, having been restored from several fragments.88 The side with vertical fibers carries the beginning of the text (42 lines) while the side with horizontal fibers contains the conclusion of the letter (8 lines), the correspondents’ names (Vales/Oualēs < Latin,

89

Ibid., 2-3. “The names and titles of the sender and receiver were written on the outside of the roll after the folding process. It might be coincidental that the first fold divides the text on the side with vertical fibers into two portions which correspond to the two texts on that side of the letter (the ritual text [2/01-21] and the personal letter [3/01-4/08] However, one can suppose that this first fold was made before the scribe wrote the conclusion of the letter on the side with the horizontal fibers, since the edge of the fold clearly functions as a right margin for the text of the letter’s conclusion. Thus the text of the conclusion is deliberately framed by four intact margins; the top, left and right margins are about the same size (less than 0.5 cm, and similar to the framing of the text on the side with vertical fibers), while the large bottom margin (3.5) results from originally uninscribed papyrus surface after the conclusion. One might suggest that the writer deliberately arranged the texts of the spell and the letter in such a way that the upper-half of the papyrus sheet (containing the text of the spell could be torn away from the lower half of the sheet containing the text of the letter, so that the upper-half would function as a ready-made amulet for Vales. This suggestion must explain the apparent tolerance of the mundane text of the address on the back of the supposed read-made amulet, a mundane text which could be understood as problematic fro the efficacy of the spell”. Ibid., 3. 91 In a footnote Mirecki et. al. mention the PGM spells (IV.154-69A and XIII.341-43A) which employ “epistolary frameworks” that suggest the original and authoritative context for the transmission however this text seems to be a “genuine ad hoc letter”. Ibid., 10, fn 40. 90

84

Ibid., 134. Gardner provides several parallels to the Kephalia and the Manichaean Psalms. Ibid., 135-6. 86 Mirecki et. al. 1997, 3. 87 Ibid. 88 Ibid., 8 and 2. 85

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD instrumental in disseminating the canonical texts from Manichaean community to Manichaean community, it is probable that scribes spread such extra-canonical, yet ritually useful, texts as well.

phrase) “you will send 2/21. these words upon them”. 2/22. It is complete. 3/01. I greet you warmly. I pray for your 3/02. continuing health 3/03. until I embrace you once again in person 3/04. and my joy be complete. I swear to you 3/05. by our Lord Paraclete and the knowledge 3/06. of truth: This is what I have found near me, 3/07. and I have hastened to write it and send it 3/08. to you; for the other one is written on a small fragment 3/09. of papyrus, and I did not find it. Should I find it 3/10. I will send it to you; I for my part knowing 3/11. that it will not be brought to brother Kallikletei. 3/12. I send it, for it is with my own hand that I wrote this. 3/13. I have sent it, saying that 3/14. perhaps this what you need. I beg you, 3/15. my lord brother: If you can write the tetrads 3/16. for me, which I sent to you, I will cause 3/17. what is written to be brought to you too, so that you may known where 3/18. they have reached, to look at. He did 3/19. not neglect to write them quickly. 3/20. You send them to me by a blessed one,

Mirecki et. al. have commented extensively on this spell and marked its similarities with other Trennungzauber spells in the Christian, pagan and Jewish Mediterranean milieu.95 I have nothing to add to their thorough commentary of its relationship to other non-Manichaean late antique magic but merely want focus on the two Manicheans’, Vales’ and Pshai’s, relationship to the extra-doctrinal magical material to understand the place of the process of appropriation in their milieu and, secondly, to draw attention to several elements which I see as broadly paralleling the other Manichaean magical sources: its angelic invocation, its use of similia similibus with the mustard seed, and its use of historiola - here 2/05B-07A’s invocation of Jeremiah 37:5.96 I will return to these elements after considering the Mesopotamian and Central Asian material. Manichaean Incantation Bowls from Mesopotamia As mentioned in the introduction, several Mesopotamian incantation bowls have emerged which provide an interesting but inconclusive supplement to Egyptian and Central Asian material. These bowls date to a period roughly between the fifth and seventh centuries CE and functioned, along with the mass of Aramic incantation bowls, as a sort of ‘home security system,’ fusing elements of binding spells and apotropaica to protect an individual’s person, house, and guests from malevolent powers.97 In contrast to the majority of the apotropaic incantation bowls which were written in Judeo-Aramaic, Mandaean, and Syriac script, nineteen have been discovered written in a script that Manichaeans developed and used for the creation of their sacred texts.98 However, the script itself does not implicitly indicate that the consumer of the bowl was Manichaean, nor even that the magician who created the bowl was Manichaean. In all but one of the nineteen bowls, the contents of the invocations contain nothing explicitly Manichaean and seem to parallel the language, cosmology, and cast of characters presented in the Judeo-Aramaic, Mandaean and Syriac bowls. The one exception invokes ‘Jesus the Healer’ and the archangels ‘Michael the healer,’ ‘Rafael the reliever’ and ‘Gabriel the servant of the Lord’.99 While Manichaeism did not lay sole claim to these divine personages, they show up regularly in Manichaean canonical texts, some, such as “Jesus the Healer,” with

4/01. For they said “We want someone else to write the other things.” Now, do 4/02. not neglect to send them quickly. By no means! I did it for the great texts; (but it is) because 4/03. they say that the papyrus had run out. Still, it is a useful text; and if you 4/04. write them, I for my part will ackowledge your superiority no fool! Greet 4/05. warmly for me those who give you peace of mind in word and deed, 4/06. Anything you want here, order me (and) I will do it rejoicing. 4/07. Live and be healthy for a long 4/08. time; my lord, my brother.92 The text of the spell does not resemble spells commonly meant for use in an apotropaic phylaktērion; rather, Kell. 35 resembles Greek and Coptic love magic.93 There is nothing necessarily Manichaean about its text and only its Manichaean epistolary and archaeological contexts signal that it is in fact “Manichaean”. As such it is a prime piece of evidence for the Manichaeans’ ready adaptation and appropriation of ritual texts and their incorporation into the Manichaean ritual arsenal. Considering Pshai and Vales both seem to be scribes by profession, it implies that magical texts entered and were propagated within the Manichaean community through translation and appropriation by one of these multilingual scribes.94 Since the multilingual cleric/scribe was an integral element in Manichaean missionary activity and

95

Ibid., 17-32. On appropriation of other types of spells: Mirecki 2001. For the Jeremiah historiola: Ibid., 21. 97 Date: J.A. Montgomery, Aramaic Incantation Texts from Nippur, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1913, 103-4. J. BeDuhn. J. Naveh and S. Shaked, Amulets and Magic Bowls: Aramaic Incantations of Late Antiquity, Leiden, Brill, 1985, 15. References in: J. BeDuhn, “Magical Bowls and Manichaeans”, in eds. M. Meyer & P. Mirecki, Ancient Magic and Ritual Power, Leiden, Brill, 1995, 419. 98 Ibid., 419 and 427. 99 Ibid., 429-430. See 47-51 for a more in depth discussion of this epithet. 96

92

Mirecki et. al. 1997, 15-17. Ibid., 17. 94 Ibid., 4-8. 93

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MATTHEW P. CANEPA: THE ART AND RITUAL OF MANICHAEAN MAGIC the very same epithets.100 For example, several fragments, probably composed during a time of persecution invokes the archangels.101

context and implies a link across these two regions. The multi-lingual context of the incantation bowls provides clues about how Mesopotamian practitioners of any cultural or religious background appropriated and incorporated magical texts into their repertoires and the broad similarities between them hints at the processes behind the movement of magical texts across Eurasia. One of the magic bowls themselves provides the best characterization that the Mesopotamian practitioners’ understood that their tradition stood between east and west. It prefigures the cosmopolitan and even more multivalent nature of the Central Asian Manichaean magical material:

As BeDuhn concluded, “nothing in the Manichaean script bowls (other than the script itself) definitively identifies them as Manichaean, and nothing in them precludes Manichaean composition”.102 Taken in connection with the bowls in Manichaean script, the bowl implies that some sort of exchange definitely did occur. In the case of the script bowls it was the use of the Manichaean script to by a literate Manichaean in adopting what seem to be communal spells. Possibly the Manichaean script bowls could imply an exchange in writing technology from a literate Manichaean to another magician. Perhaps the bowl could demonstrate that someone with the knowledge of, and motivation to include, Manichaean cosmological material in an incantation bowl operated in the Mesopotamian milieu. At the very least, the one bowl with both Manichaean script and textual elements demonstrates that literate Manichaeans were involved somewhere in the process of magical creation.

And there will cease from this dwelling and threshold of the Parrukdad the son of Zebinta and of Qamoi the daughter of Zaraq, Aramean black arts, Jewish black-arts, Arabic black-arts, Persian black-arts, Indian black-arts, Greek black-arts, black-arts of the Romans, black arts which are practiced in the seventy languages, either by woman or by man.103

When put in dialogue with other evidence of Manichaean magical practice, the Mesopotamian incantation bowls provide an interesting inversion of the practices implied by the Coptic and Central Asian material. In the case of the incantation bowls the Manichaean elements were just one of many that multilingual, multiethnic and multireligious Mesopotamian communities employed. In contrast to the Coptic and Persian material, the religious identity of the pracitioner and creator and even the spell itself is unimportant and almost silent- with the exception of the one bowl. The bowls’ orthography is the only decisive indicator. In Egypt and Central Asia the identity of the practioners made more of an imprint on the material. In contrast the multilingual scribe Vales and his letter laden with Manichaean epistolary conventions provides a Manichaean context for P. Kell. Copt. 35. Although they appropriated the spells from a variety of sources, the Egyptian Manichaean magicians impressed the spells with an overarching Manichaean identity and put them in rough accordance with a loose Manichaean cosmology. This ‘rebaptism’ is even more pronounced when we turn to the Central Asian material.

The Persian Spell and Parthian Amulet from Turfan The Persian Spell (M 781) and Parthian amulet (M 1202) recovered from Turfan, have received only passing attention since Henning’s publication in 1947. Although Henning’s 1947 translation and commentary are extremely thorough, I offer my own translation and supplemental commentary to bring out elements which relatively recent discoveries and scholarship concerning Middle Persian magic and Manichaeaism have brought to light. I have used the edition of the texts prepared by Mary Boyce in her Reader in Manichaean Middle Persian, and Parthian that contains several interpretations of the texts that differ from Henning’s.104 The Persian fever spell and the Parthian amulet both display a dizzying array of cultural influences. In the fever spell we find religio-cultural influences from Near Eastern and Central Asia Judeo-Christian, Manichaean, Zoroastrian magic, as well as echoes of Mediterranean magical texts. The Parthian zāwar or amulet shows even a wider cultural breadth ranging from Mediterranean, Judeo-Christian, Manichaean, Zoroastrian and South Asian Buddhist traditions. Despite this impressive cultural range, a Manichaean worldview seems to subject and organize all these culturally disparate elements and provides an overarching cosmology in which Jewish, Christian, Zoroastrian, Manichaean, or Buddhist all harmoniously function. Unfortunately, unlike P. Kell. Copt. 35, the identities of the scribes are unknown. But like the Manichaean-script incantation bowls, the Manichaean script and languages provide a Manichaean context, and like the Greek Kellis amulets, the invocation of several discreetly Manichaean deities among a variety

Although I am not arguing for a direct textual transmission from the Egyptian to the Mesopotamian to the Central Asian Manichaean material under study, the phenomenon of a multilingual, culturally savvy scribe seems to obtain in both the Egyptian and Mesopotamian 100 Fragment, M 90 Parthian: “Chief of the messengers, Lord, Healer, Jesus, Savior, Ruler of the holy religion, - (you are) eternally (holy)!” In accordance with BeDuhn’s argument that, “most scholars of Manichaeism erroneously translate airyaman ‘friend’ as if it were a common noun (and a Gnostic appellation), and not an identification with the Iranian deity Airyaman, god exorcistic healing”, I have altered the normal translation of this fragment. BeDuhn 1995, fn. 38, 429-30. 101 M 20 (line 1. “…Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Sarael…” among others, and M 46 (“line 12. I invoke the powerful angels, the mighty ones, Raphael, Michael, Gabriel, Sarael…”) The text of both are published in Boyce 1975, texts dt and du. 102 Ibid., 432.

103

C.D. Isbell, Corpus of the Aramaic Incantation Bowls, Missoula, Scholars Press, 1975, 113. BeDuhn 1995, 419. M. Boyce, A Reader in Manichaean Middle Persian, and Parthian: texts with notes, Acta Iranica 9, Leiden, E.J. Brill, 1975.

104

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD case by the time this spell was composed and used, it was a regular part of Manichaean liturgical life. Out of several examples, a Persian prayer (fragment M 46) calls on many of the same divine figures:

of others, secures this cultural context. I would like to analyze these elements first beginning with their general structure, then their relationship with the various cultural traditions.

1.

The Persian spell controls the “spirit” (wād) of the fever through naming it and describing its nature and what physical substances weaken it. The concept of controlling by describing parallels some migraine spells in the PGM, yet the description itself is entirely unique. Although it is tempting to translate the fever spirit’s name (‘dr’ = Idra) as Greek Hydra, the patchy description of its form does not seem to match the sort of creature that Herakles overcame, and, as Henning’s philological reconstruction shows, the term does seem to have connections with a large, winged polymorphous bird-lion composite beast seen in several Iranian cultures. The Parthian amulet performs a similar operation by naming all classes of demons to be controlled. However its two sections do so in two very different ways. While the second section (1630) adopts a South Asian technique for naming and controlling deities, the yakΒa list (to which I will return), the first section (1-15) does it in a way that is recognizable from a Mediterranean and Mesopotamian point of view: it calls on (perhaps even adjures) deities and exorcises evil spirits in the name of deities and angels that parallel the PGM and Sefir ha Razim. Similarly the Persian spell exorcises the fever from the body of the sufferer in the name of what could be discretely Christian deities, if we ignore the Manichaean names and epithets.

2.

3.

Come you shall live together with the mighty angels. Guard and protect the holy Church, And cut off the heads of the adversaries, The foes of peace. May Raphael, Michael, Gabriel (and) Sarael, Together with all the most powerfull angels, Increase peace and faith For the whole Church of the Eastern Province. Blessings upon the mighty angels!107

Another invocation (M 20) is exemplary of the favorite angel-lists of the Central Asian Manichaeans- note especially that the invocation calls on the distinctively Manichaean angels Bar Sīmūs and Qaftinus just as the Parthian Amulet: 1…..Jacob the angel, the Lord Bar Sīmūs, Kaftinus the mighty one, Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, Sarael, Narses, Nastikus… 2….you (divine powers) shall not forget (our) invocation, nor the voice of our grief, for we are of the righteous and not of the [evildoers].108

The invocation of Jesus, the Father, Saboath, El and the archangels finds many parallels in the PGM, Coptic Christian material and especially Mesopotamian Jewish material. The wording of the spells do not seem to translate a Jewish adjuration/exorcism formula (orkizō/exorkizō) exactly, but the fact that the spell calls on the holy names of the deities and archangels to effect the evil spirit’s removal again parallels Judeo-Christian tradition.105 This and the fact that Saboath, El and the Archangels figure prominently suggest that a strain of Semitic (perhaps medical) magic might have informed the traditions that, in turn, informed the composition of this spell.106

Similar to the manner by which the Central Asian magical material call out the angels, the Persian spell and Parthian amulet calls on a heavenly host of Manichaean deities in an almost liturgical manner.109 Interestingly, the tone, structure and even portions of the text of the fourth century Greek amulet from the Manichaean community in Kellis (P Kel. 91) parallels the seventh to ninth century Central Asian texts, be they magical or liturgical: “I glorify you: the firstborn word; the father of the intellectual man; the mother of life; the first apostleship; the splendour of the enlighteners; our holy spirit; the salt of the church; the pilot of goodness! Make us worthy to be your faithful: those who are justified in you; those who are renewed in you; those who are perfected in you; those who are rejoicing in you; those who are sanctified in you;

On the other hand the invocation of divine beings and angels for aid in vanquishing evil is a regular characteristic of the Central Asian Manichaean liturgical material. This might have been an inheritance from Manichaeism’s semi-Judeo-Christian roots, but in any 105

The Sepher ha-Razim (for example 70-75) for the adjuration formula calling the angels to destroy someone or something. The PGM contains many examples of Jewish exorcism formulas- in both Greek and Copticwhich call on the malevolent spirit to leave an individual’s body and date from about the time of the Manichaean Coptic material (fourth century). (PGM IV.1227-1264, IV.3007-3086, VII.260-271). There seems to be a contrast to calling on the unclean spirit itself to leave the person, and calling on the angels to effect it, but like many PGM spells and Mesopotamian incantation bowls, the Persian spell uses both. 106 Sabaoth being another name for the Judeo-Christian God. Again the angels are as ubiquitous in such texts as the PGM to the Sepher ha Razim, to the incantation bowls as they are in canonical works like the Bible and the Manichaean Book of Giants. For the name El in magic texts, compare Naveh and Shaked 1985, 36.

107

Translated by H.J. Klimkeit 1993, 159. Ibid., 160. 109 M 46, line 4: “I bless the God Mani, the Lord, I venrate your great, bright glory (farrah), I pray to the holy Spirit, together with the glories and strong angels”. 108

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MATTHEW P. CANEPA: THE ART AND RITUAL OF MANICHAEAN MAGIC Iranian divinity and a yazata of the Zoroastrian pantheon who, along with Mithra, upheld the bond of friendship.114 Airyaman became a yazata of healing for the Zoroastrians who was able to heal physical evil in the future and cure any of the 99, 999 present illnesses sent by Aŋra Mainyu, the ‘Malificient Spirit’ to plague mankind.115 In the third century, Manichaean missionaries deliberately associated Mani’s gods with Zorastrian yazatas for proselytizing purposes and linked the Manichaean figure of Jesus (who, as in the Christian Gospels, was a great healer) with ariiyaman, calling him Yishō Aryāmān, as our fever spell reflects.116 In light of the specifically medical context of the fever I have followed BeDuhn in translating as Yishō Aryāmān as “Jesus the Healer” in order to capture this connection with the Zoroastrian healing divinity.117

those who are sober in you; those who hasten to you! Deliver us. Amen.”110 After calling on the angelic host, the invocation in fragment M 46 then calls out and blesses several high Manichaean deities including, not surprisingly, Mani. However the invocation calls on several less prominent deities or epithets of Mani, such as his ‘Glory’ or ‘Splendor’ and the Mother of the Living - figures whom we have encountered in both the Egyptian and Central Asian material. For example the Persian spell calls on “the Father, the Highest,” and “the Holy Spirit” as the does the Egyptian amulet. Similarly, the Parthian amulet calls on Mani as “the Apostle of the Gods,” and “praised and blessed spirit” and the invocation of M 46 calls on the “Holy Spirit,” and Mani’s “Splendor (farrah)”.111 Rather than providing evidence for a direct textual transmission these similarities suggest a continuation in the way Manichaean’s created and composed their magical texts- by borrowing heavily from the same large stock of liturgical texts which were directly and faithfully transmitted to all Manichaean communities everywhere.112 This accounts for the liturgical nature of the spells and underscores the fact that the line between religion, medicine and magic was not as clearly drawn for the Manichaeans as it was for Christians.

Later among Zoroastrians, the cult of Airyaman became fused to the popular cult of Frēdōn (Manichaean Middle Persian and Pahlavi for Avestan Thraētaona). In this cooccurance of Airyaman and Ferīdūn, I see a reflection of Zoroastrian medical-magical practice in the fever spell. However this connection, in both Zoroastrain practice and the Manichaean spell, requires some further explanation. In the Avesta, Θraētaona was a hero famous for slaying the three-headed, six-eyed dragon Aži Dahāka with his bull-headed mace (Yašt 5.33, 15.23-24; Y. 9.78; Vendidād 1.18).118 According to the Avesta (Yašt 13.131) and the Pahlavi literature, Frēdōn was also a physician able to repel the plague and other diseases.119 A number of amulets and charms inscribed in Pahlavi, Pazand and Persian invoke Frēdōn to heal diseases (a practice that Zoroastrians in Persian and India continue to this day).120

Just as the Persian spell and the Parthian amulet contain elements that parallel the Mediterranean and Mesopotamian Judeo-Christian magical/mythical traditions, the Central Asian magical material also draws heavily from Zoroastrian medical magic and Iranian mythical tradition. Like the angels lists, Manichaean liturgical texts seem to be constant source for the magical texts for the Iranian mythological material that the Manichaean religion itself appropriated and made its own centuries before during its formative years under the Sasanians. Despite spotty sources on all sides, a number of parallels with Zoroastrian medical magic might suggest that specific application of these Iranian elements to medical magic might have been influenced by or an appropriation of Zoroastrian medical magic.

The most striking piece of evidence of Frēdōn’s function in ancient Iranian medical magic is an engraved gem/amulet now in the British Museum.121 On it, a figure with the hair and costume of a Parthian noble, prepares to strike a naked, horned monster with a mace. This practice seems to have continued into the Sasanian era, as a Chalcedony gem in the British Museum with a figure, identifiable as Frēdōn by his characteristic bull headed mace, in Sasanian royal clothing suggests.122 In the Pahlavi Rivāyat, an Islamic era text that seeks to teach proper Zoroastrian ritual and social practice, contains an incantation for fever.123 Parallel to our Manichaean Middle Persian spell, after invoking the Creator,

First of all, in the Persian fever spell, I believe that Jesus’ epithet aryāmān, is an appropriation of the attributes of a Zoroastrian deity of healing. Aryāmān is the Manichaean Middle Persian translation of the Avestan term airiiaman- (paralleled in Indo-Aryan times by Vedic aryaman-, and in late antiquity by Pahlavi ērmān) which means “friend, companion”.113 Airyaman was an ancient

114

Ibid. Boyce cites the Vendidād 22.7-24. 116 Boyce 1983. 117 In an occurrence perhaps unrelated to the Manichaean Jesus Aryāmān, a Pahlavi amulet, in the New York Metropolitan Museum asks that a certain Pērōzduxt, be healed “(in the) name of Jesus”. P.O. Harper, P.O. Skjærvø, L. Gorelick, and A.J. Gwinnett, “A Seal-Amulet of the Sasanian Era: Imagery and Typology, the Inscription, and Technical Comments”, Bulletin of the Asia Institute 7, 1993: 43-58. 118 A. Tafazzolī, “Ferēdūn”, Encyclopædia Iranica, 9, 1999: 531. 119 Ibid. 120 Ibid. 121 A.D.H. Bivar, “A Parthian Amulet”, BSOAS 30, 1967: 512-25. 122 Ibid., 523. 123 Chapter 63. A.V. Williams ed., The Pahlavi Rivāyat Accompanying the Dādestān i Dēnīg, Copenhagen, Munksgaard, 1990, 110. 115

110

Gardner 1996, 134. M 46, line 4, Klimkeit 1993, 149. 112 The Bema hymns are found both in Egypt in Coptic and in Central Asia in Persian and Parthian; Wurst 1995; Klimkeit 1993, 133-43. Again, as evidence for the transmission, I would point to the letters written by the electi themselves: “And to dear brother Zurvāndād I am very, very grateful because he in his goodness has watched over all the brothers. And I have now dispatched him to Zamb, and sent him to dear Mār Ammō, and to (the province of) Chorasan. He has taken (The Book of) the Giants and the Ardahang with him. I have made another (copy of the Book of) the Giants and the Ardahang in Merv”. Klimkeit 1993, 260. 113 M. Boyce, “Airyaman”, Encyclopædia Iranica, 1, 1983: 694. 111

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD the PGM, the Mesopotamian incantation bowls, the Persian fever spell and the first part of the Parthian spell. However, the second half of the Parthian spell evidences a reaction to Manichaeism’s new cultural environment in Central Asia, where the religion lived among and competed with strong Buddhist communities for adherents and the favors of local rulers. Though the amulet invokes a protective pantheon recognizable from Manichaean canonical works, it asks that they protect the wearer against demons who come from outside the Manichaean tradition: South Asian/Buddhist rākΒasas and yakΒas, as well as from demonic entities recognizable from the Persian cultural and linguistic realm: dēw, druǰ and peri.128 In order to counter these South Asian demons, the Manichaean composer of this amulet appropriated a magical text from the South Asian/Sanskritic cultural and linguistic realm.129 It seems that, just as the Central Asian Manichaeans appropriated such Buddhist ritual elements as prayer flags, banners, devotional caves and stūpas in their outward displays of religiousity, and theological terms as parinirvāna, ‘buddha’, and ‘bodhisattva’, they also readily appropriated the structure and terminology of Buddhist magical texts. Lines 16-30 contain a rendition of a Buddhist yakΒa list.130 The text draws on a type of Buddhist literature written between the fourth and the sixth century which belongs to the category of the “five rakΒās,” a group of magical texts used for defensive purposes.131 Such lists were extremely prevalent and well disseminated in Central Asia and the most popular versions were the Mahāyāmūrī (the “Great Peacock formula”) and the Candragarbhasūtra.132

Ohrmazd, giving the incantation and instructions on what practices to fulfill to eject the fever, the Rivāyat (63.6) calls on Frēdōn using historiola: “Water from the spring which was dry [lit. ‘closed’] came from the mountain at the order of the valiant Frēdōn. He covered the bodily wound [?] of a horse [?], and he dressed the bodily wound [?] of a horse [?] and he held nine battle axes in his hand. Aniiāi”.124 Several elements match the Manichaean fever spell enough to conclude that there was some general relationship between the Zoroastrian and Manichaean medical/magical use of Frēdōn. The way that it calls on the hero is noteworthy. The Pahlavi and Manichaean spells both draws parallels between the present situation of the illness and the hero’s mythological deeds. They seem to identify the sufferer with Frēdōn, although the Manichaean spell does this more explicitly. Both take care to describe an arsenal of weapons - especially the multitude of weapons. In the case of the Zoroastrian spell these are specifically Frēdōn’s while in the Manichaean spells these are the unified figure of the practioner whom the spell has assimilated to Frēdōn.125 In orthodox Zoroastrian practice, Frēdōn, though a hero and a physician, was still a man and not a divine being, and, though the faithful sought his intercession, the yazata Airyaman retained his place in the Zoroastrian liturgy.126 In Manichaean cosmology he seems to have been more readily assimilated into the divine realm. Several Manichaean hymn cycles and invocations call on Frēdōn as the call on the Mani, Jesus, Sabaoth, and the archangels. Again, to show continuity, one can cite line 6 of M 46, “The angel full of wisdom, the loving deity, Beautiful (?) in appearance, the strong God, He of noble name, King Frēdōn, and the valiant Jacob…” (an angel in Manichaean comology) or the middle of line 9, “Mihr Yazd, (our) Father, Redeemer and Benefactor, together with the valiant Frēdōn and all the angels. May they protect and care for the holy Church and its blessed head, the Lord of good name”.127 The name of Frēdōn does not show up in the Coptic material and is a manifestation of Manichaeism’s development in the Iranian cultural realm. However, the parallel occurrence of Frēdōn in the extracanonical magical texts and the liturgical texts suggests in much the same way as the parallels between drawn by the angels, Jesus and Mani, that the Manichaean’s created and composed their magical texts by borrowing heavily from their stock of liturgical texts.

Originally containing 24 yakΒas (one for every hour of the day) the spell attempts to bind the demonic powers through description and is broadly similar to trends in Mediterranean and Mesopotamian magic. The version of the yakΒa catalogue that we find in the Parthian amulet provides more information than the Buddhist catalogues. The Buddhist formulas name the hour of day and region that the yakΒas govern, and sometimes enumerate their sons. Take for example this selection from the Mahāmāyūri formula: 77. Prabhamkaraśca Kāśmīre CanΡakaśca JaΓapure 78. Pāñcika iti nāmnā tu vasate KāśmīrasamdhiΒu 79. pañca putraśatā yasya mahāsainyā mahābalāΉ

The Persian spell sticks to formulas that most likely entered Manichaean magical practice early on, as the Greek and Coptic spells show, as do the parallels between

128

See line 10 verso. I am hesitant to call it unequivocally ‘Buddhist’ since Buddhism itself appropriated and shared many cultural elements from other religions that used Sanskrit as the literary and cultic language. This is paralleled in the visual realm in a Manichaean illuminated manuscript fragment which contains Hindu deities probably first appropriated by Buddhist visual culture, then subsequently appropriated by Manichaean visual culture. 130 A yakΒa is a demonic in this Central Asian context. 131 Utz, 2. 132 Mahāmāyūri: S. Lévi, “Le Catalogue des YakΒa dans la Mahâmâyūri”, Journal Asiatique 11.5, 1915: 19-138. 129

124

Ibid., 110. “Fredon subjugates... all. (28) And I have a three(-fold) form (29) and a belly? of fire (30) And (I hold) an ax that is (31) sharp and a destroyer, in my hand (32) and with a sword and (33) dagger of (hasod) of steel (andamant) (34) that is pure all around, I defend myself. 35, and (I have) with me a horsewhip that is speech and the (36) hearing of the angels. (37) And (I held) seven daggers 38. of hard steel in my hand...” 126 Boyce 1983, 694. 127 Klimkeit 1993, 159. 125

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MATTHEW P. CANEPA: THE ART AND RITUAL OF MANICHAEAN MAGIC religion’s early centers in Iran and Mesopotamia westward into the Mediterranean and eastward into China as a central duty of their avid missionary activity. Vales’ letter to his ‘brother’ Pshai gives a first person account of how such a Manichaean scribe employed and transmitted local non-Manichaean magical traditions within one of the earliest Mediterranean Manichaean communities for which there is evidence, that of Kellis. Though the textual correspondences between the Egyptian, Mesopotamian and Central Asian members of the Manichaean magical corpus are broad, even as such they suggest that scribes like Vales’ appropriations permanently impacted Manichaeism’s later textual and magical practice.

80. jyeΒΓhaputraΉ Pañcikasya vasate Cīnabhūmisu 77. Prabhamkara (lives) in Kashmir, and Candaka in JaΓapur 78. But the one named “Pāñcika” dwells in the areas around Kashmir 79. with five hundred sons of whom there great power by means of a great army 80. The eldest son of Pāñcika dwells in the lands around China133 Only the version preserved in the Parthian amulet informs us of the food that they eat be it salt, fruit, flowers or milk and perhaps suggests an ‘arms race’ of sorts to establish the Manichaean version as superior to the Buddhist version. David Utz argued that the Manichaeans adopted this formula to adapt a Mesopotamian wide belief in “Watchers” or “Gaurdian Angels” who hold sway over certain nation, best represented by the Book of Enoch.134 Utz understood this belief was latent in Manichaen cosmology and the yakΒa catalogue reflected this.135 I would offer that several other Manichaean appropriations of South Asian cultural material parallel this, though the yakΒas might ‘translate’ to Manichaean cosmological figures. We find similar occurrences in Manichaean visual culture where deities portrayed with an iconography traceable to South Asia, Ganeśa, or ViΒnu’s Boar-headed avatar, Varāha.

On the other end of the spectrum, the Manichaean script bowls and the yakΒa-catalogue preserved in the second half of the Parthian amulet prove that wherever the Manichaean electi-scribes settled, they came in contact with new magical texts and techniques (along with other intellectual goods) and integrated them into Manichaeaism’s changing and expanding cultic and textual repertoire. It demonstrates that this process of textual and magical appropriation continued alongside Manichaeism’s appropriations of its competitor’s cultic trappings such as the prayer flags and caves.136 Thus this process was ongoing from fourth century Egypt to sixth century Mesopotamia to ninth century Central Asia. The Persian fever spell from Turfan hints at the process by which such a spell came to be part of Manichaean textual traditions: by continued collecting and recopying. The few lines at the top, which seem to be the last lines of a text, reveal vestiges of the spell’s original context in what could have been a ‘cookbook’ of sorts. However these lines (“(1) Bountious immortals, (2) the light ones, may they live forever…”) are ambiguous. They could be a magic spell but seem to match the wording and tone of a canonical invocation more closely.137 The textual and cosmological parallels between such texts as P. Kel. Gr. 96 and both Central Asian spells with ‘canonical’ Manichaean invocational and hymnal material suggest that, as well as appropriating material from their

These formulas were popular and seen as a very effective means to control threatening phenomenon or were simply a necessary element in any good magical arsenal especially if one’s Buddhist neighbors and competitors had access to them. Again such multilingualism that the knowledge and translation of these, originally Sanskrit, spells suggests implies, again, the presence of a multilingual missionary scribe whose work in cultural transmission I have traced in various ways in Egypt, Mesopotamia and in Central Asia. Corroborating this is the fact that some sort of ‘cookbook’ originally contained the Persian fever spell as evidenced from the remaining lines above the start of the magical text. Those who reproduced the sacred texts also copied and provided the magical texts to the Manichaean communities in the Tarim Basin.

136

Henning hypothesized that the Parthian spell with the yakΒacatalogue was composed around the fourth to sixth in the area that is now Afghanistan, the original center of Eastern Manichaeism’s missionary base as a result of the missionary activity of Mani’s apostle to East, Mār Ammō. Mār Ammō made Parthian the official language of the Eastern Church and, as such monuments as the Bamiyan Buddhas show, this area was an important center for late antique Buddhism as well. However, like many things in Manichaean studies, this is unprovable beyond a reasoned conjecture and, since Parthian continued as a (albeit fossilized) liturgical language, and considering the rather stiff and impoverished nature of the language of the amulet it could have been composed in the seventh to ninth century Tarim Basin communities as well where their grasp on this (at that time) extinct learned language had eroded but not entirely disappeared. Henning 1947, 49-50. 137 Compare this ending from a Persian prayer for a Uighur ruler: (middle of section 3) “…May the gods, deities and angels become you protectors and guardians. May they ever grant you peace. May your throne be established. Dwell in unceasing joy for many years, ever happy…” or this Persian prayer for a church leader and invocation of god: (end of section 2) “May you finally receive the gift of the blessed and the joy of immortal [Paradise], together with the gods and deities and all [wise ones]…” Trans. Klimkeit 1993, 158 and 162.

CONCLUSION From this broad overview it appears that the Manichaean electus-scribe was the main engine of textual and ritual transmission, responsible for transmitting Mediterranean/Near Eastern magical traditions into Central Asia. The scribe was a constant, integral part of Manichaean society from the time of St. Augustine to the last glimmers of the Manichaean religion in China. As we see from Manichaean missionary histories and the letters of the elect themselves, the electi were responsible for recopying and physically transporting texts from the 133

My translation from the selection in Henning 1947, 47. Ibid. 135 Ibid. 134

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD neighbors, Manichaeans often times drew from their extensive liturgical stock to provide texts suitable for use in a medical amulet or phylactery. This suggests that in the normal daily manner that as the Manichaean elite actually practiced their religion (despite any ‘official’ dogmatic anathemas in the religion some might try to extrapolate from prohibitions against magic in early texts) there was no clear dividing line between magic and religion. They seem to have kept their magical texts side by side, in the same codex and on the same page, as canonical invocations. One final piece of evidence for both the phenomenon of electus/scribal transmission and liturgical influence on the magical texts is the fact that the Central Asian magical texts were composed 1) in a Western Iranian liturgical languages (Persian and Parthian) as opposed to one of the vernaculars (Sogdian or Uighur) and 2) were written using the calligraphic Manichaean script as opposed to one of the cursive and informal vernacular scripts which were available for writing Middle Iranian languages.138 This was the same script with which Manichaean scribes recopied the Manichaean canonical works and the same script that such Islamic observers as Ibrahim al-Sindhi admired and over which they lamented that its beauty was applied to such heresy. The use of the cursive script and the liturgical languages suggests, in a way analogue to Vales’ signature, that the Central Asian magical texts were also the productions of the Manichaean scribal elite too. It is possible that the Manichaean script incantation bowls could point to a similar conclusion, but without further evidence, either in the form of archaeological evidence of a Manichaean community like Kellis, or more securely Manichaean incantation texts, such a conclusion must remain tentative, ironic considering that the region was once Manichaeism’s birthplace and heartland.

138

Utz 1988.

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The Narrative Fabric of the Genoese Pallio and the Silken Diplomacy of Michael VIII Palaiologos Ida Toth (With contributions to Section Three from Milena Grabačić) To weave is to unite, to interlace, to bind: the act is so straightforward that it requires no explanation. (Scheid and Svenbro 1996, 10) The fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders in 1204 and the subsequent implementation of the Partitio Romaniae dealt a terminal blow to the supreme and universal Byzantine Empire. Although the rhetoric of the dismembered monarchy in the decades to come remained infused with the language and symbolism of its former greatness, the practical implications of Byzantine foreign policy in the same period, unsurprisingly, showed signs of a radical shift. The time-honoured tenet of Byzantine diplomacy regarding the dominance of one omnipotent, divinely ordained empire in the oikoumene of weaker satellites was clearly no longer viable. Instead, the newly established Byzantine successor-states, with their respective centres in Epirus, Nicaea and Trebizond, would secure their survival and continuity only by conducting their affairs and by forging alliances as single entities among competing polities, as they co-existed in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond.1 The resulting division of power also meant that any potential success in the recovery of Constantinople became directly dependant on the Byzantine ability to rally external support. It was precisely to this end that in the one of the two capitals of the Empire of Nicaea, and in the setting of his first acclamation as emperor, the general and usurper to the throne, Michael VIII Palaiologos, embarked on a controversial and potentially extremely hazardous venture. Admittedly, he was prompted to take this risk by the precariousness of his position at the time. It was by no means that of absolute * This article is an extended version of the talk given to the Late Antique and Byzantine Studies Seminar of Oxford University in Michaelmas 2010. We are extremely grateful to the audience for their comments and to Elizabeth Jeffreys, Marc Lauxtermann, Jaś Elsner and Rebecca Gowers for their feedback and suggestions on the final draft of the paper. 1 On the main principles of Byzantine diplomacy in the late Byzantine period, see: Oikonomides 1992.

authority: more than a year after having seized control over the stable and prosperous state from its rightful Laskarid heir, Michael VIII was still struggling to secure his imperial credentials. Of all possible courses of action, the re-conquest of the old seat of Byzantium, a feat never before achieved by any of his Nicaean predecessors, must have held the greatest promise of ultimate recognition and legitimacy. Therefore, when the Ligurian commune of Genoa approached him in the spring of 1261 proposing an alliance, this self-proclaimed champion of the most coveted Byzantine cause was quick to respond. In return for their offer of perpetual peace and military help in re-capturing the Queen of Cities, Michael Palaiologos readily promised to give away far more than either he or his realm could afford to lose.2 The political and cultural ramifications of this rapprochement turned out to be manifold and long lasting. By contrast, extant primary sources on the union itself remain – as will soon become clear – incomplete, biased, and even mutually conflicting.3 However, much to our good fortune, there also survives a piece of material evidence, which highlights many contemporary values, ideas and attitudes missing from the textual material. The artefact that changed hands ratifying the newly forged treaty between Byzantium and Genoa still exists today, and it represents an outstanding example of Byzantine imperial largesse granted to a Western polity in the second half of the thirteenth century. In modern scholarship, this object is frequently referred to as the Genoese pallio.4 2 On Michael VIII’s illegitimate rise to power and the early years of his reign, see: Geanakoplos 1959, 33-46; Shawcross 2008, 203-27 (205 and n. 7 include a more recent bibliography on this topic). 3 For the list of extant sources, see: Dölger 1932, no 1890, 74-5. 4 Until recently, the pallio (Fig. 10) was on permanent display in the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa. Dr. Loredana Pessa, the conservator with the Collezioni Tessili, Raccolte Ceramiche, Museo Luxoro in Genoa, has

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD images of the Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos.7 It depicts an unusual hagiographic story, and it makes a remarkable use of both image and text. The inscriptions that accompany the iconography are strikingly descriptive and detailed. They are also written in a language generally thought of as inappropriate for such prestigious objects of art – Latin.8

Our knowledge about the historical context of this diplomatic gift comes from two principal sources: the document of the treaty, and a rhetorically embellished imperial oration.5 Both texts agree in their use of archaising and imprecise vocabulary to designate the silk – they use the terms pallium and πέπλος respectively – but otherwise offer unsatisfactory accounts of this artefact and of the circumstances of its manufacture and presentation. The lavishly decorated textile itself, on the other hand, continues to bear trustworthy witness to the extent to which traditional and novel modes of communication became integrated into Byzantine and Genoese diplomacy and material culture, and, even more importantly, to the high degree of interaction between the two cultures.

The central motif of the pallium dominates the entire pictorial narrative by virtue of symbolizing and commemorating the very occasion on which the textile was presented as a diplomatic gift. It depicts the Emperor Michael VIII Palaiologos, flanked by the Archangel Michael, as he is being ushered into the Genoese Cathedral by St Lawrence, the patron saint of the church and of the whole commune. The accompanying inscription describes the scene and confirms its authority and significance. It reads as follows:

In view of this incongruity, the current study seeks to highlight the significance of a comprehensive and interdisciplinary approach for our understanding of the Genoese pallio and similar relics of medieval crosscultural heritage. It aims to identify what specific factors determined the production, texture and iconography of the pallio, and to examine the set of processes behind the validation of this intricate artefact as a diplomatic gift. The wide spectrum of surviving primary material offers a unique opportunity to modern scholars; yet, for the most part, their approach to this subject has been narrow and unilateral.6 By contrast, the present study exploits the extant literary and material sources in order to investigate the conceptual frameworks within which this object operated, and, more relevantly to the topic of the entire volume, in order to interpret the role of a diplomatic gift in motion across the radically redesigned political, cultural and religious landscape of the Eastern Mediterranean in the second half of the thirteenth century.

S(anctus) Lau(rentius) induce(n)s altis|simum Imp(er)atorem Gre|co(rum) D(omi)n(u)m Mich(ae)l(em) Duca(m) Ang(e)l(u)m Co(m)nenu(m) Paleologu(m) in Ecc(les)iam Ian(uensem). (St Lawrence leading the Supreme Emperor of the Greeks, the Lord Michael Dukas Angelos Komnenos Palaiologos, into the Church of Genoa). This composition reveals a carefully thought-out viewing strategy aimed at employing iconographic and verbal means alike in order to convey the main ideological and political premises behind the manufacture and presentation of this silk as a diplomatic gift. Neither are these premises otherwise unknown: it has long been acknowledged that the pallio was manufactured and presented as a result of the signing of the ByzantineGenoese treaty.9 There survives a copy of the original document, signed by both the Byzantines and the Genoese representatives, which precisely lists all the terms and conditions under which both parties reached their agreement,10 and it clarifies that the main purpose of the alliance between the two powers was to make war on their shared arch-foe, Venice. While this agreement

I. DRAMATIS PERSONAE In many respects, the Genoese pallio is a unique object. Unlike most other Byzantine textiles used in diplomatic exchange, this purple-dyed, elaborately embroidered silk was custom made, and produced especially to serve as an imperial gift. Measuring 1.28 x 3.76 meters, it is of truly extraordinary size. It provides one of the rare surviving

7 The Genoese pallio preserves the oldest surviving image of this emperor, and it is one of the very few that are extant today (for their full list, see Parani 2003, 320). This dearth of art-historical evidence can be ascribed to the fact that Michael VIII ended his life ‘universally misunderstood, officially condemned and not much lamented’ (Nicol 1993, 89), and that the memory of him was probably systematically obliterated soon after his death in 1282. 8 The full list of inscriptions on the pallium has been published by Siderides 1928 and Parma Armani 1984, 42. 9 Already noted by Canale 1846, 55-61. The connection between the Treaty of Nymphaion and the pallio is based on the evidence given in Holobolos’ encomium, which will be discussed in detail in the subsequent section of this paper. Although we do not know when exactly this silk reached Genoa, the Byzantine-Genoese alliance undoubtedly provides the terminus post quem for its manufacture. 10 The convention was signed in Nymphaion on 13 March 1261. On 28 April an appendix to the treaty was added appointing three Byzantine legates who would be sent to Genoa. Finally, on 10 July in the same year an assembly of citizens ratified the agreement in Genoa. On the events surrounding the Byzantine-Genoese negotiations and the subsequent conclusion of the alliance, see: Geanakoplos 1959, 75-91, Origone 1992, 119-23.

informed us that the textile has been moved to Florence for analysis and conservation, where it will stay for the foreseeable future. Dr Pessa also kindly provided the photographs of the pallio and has given us her permission to publish them. 5 The text of the treaty signed in 1261 in Nymphaion between the Byzantine and Genoese representatives, survives only in its Latin translation: The Treaty of Nymphaion, 791-809. Also see: Dölger 1932, no 1890. The other source, which discusses this treaty and the gift of the pallio in more detail, is an encomium by the Byzantine orator Manuel/Maximos Holobolos, edited in Treu 1906 and Siderides 1926. Passages from Holobolos’ oration quoted in this paper come from Treu’s edition. 6 Although the Genoese pallio has received some attention by modern scholars, the manner in which it has been studied still reflects the division between textual scholars (Siderides 1928; Parma Armani 1984; Schreiner 1988) and art historians (Calderoni-Mansetti 1999, Johnstone 1976; Falcone 1996; Paribeni 1999).

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IDA TOTH: THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE GENOESE PALLIO AND THE SILKEN DIPLOMACY OF MICHAEL VIII PALAIOLOGOS involved considerable risk, it also showed promise of becoming exceptionally lucrative: Genoa’s gain was expected to be mainly economic; Byzantium’s primarily military.11 Of most relevance to the concern of this paper, the text of the treaty includes an additional article whereby the Byzantine emperor commits himself to presenting Genoa with the annual gift of two pallia and the Archbishop of Genoa with a further yearly offering in silk.12

the text of the treaty includes an additional article whereby the Byzantine emperor commits himself to presenting Genoa with the annual gift of two pallia and the Archbishop of Genoa with a further yearly offering in silk.16

This composition reveals a carefully thought-out viewing strategy aimed at employing iconographic and verbal means alike in order to convey the main ideological and political premises behind the manufacture and presentation of this silk as a diplomatic gift. Neither are these premises otherwise unknown: it has long been acknowledged that the pallio was manufactured and presented as a result of the signing of the ByzantineGenoese treaty.13 There survives a copy of the original document, signed by both the Byzantines and the Genoese representatives, which precisely lists all the terms and conditions under which both parties reached their agreement,14 and it clarifies that the main purpose of the alliance between the two powers was to make war on their shared arch-foe, Venice. While this agreement involved considerable risk, it also showed promise of becoming exceptionally lucrative: Genoa’s gain was expected to be mainly economic; Byzantium’s primarily military.15 Of most relevance to the concern of this paper, 11

The Genoese committed themselves to providing fifty ships at the emperor’s expense, to exporting arms and horses into Byzantium, and to instructing their citizens and subjects to enter Byzantine military service. In return, Genoa was granted the perpetual right to trade taxfree, to settle across the Golden Horn in Galata and other key cities of the Empire, to receive all their former possessions in the Byzantine capital as well as gaining those currently belonging to Venice, and to exclude from Byzantine waters all Genoese enemies. For the Latin text of the treaty and a detailed discussion of the contents of the document, see: The Treaty of Nymphaion, 751-8, 791-809; Geanakoplos 1959, 879. 12 ‘Promisit iterum et convenit dare annuatim comuni ianue … duo palia deaurata et Archiepiscopatu ianue anuatim … palium unum deauratum …’ (The Treaty of Nymphaion, 795, ll. 18-21): ‘Furthermore, he promised and agreed to give every year to the commune of Genoa two gold-threaded pallia and another one to the Genoese archbishop’. 13 Already noted by Canale 1846, 55-61. The connection between the Treaty of Nymphaion and the pallio is based on the evidence given in Holobolos’ encomium, which will be discussed in detail in the subsequent section of this paper. Although we do not know when exactly this silk reached Genoa, the Byzantine-Genoese alliance undoubtedly provides the terminus post quem for its manufacture. 14 The convention was signed in Nymphaion on 13 March 1261. On 28 April an appendix to the treaty was added appointing three Byzantine legates who would be sent to Genoa. Finally, on 10 July in the same year an assembly of citizens ratified the agreement in Genoa. On the events surrounding the Byzantine-Genoese negotiations and the subsequent conclusion of the alliance, see: Geanakoplos 1959, 75-91, Origone 1992, 119-23. 15 The Genoese committed themselves to providing fifty ships at the emperor’s expense, to exporting arms and horses into Byzantium, and to instructing their citizens and subjects to enter Byzantine military service. In return, Genoa was granted the perpetual right to trade taxfree, to settle across the Golden Horn in Galata and other key cities of the Empire, to receive all their former possessions in the Byzantine capital as well as gaining those currently belonging to Venice, and to exclude from Byzantine waters all Genoese enemies. For the Latin text of the treaty and a detailed discussion of the contents of the document,

FIGURE 1. The Genoese pallio: the donor composition

In contrast to the comprehensive nature of the document, there is a noticeable and significant dearth of information on the treaty in contemporary Byzantine historical sources, not to mention its cursory treatment in Western texts.17 This problem notwithstanding, modern scholars do not seem to have fully explored the implications of the surviving primary material, as there exists one nearcontemporary historical source, whose take on the Byzantine-Genoese agreement has hitherto been overlooked. The source in question, the Chronicle of Morea, a versified history of the Fourth Crusade and of the subsequent founding of the eponymous principality in the Peloponnese, gives a reasonably accurate summary of the conditions of the alliance, undoubtedly derived from insider knowledge.18 The nature of the evidence is see: The Treaty of Nymphaion, 751-8, 791-809; Geanakoplos 1959, 879. 16 ‘Promisit iterum et convenit dare annuatim comuni ianue … duo palia deaurata et Archiepiscopatu ianue anuatim … palium unum deauratum …’ (The Treaty of Nymphaion, 795, ll. 18-21): ‘Furthermore, he promised and agreed to give every year to the commune of Genoa two gold-threaded pallia and another one to the Genoese archbishop’. 17 Geanakoplos 1959, 85, Parma Armani 1984. 18 ‘To this end [i.e. in order to recapture Constantinople], Palaiologos forged an alliance with the commune of Genoa and granted them Galata situated in the vicinity of Constantinople and across the harbour. [The Genoese] settled in this area and in the spacious quarters that were

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD spite of its relevance and topicality, Holobolos’ oration does not lend itself particularly well to any investigation of historical accuracy. This rhetorical piece represents an unequivocal encomium of Michael VIII, and, like many other specimens of the same literary genre, it allows no suspicion or criticism of its subject.22 Furthermore, the encomium articulates its agenda by placing equal emphasis on content and form: any praise of the emperor’s achievements carries the same weight as the rhetorical devices, which the author employs in order to celebrate his honorand. These considerations therefore, together with an attempt to identify the author’s narrative strategies and to gauge his intentions, must be in the forefront of any attempt to assess Holobolos’ narrative and the information that it generates on the events surrounding the signing of the Treaty of Nymphaion.

entirely in keeping with the character of this text, which makes abundant and accurate use of non-narrative sources, such as documents on the signing of treaties.19 However, the anonymous author places the passage on the treaty in the context of his report on the loss of Constantinople by the Emperor Baldwin II in the summer of 1261 and on the subsequent departure of Latin refugees. The sequence of events that he proposes seems to imply that the Byzantine-Genoese alliance was of consequence in bringing down Latin rule in the capital. In truth, however, this was far from being the case: even if propelled by a remarkable spell of good fortune, the reconquest of the imperial city was solely a Byzantine accomplishment, carried out, as it was, before any help from Genoa could reach Constantinople. Unsurprisingly, this momentous military feat inspired some of the most renowned Byzantine authors to compose lengthy and moving accounts of the event, but, at the same time, it probably also made them extremely reluctant to assign any importance to the previous Byzantine-Genoese agreement, which was concluded precisely in order to facilitate such an outcome.20 Still, the striking silence in contemporary sources did not change the outcome of the alliance between Genoa and Byzantium. In spite of its failure to achieve its initial goal, this unlikely partnership had long-lasting and decisive bearing on the subsequent fortunes of both polities.

Holobolos begins his report with a passage about Genoa,23 a celebrated metropolis, whose name, he claims, has been inspired by its convenient geographic position as a gate (πύλη, Lat. ianua) between Upper and Lower Gaul. According to Holobolos, ancient Genoa venerated Ianus Τετραπρόσωπος, and it embraced Athenian democratic traditions subsequently becoming a centre of significant naval, military and mercantile power.24 It later transpires that the source of his information on Genoa is not Byzantine but Western, and that it comes from a work by Papias.25 Although the text of the passage in which Holobolos relates this is not clear enough for us fully to appreciate his claim, there is little doubt that the explicitness of the acknowledgment goes against the grain of the prevailing rhetorical practice, which is emphatically averse to specific citation. This unsolicited disclosure may be made simply to flaunt the author’s esoteric knowledge of both his primary material and the language in which it is written, or, perhaps, in order to educate the Byzantine audience about an eleventhcentury Italian lexicographer, and the abstruse topic on which he has written. Either way, it testifies to the breadth of Holobolos’ erudition, and suggests that basic reference books, such as Papias’ Vocabularium, were available in contemporary Nicaea and/or Constantinople, at least within the confines of the imperial court, and for

II. THE RHETORICAL FABRIC OF THE GENOESE PALLIO The first of the four imperial orations composed for Michael VIII Palaiologos by the Byzantine scholar and orator Manuel/Maximos Holobolos is the most extensive extant Greek narrative source about the ByzantineGenoese negotiations in 1261. This text also provides the only written account of the diplomatic gifts send from Byzantium to Genoa on that occasion.21 However, in there. They swore an oath and signed a treaty with the emperor in order to trade dues-free in the entire Byzantine Empire, and to help him with their ships in all his battles, and to receive their wages and expenses from him. This Palaiologos equipped sixty ships. He fiercely attacked the Venetians because they supported Baldwin’. (The Chronicle of Morea, 1277-87). 19 On the use of non-narrative sources in the Chronicle of Morea, see: Shawcross 2009, 54-64. 20 On the re-conquest and restoration of Constantinople, including references to these events found in the works of George Akropolites, Manuel/Maximos Holobolos, George Pachymeres and George/Gregory of Cyprus, see: Geanakoplos 1959, 92-115; Macrides 1980, eadem 1994, Talbot 1993, Prinzing 1998. 21 Text: Treu 1906, 45-7. The oration has been dated variously to 1261 (Dolger 1940, 185), the time closer to the events it describes, and to or immediately after 1265 (Macrides 1980, 18-19, 37), the time of the author’s appointment as rhetor ton rhetoron. The oration deals with the early years of Michael VIII Palaiologos’ life and reign and it focuses in more detail on the events in the first two years of the emperor’s office, starting from the Battle of Pelagonia in 1259 and ending soon after the Treaty of Nymphaion in 1261. The section on the Byzantine-Genoese alliance, however, leaves the strong impression of being freestanding. Consisting of a laus urbis, an ambassadorial speech, an ekphrasis and a simile, it represents a structural unit in its own right. As such, it may have been composed (and performed) on the occasion of the signing of the treaty, and could have been then embedded into the encomium. In fact, in his third oration for Michael VIII, Holobolos mentions his early attempts to compose orations for this emperor, which may have predated those that have survived: Treu 1907, 79, l. 16 ff.

22 Rhetorical precepts for the composition of the imperial encomium state that such a text ‘embraces a generally agreed amplification of the good things attaching to the emperor and allows no ambivalent or disputed features concerning the subject’ Menander Rhetor, Imperial Oration, 76, ll. 1-5. 23 Treu 1906, 45, ll. 6-20. The section on Genoa can be defined as a laus urbis, a set rhetorical piece, which can stand independently or, as in this case, as part of a more complex narrative. Byzantine imperial orations customarily include laudes urbium, although predominately those that celebrate Constantinople. It is by no means common to find praise of foreign (and particularly Italian) cities included in such texts. 24 Treu 1906, 45, ll. 7-20. 25 Treu 1906, 45, l.13: ‘Ως δ᾽ Úστορε² Παπίας Ñν τ© … (‘as reports Papias in his …’). There seems to be a lacuna in the text at this point, so we are not told which work by Papias Holobolos uses as his source. It is reasonable to assume that he consulted Elementarium doctrinae rudimentum, an alphabetical dictionary, which Papias composed in the first half of the eleventh century (cf. Weijers 1989, 140-2). Indeed, Papias’ Vocabularium (sub voce Ianua) explains the etymology of Ianus ‘Τετραπρόσωπος’ (Quadrifrons) in the same way as Holobolos, but it does not connect this term with the name of Genoa, as the Byzantine orator does in his speech.

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IDA TOTH: THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE GENOESE PALLIO AND THE SILKEN DIPLOMACY OF MICHAEL VIII PALAIOLOGOS the use of those sufficiently trained in Latin to understand their content. As well as revealing the possible extent of cultural and literary exchange between Byzantium and the West, this reference may go a long way towards dispelling any remaining doubts that Holobolos was one of the first Palaiologan scholars to study Latin and to translate from this language into Greek.26 His linguistic proficiency could also explain why this young scholar may have been deemed suitable to attend the negotiations in his capacity as an imperial secretary, as well as composing a rhetorical account of their proceedings.27

Genoese salute Michael VIII as their father (πατήρ) and the master of the world (κοσμοκράτωρ), and they praise the emperor as wiser than Themistocles, Scipio and Cicero, braver than Brasidas, Ennius (or, maybe, Aeneas32) and Lucullus, more righteous than Radamanthes, Minos and Cato and a greater benefactor than Cyrus and even Augustus himself.33 Here, too, the use of Latin models seems significant: even though such features naturally belong in a discourse attributed to Western ambassadors, ultimately, they reveal Holobolos’ choices and should therefore be viewed in the context of his determined effort to exhibit his expertise in Latin antiquitates.

Continuing, Holobolos states that the Genoese ambassadors sailed from afar in order to seek out the Byzantine emperor.28 Upon their arrival, the emperor, whom he portrays as an expert orator and a secular as well as religious scholar, addressed them in such a graceful and erudite manner that the envoys felt obliged to offer an equally elaborate verbal antidoron.29 Holobolos proceeds to quote the Genoese words verbatim.30 What follows, however, reads as an exemplary piece of Byzantine imperial rhetoric. Even if it may include some remarks originally pronounced by the envoys,31 the ambassadorial speech primarily reflects and disseminates the ideological and ceremonial traditionalism of Byzantine diplomacy, thus leaving little doubt about Holobolos’ own authorial contribution. The

In addition to the obligatory deference, the Genoese address includes two clearly made requests. The first relates the self-admitted resolution of the Genoese to abandon their own political traditions in order to become Byzantine subjects. Their appeal to Michael VIII is equally emphatic: ’ΑρχηγÄς Ùμ²ν γενο! ‘Be our leader! Command that the path of your imperial power leads to the Adriatic Sea and beyond (…)!’34 Alluding to the well-established custom whereby gifts become standard and expected ingredients of diplomatic transactions, the Genoese petition the emperor to remunerate their devotion by presenting them with his own image on a decorated/inscribed peplos. A depicted likeness of the beloved, they declare, provides a remedy for the lovelorn.35 The Platonic imagery and poetic language of the Genoese oration unquestionably stem from Holobolos’ knowledge of classical (and classicizing) literary traditions, whereas the martial similes in the subsequent section clearly reflect the terms of the Treaty of Nymphaion and the military help that the newly forged alliance was expected to generate. The emperor’s image (εÓκών), here variously likened to Ðμυντήριον (safeguard), Ðποτρόπαιον (evil-averter), ñπαλξις

26 The translation of Boethius' De hypotheticis syllogismis has been attributed to Holobolos (the attribution has been questioned by Wilson 1996, 225 (and note 6) and supported by Nikitas 1982). Furthermore, we know that Holobolos drafted an imperial letter to the Pope Clement IV (Geanakoplos 1959, 201) and probably travelled to Venice to sign a treaty on behalf of the Byzantine emperor (Constantinides 1982, 58). Cf. Angelov 2007, 68. 27 There is no evidence of Holobolos’ participation in the ByzantineGenoese negotiations beyond the indication given in this oration in which the author hints at being himself present during these events. 28 Treu 1906, 45, ll. 23-4: …μακρÀ τεμόντες πελάγη σÁ τÄν ÙμεδαπÄν Ñζήτουν αÕτάνακτα (sailing from afar, they sought you, the emperor of our land). Holobolos confirms what is otherwise known only from Da Canale’s Chronicle (page 480) about the negotiations as initiated by the Genoese: ‘[I Genovesi] …inviarono messaggi in Romania’ (The Genoese send their ambassadors to Byzantium). 29 Praise of the emperor’s erudition is a commonplace in Byzantine imperial orations, and is often afforded significant attention in the works of orators who benefited (or hoped to do so) from imperial patronage and his provisions for higher education and scholarship (cf. Radošević 1993). However, in the case of Michael VIII, this does not seem to be only a rhetorical topos as we know that this emperor took part in contemporary scholarly debates and composed two accounts of his life, which survive in the typika of the monasteries he founded: Hinterberger 1999, 267-76 and Angelov 2006. 30 Treu 1906, 45, l.32–46, l, 36. Although more commonly used in historiography, this kind of interpolation, whereby verbal or epistolary diplomatic exchange is reported in its ‘authentic’ form, is by no means contrary to the idea of the imperial oration. While it is true that imperial encomiasts mostly speak in the first person and directly to the emperor, at times they act as mouthpieces for the words they explicitly attribute to others. So it is in this case, where Holobolos ‘allows’ the Genoese ambassadors to deliver their address before Michael VIII. 31 Holobolos describes the Genoese ambassadors as outstanding orators: ibid., 47, ll.1-2: λιγε²ς Ðγορηταί Rητορεύσαντες … δεινοà γÀρ ¶σαν εÓπε²ν καà πρÄς το³τ᾽ αÕτÄ γεγυμνασμένοι καà Ñντριβε²ς (…the orators performed in a clear voice … they were highly skilled in the [art of] speaking, trained and expert in this). The Genoese address shows close familiarity with the tradition of ambassadorial speech (πρεσβευτικÄς λόγος), for whose theoretical foundation the Byzantines could refer to the second treatise attributed to Menander Rhetor, 180-1.

32

The Greek transliteration of the Latin name is unclear: ’Αννίβου. Treu 1906, 45, l.35-46, l, 5. 34 Ibidem, 46, ll. 25-8. 35 Treu 1906, 46, ll. 28-31: δός Ýς δυνατÄν σεαυτÄν τ¨ σ¨ πόλει καà ÙμετέρZ, παρηγόρησον διÀ το³ σο³ χαρακτ±ρος πέπλz καà γραφα²ς Ñγκειμένου τÄν ταύτης διαπρύσιον ñρωτα· μέγα το²ς Ñρ´σι φάρμακον καà γεγραμμένον τÄ το³ Ñρωμένου πέφυκε μόρφωμα. ‘Devote yourself to your city and ours, mighty as you are! Relieve the burning desire (διαπρύσιον ñρωτα) that our city has for you by [giving us] your image woven into a peplos and authenticated by text. A depicted likeness of the beloved provides a natural remedy for those suffering from love’. The verb γράφω and its cognate noun γραφή are ambiguous as they could designate the acts of writing, describing and decorating. Holobolos may be using γραφα²ς and γεγραμμένον deliberately in their full range of meaning to convey the idea that the imperial image, which the Genoese requested and were about to receive, was illuminated and inscribed. The theme of yearning for a love-soothing image replicates that found in the twelfth century poetic lament over the city of Athens by Michael Choniates (cf. Lauxtermann 2004, 333-5). A further point of interest concerns Holobolos’ use of the Platonic concepts of eros and pharmakon that coincides with the development of the allegory of Eros in contemporary vernacular literature as ‘lord emperor, master of all the earth, commander of the inanimate world, ruler of animate beings, examiner of every soul, judge of the law of desire, helper of love, friend of respect’. (Agapitos 1999, 122), in other words, as the mirror image of the Byzantine emperor. Holobolos’ imperial oration and Palaiologan vernacular romances are the products of the same intellectual milieu, which facilitated and indeed encouraged exchange of themes and ideas across diverse literary genres and registers. 33

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD expense of a detailed and accurate description, which – disappointing as it may be to modern-day readers – is not an integral part, and should not be expected, of such pieces. Similarly, Holobolos seeks to move, and to secure an emotional response from, his listeners by employing language replete with rich visual and emotional effects. This by no means requires that he present an exact verbal equivalent of the peplos. Rather, he focuses on his own past experience of witnessing the object that he describes, and on the impact that its viewing could have on his own audience.

(parapet), προπύργιον (barrier) and τε²χος (defence wall) would, in the words of the ambassadors, serve as a powerful means of the city’s defense and would also become the source of greatest pride for Genoa.36 With their request granted, the envoys give their faithful pledges and receive in turn two of the finest peploi, whose ekphrasis follows in the continuation of the oration. Holobolos’ description of the first textile is rather elusive as it reveals only that the peplos bore the emperor’s likeness ‘fashioned, not in gold or other precious material, but in beautiful colours’, and that it imitated the style of the ancient Assyrians.37 Holobolos clearly considers the second gift more significant as he provides more detail about it indicating, to begin with, that this silk was embroidered with gold, and that it featured scenes from the life and martyrdom of St Lawrence and his fellow-martyrs.38 It is precisely the evidence from this passage that has persuaded modern scholars that the peplos, which Michael VIII sent as a diplomatic gift following the signing of the Treaty of Nymphaion, survives today as the pallio from the Palazzo Bianco in Genoa.39 The continuation of Holobolos’ narrative only confirms this conjecture. As an accomplished orator, Holobolos is conversant with the rhetorical theory of the ekphrasis, as one of the more complex literary compositions, whose function is to present a subject ‘vividly’ before the eyes of an audience.40 Authors frequently achieve this at the

36 Treu 1906, 46, ll. 31-4: δύναταί σου καà ٠εÓκών, àν Ùμ²ν παρείη, πόλλα· Ðμυντήριον ñσται κατÀ τ´ν Ùμετέρων Ðντιπάλων στερρόν, πάσης Ñπιβουλ±ς Ðποτρόπαιον, ñπαλξις τ¨ σ¨ καà ÙμετέρZ πόλει κρατερά, προπύργιον ÓσχυρÄν καà τε²χος ðντικρυς Ðδαμάντινον... ‘Your image, if we could obtain it, would be of greatest value: it would become a powerful safeguard against our adversaries, it would avert any treachery, it would stand as a mighty parapet protecting your and our city, a strong barrier, a wall insurmountable from without…’ 37 Treu 1906, 47, ll. 8-12: … οÕκ Ñκ χρυσο³ ò τινος ðλλης πολυτίμου ìλης Ñσκευασμένον, Ðλλ᾽ Ñκ χρωμάτων κομμωτικ´ν. ΤÂν γÀρ περà τÀ τοια³τα μακρÀν φιλοτιμίαν τ© των Ἀσσυρίων Ñκείνων Ðφ±καν παίζεσθαι βασιλε². “Assyrian’ is most probably used as a generic term, to indicate the eastern style of manufacture or embellishment (Parabieri 1999, 230-1). Parani 2007, 114 ff points out that the adoption of oriental fashion among ruling elites in late Byzantium came as a result of the high degree of cultural interaction and good diplomatic relations between Byzantium and the Seljuks of Rūm in Asia Minor, the Mamluks of Egypt and the Mongols in the period of Michael VIII’s reign. It may be worth adding that it was only in the Palaiologan period that the imperial portrait became incorporated into the ceremonial dress of high court officials: ibid., 120-1. 38 Treu 1906, 47, ll. 12-15: τ© δ᾽ ðλλz Ñκ χρυσο³ πρÄς κλωστ±ρα τετορευμένου οÚ το³ καλλινίκου μάρτυρος Λαυρεντίου καà τ´ν σÅν αÕτ© περιφανε²ς Ñνεχαράχθησαν Ðγ´νες καà τÀ μέχρι θανάτου διÀ ΧριστÄν σκάμματα. ‘On the other peplos, embroidered with golden thread, depicted were the agony of the triumphant martyr Lawrence and those who were with him, and the places where they suffered their martyrdom in Christ’. 39 See above, note 12. 40 The collection of elementary rhetorical exercises (προγυμνάσματα) attributed to Aphthonius, which became the most influential Byzantine textbook of this kind, defines ekphrasis as λόγος περιηγηματικÄς Üπ᾽ ôψιν ðγων ÑναργÆς τÄ δηλούμενον (‘a descriptive composition which presents that which is shown vividly before the eyes’). Ekphrasis was one of the more advanced rhetorical exercises. Widely taught, it also became a standard component of numerous literary pieces. On the rhetorical theory and practice of ekphrasis, see: Webb 2009. On

FIGURE 2. The Genoese pallio: the flagellation of St Lawrence

At the time when he delivers his speech, the peplos has presumably already been dispatched to Genoa, so Holobolos ‘replaces’ it by his account of the embroidered images of the martyrs’ agony in the presence of the Roman emperor, and of the instruments of torture under which the holy men suffered. He also includes more specific information regarding the use of text on the silk by adding that each of the images in the original was elucidated by explanations in Latin.41 As a result, Holobolos concludes, this object ‘did not represent a peplos, but a book’, and an account of the great feats of the martyrs of Christ.42 ekphraseis of works of art, see: Elsner 2002, 1-18, James and Webb 1991, Webb 2007. 41 Treu 1906, 47, ll. 15-21: ε∙δέ τις ðν Ñκε² τÀς πρÄ προσώπου τυραννικο³ τ´ν σοφ´ν μαρτύρων παραστάσεις, τÀς γενναίας αÕτ´ν Ñνστάσεις, τÀς παρÀ τ´ν βασανιστ´ν σκευοφορουμένας τούτοις πολυειδε²ς καà πολυτρόπους κολάσεις, τοÅς σιδηρο³ς ôνυχας, τοÅς τροχαντ±ρας, τοÅς καταπέλτας, τÄ π³ρ, τÀ ξίφη, τÀς ×λύσεις, τÀ δεσμςÀ, τÀς εÚρκτÀς καà π°ν ðλλο βασανιστήριον ôργανον, ¿ν èκαστον καà Ñπιστήμασι δι᾽ Ἰταλικ´ν γραμμάτων Ñνεσημαίνετο: (‘[on the peplos] one could have seen the images of the wise martyrs, their brave resistance, many devious designs of torture that they had to endure at the hands of their gaolers, the iron nails, racks, catapelta, fire, swords, chains, shackles, imprisonment and every other instrument of torture, each of which was labelled by inscriptions in Latin’). 42 Treu 1906, 47, ll. 21-25: οìτως ñφερε θαυμασίως Û μέγας πάντα πέπλος Ñκε²νος τÄ ÚερÄν το²ς γενναίοις Ðνάθημα μάρτυσιν οÓκονομίZ βασιλικ¨, Ýς ðρα οÕ πέπλος Û πέπλος ¶ν, ÐλλÀ βίβλος· καà βίβλος οÕ

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FIGURE 3. The Genoese pallio: St Lawrence incarcerated FIGURE 4. The Genoese pallio: the martyrdom of St Lawrence

This reference is exceptionally significant, because it offers a clue to the reading and understanding of both the inscriptions and the iconography of the Genoese pallio, and it will receive further attention in the subsequent section of this paper. Holobolos’ literary devices and his writing strategy, on the other hand, call for more prompt consideration, as they reveal the overall scope of his text and its relevance to the question of ‘motion’ with which the current volume is concerned. Two passages placed respectively in the opening and closing sections of the oration, by way of framing the entire narrative, show how the author’s skilful use of similes and metaphors amplifies the range and dynamic of his writing. The concluding paragraph of Holobolos’ account of the Treaty of Nymphaion, for example, introduces the idea of comparison between Michael VIII’s gift of the embroidered silk, and the most famous ancient example of such offerings: the peplos for the life-size statue of Athena, presented as a tribute on the occasion of the Great Panathenaia, the birthday of the goddess and the festival in celebration of the unification of her eponymous city.43 ‘How does the colourful peplos that the Athenians skillfully wove for their Athena Polias fare in comparison to your artifact?’ – Holobolos’ words, as indeed his entire speech, address the emperor directly. True to form, the orator declares the Athenian product inferior, but not before volunteering, in his usual fashion, a further classical reference, in this instance to the iconography of the classical piece, the Gigantomachy, whose vivid ekphrasis conveys his listeners directly into the midst of the Battle between the Gods and the

FIGURE 5. The Parthenon freeze: the presentation of Athena's peplos (by kind permission of the Trustees of the British Museum)

προσταγμάτων θεο³ τÄ προφητικόν, ÐλλÀ σκαμμάτων νεανικ´ν μαρτύρων Χριστο³. ‘By the imperial oikonomia, the large peplos presented a sacred offering to the heroic martyrs so wondrously that indeed it no longer was a peplos, but a book proclaiming, not God’s ordinances and commandments, but the vigorous endeavors of the martyrs of Christ’.

43

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For a general discussion on the peplos of Athena, see: Barber 1992.

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD Giants.44 Similarly, in the introduction of the encomium, Holobolos compares his rhetorical piece with a ritual tribute duly presented to the basileus – a custom that, in his own words, dates from ancient times and survives to his own day.45 The scene depicted here also summons to mind the procession to the Acropolis and the presentation of a tribute, including the peplos of Athena, in the presence of the Archon-Basileus during the Panathenaic Festival.

This intriguing paragraph has not passed unnoticed by modern scholars, who have suggested that the detail and explicitness of the description testify to the probable existence of earlier if otherwise unattested textiles.48 While this remains a valid assumption – in any case, the rate of survival of objects of secular art, particularly in perishable media such as textiles, is not significant enough to reveal the full range of what must originally have been a most versatile production – we are just as likely to be witnessing yet another instance of the metaphorical weaving of an orator primarily concerned with the literary fabric of his composition. While writing his encomium, which he intends as a yearly offering to the emperor and a chronological account of the imperial deeds, Holobolos juxtaposes his own rhetorical account with a figured cloth that depicts imperial achievements in the previous year. Clearly, the author uses the textile – whether or not a genuine object of art – as a metaphor for his oration, pars pro toto, not unlike the legendary bard who makes reference to a large cloth, a double purple cloak, woven with the scenes of battles between the Trojans and the Achaeans, while himself exhaustively recounting the events of the same war.49

This image allows Holobolos to use a fairly recognizable exemplum for a double metaphor that he deploys hereafter: not only does he liken his oration to a tribute (φόρος), owed and duly presented to the Byzantine basileus, but he also transforms his encomiastic piece into a richly patterned encomiastic tapestry, a verbal peplos (λογικÄς πέπλος). Although neither of the metaphors are Holobolos’ invention,46 he is the only author known to us who employs, and indeed makes abundant use of, these topoi at the same time as describing specific objects of art, the luxurious embroidered silks, which undoubtedly inspired the employment of such familiar literary references. Moreover, the themes of weaving and gift-giving do not end here. They are pursued even further in the subsequent passage, in which Holobolos mentions another, longabandoned custom of presenting the emperor with a peplos depicting the scenes of his yearly achievements.47

These are by no means the only instances where Holobolos pays tribute to earlier literary paradigms: indeed, any attempt at topoi-hunting through his oration as a whole, unearths an impressively wide range of allusions to both classical and medieval, secular as well as religious, sources, and it fully validates this author’s reputation as the most distinguished teacher of the enkyklios paideia of his time as well as one of the first Palaiologan scholars who contributed to, and benefited from, the contemporary efforts to collect, (re)edit and study ancient and Byzantine literary heritage.50 Most importantly, however, the references to the peplos of Athena and the political and religious history of classical Athens unmistakably situate Holobolos’ text within a distinct and recognizable tradition – that of using the allegory of weaving as a paradigm for the art of

44

Treu 1906, 47, ll. 25-29: Τί πρÄς το³το τÄ ñργον Û πέπλος Ñκε²νος, ûν Úστούργουν Ἀθηνα²οι τ¨ πολιάδι τούτων Παλλάδι καà τέχν\ ποικιλτικ¨ λαμπρο²ς Ñφάρμασσον βάμμασιν, Ÿ μ³θοί τινες καà τερατε²αι Úστούργηντο, γίγαντες βάλλοντες λίθους εÓς οÕρανÄν καà βαλλόμενοι· Hereafter (ibid, ll. 29-34), Holobolos describes in more detail how Zeus and Athena fight the Giants. 45 Treu 1906, 30, ll. 6-9: Βασιλε³ αÕτοκράτορ θεομεγάλυντε, ñθος Ðρχα²ον το³το καà παλαια²ς Ðνάγραπτον κύρβεσι τοÅς Üπηκόους εÕγνωμόνως εÓσφέρειν τ© βασιλε²· το³το γÀρ çτε καλ´ς ñχον καà το²ς ε¹ φρονο³σιν ÑπαινετÄν μακροÅς διελάσαν χρόνους φθάνει νεάζον ðχρι καà ν³ν (‘Emperor, you whom God has appointed as our sole and great ruler, what follows is an ancient custom recorded on archaic tablets to the effect that subjects give tribute to the basileus in token of their gratitude. Having lasted for many years due to its noble character and praise it received from the wise, it [i.e. this custom] survives and thrives even now’. The noun ‘κύρβεσι’ situates the scene depicted here in the historical context of ancient Athens: it denotes tablets or pillars with a pointed top, inscribed with Solon’s laws and placed in the Stoa Basileios, probably for the use of the Archon-Basileus, a city magistrate responsible for religious rituals and public sacrifices (see, Robertson 1986). Incidentally, during the Panathenaic Festival, the peplos of Athena was presented to the Archon-Basileus himself (as shown on the central panel of the east part of the Parthenon frieze), whose task was to dress the statue of Athena with the garment. It may also be important to add that on the same eastern side, the Parthenon metops depict the Gigantomachy, another set of images, which feature in Holobolos’ oration. All this indicates that Holobolos’ sources may have been both textual and visual. 46 The topos of an imperial oration as a gift or ritual offering for the emperor is omnipresent in Byzantine imperial rhetoric. Furthermore, there are many instances of authors (Julian, Theophylaktos of Ochrid, Eustathios of Thessalonica are only some among them), who refer to their texts as textiles or even peploi. For the use of the metaphor of weaving in classical literature, see: Sheid and Svenbro 1996. In addition, in Byzantine literature this metaphor is frequently employed in Byzantine Mariology. (Constas 1995). 47 Treu 1906, 31, l. 4ff: … Ñν Ÿ καà πάντα φασÃν Üφαντικα²ς μεθόδοις Úστούργητο çπερ Ñκείνοις χρόνον èκαστον κεκατόρθωτο· πόλεις αÚ μÁν Ðνιστάμεναι, ðλλαι καταβαλλόμεναι, καà βασιλεÅς Ñκε² προστάττων Ðμφότερα· στρατεύματα νικ´ντα, τÀ τ´ν Üπεναντίων Ùττώμενα. καà τÄν

βασιλέα ε∙χεν Û πέπλος ταινίαν φορο³ντα νικητικÂν καà μετÀ πολλ±ς δορυφορίας πομπεύοντα·…‘into which [scil. the imperial attire] everything that the emperors had accomplished each year was spun by means of the craft of weaving: cities rebelling, the others stricken down, and the emperor giving orders to both, armies at the moment of their victory, those defeated by enemy. The peplos used to show the triumphant emperor wearing a ribbon, flanked by his entourage, leading a procession..’. Holobolos then describes scenes of the emperor hunting and presiding over a law court. 48 Macrides 1980, 28-9 and note 88 and Parabeni 230-1 and note 13 list several surviving or attested works of art, which include some of the scenes similar to those we read in Holobolos’ account. A further reference, coming from a panegyric for Justin II by Corippus, offers another vivid description and strong evidence that such textiles indeed existed. This text mentions a purple garment depicting Justinian’s achievements: ‘…barbarian phalanxes bending their necks, slaughtered kings and subject peoples in order…Justinian himself … depicted as a victor … trampling on the bold neck of the Vandal king, etc’ (for the edition, translation and commentary, see: Cameron 1976, 44, 92-3, 14042). 49 Iliad, III, 139-43. In this passage, the messenger of the goods Iris in the guise of Priam’s daughter Laodice, finds Helen in her room weaving a purple cloak with battle scenes between the Trojans and Achaeans. 50 The main historical source for Holobolos’ life is Pachymeres, History, I, 259, II, 368-371, 479, 501, 503. On Holobolos, see also: Angelov 2006, Hannick 1981; Heisenberg 1920, 112-132; PLP 21047; Treu 1896, 538-59.

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IDA TOTH: THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE GENOESE PALLIO AND THE SILKEN DIPLOMACY OF MICHAEL VIII PALAIOLOGOS statesmanship and a symbol of reconciliation and unity.51 Clearly, the literary exegesis of this metaphor as employed by Holobolos replicates the same fundamental elements found in the ceremonial of presenting the woven cloth as a token of perpetual peace and alliance between Byzantium and Genoa and it reveals an elaborate concatenation of the related issues of story, image and ritual that connects the rhetorical and iconographic narratives of the Genoese pallio.

diplomatic silks. Peter Schreiner’s seminal study on gift exchange between Byzantium and the West in the period 800-1200 CE emphasizes the problem of narrative sources and what they fail to communicate in this matter or, indeed, concerning issues of court ceremonial and diplomacy in general. Nonetheless, in spite of the haphazard and vague textual evidence, it is clear that secular and religious institutions east and west of the empire were regular and keen recipients of Byzantine silks at a time when the imperial court in Constantinople was ‘the most ancient, wealthy and splendid in the Christian world’.54

Moreover, Holobolos praises Michael VIII with a strong conviction that his verbal, metaphorical weaving presents the Byzantine emperor with the most splendid of all gifts he could receive. While spinning his own textual offering, he makes no secret of the fact that he follows in the footsteps of a long procession of orators who honored their rulers in the same way. Neither do his descriptions of the Genoese embassy or of the diplomatic gifts depart from this tradition. Holobolos’ rhetorical peplos reflects the horizon of expectations of his own, Byzantine, audience accustomed to his mode of narration and his language, steeped in an archaizing and conservative idiom as only befits such Byzantine literary products par excellence as imperial orations. Although not entirely deprived of topical relevance, Holobolos’ composition is primarily intended to exemplify the orator’s rhetorical skills and to promote the imperial ideology, whose aims it clearly and unequivocally serves. This encomiastic piece can therefore be fully interpreted only through the prism of these factors. Any more partial consideration will only serve to limit its value as a narrative source of prime value.

As to the use of silk in Byzantine diplomacy after the fall of Constantinople in 1204, our knowledge is, once again, very sparse. High-grade silk manufacture may already have been established in Nicaea in the first half of the thirteenth century, when this city became a major supplier of precious textiles in the region.55 Intensive sericulture could have contributed to the thriving economy of the Nicaean state as well as providing a steady supply of this fabric to meet any potential demand of the Byzantine court. To what extent this demand included the use of silk for ceremonial purposes is difficult to gauge, although a passage from George Pachymeres’ historical work may go some way towards elucidating this issue. It concerns the Emperor John III Vatatzes and his advice to his son Theodore II Laskaris on just imperial conduct. Pachymeres tells us that once, when the emperor saw his princely offspring return from a hunting expedition clad in silk, he cautioned him against the display of such imperial assets except during the visits of ambassadors from abroad.56 This anecdote prompts the deduction that silk still played a portent part in diplomacy in Nicaea, or, at least, that it was potent enough to ensure the continuation of the time-honoured custom of the Byzantine court of displaying silk robes before foreign envoys, even if imperial largess in such precious custom-made objects, given the famously frugal nature of John Vatatzes, seems to have been unlikely. Although a diplomatic gift associated with this emperor has been attested, silk played no part in it. Vatatzes is known to have presented a tenth-century staurotheke with a particle of the True Cross to Elias of Cortona, a master general of the Franciscan order, who came to

III. THE NARRATIVE STRATEGIES OF A DIPLOMATIC GIFT Silk played a major role in the economy, court life and diplomacy of the early and middle Byzantine Empire. Byzantium exercised a monopoly over both the production and trade of this textile and exploited silk as a means of furthering its political interests. Specific weaving and embroidery techniques, colours, motifs and texts on imperial silks imparted exclusivity while also declaring rank and alliance, all of which made them ‘the diplomatic gifts par excellence; precious, light and easily transportable items that embodied the prestige and power of the empire’.52 These artefacts made up a substantial portion of the whole body of Byzantine diplomatic largesse, and some fortunately still survive in cathedral treasuries across Western Europe.53 However, beyond our understanding of the extant material, there is very little that we know about the actual quantity and appearance of

54

Magdalino 1997, 141. Jacoby 2001, IX, 18-19. Laiou and Morrison 2007, 190, note 55 argue that Jacoby’s assertion has been based on a forced interpretation of Metochites’ text. 56 Pachymeres, History (Failler), 61-3. The emperor reprimanded his son saying that such luxuries represented the blood of their people (οÕκ ο∙δας, φησίν, αêματα ε∙ναι Ῥωμαίων τÀ χρυσόσημα τα³τα καà σηρικά; ‘Do you not know that these silk embroideries are the blood of the Romans?’). The expression ‘blood of the Romans’ is used here to denote tax wealth, which Vatatzes was reluctant to use for private expenses and imperial administration, even – as the passage seems to suggest – at the expense of the splendor of his imperial court. (Angelov 2007, 272-3). Parani 2007, 119 reminds us that John III Vatatzes promulgated a law inducing his subjects to buy only those garments and fabrics that were produced in Byzantine lands and not those imported from the Middle East and from Italy. However, the purpose of this measure was to control the outflow of money and not to protect Byzantine tradition, as had been the case with similar measures in the past. 55

51 On the metaphor of ‘political weaving’ in ancient Greek literature, see: Sheid and Svenbro 1996, 9-34. 52 Muthesius 1992, 237. On Byzantine diplomatic gifts including silk largess also see: Cutler 2001, idem 2003, idem 2008, Cormack 1992, Brubaker 2004, Schreiner 2004, Jacoby 2004. On the anthropology and economics of gift-giving in Byzantium (and more widely), see: Cutler 2001 and 2008. For the recent critical assessment of modern scholarship on medieval gifts, languages of gift and gift exchange, see: Wickham, 2010. 53 For a map indicating distribution of Eastern silks in the West before 1200, see Muthesius 1992, 238.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD Nicaea as the ambassador of the Emperor Frederic II in 1241/2.57 The high status of the relic, the exquisite craftsmanship of the ivory box in which it was kept, as well as the accompanying inscription commemorating the military exploits of the ‘Holy Warrior’, Nikephoros II Phokas, invoked the ancient prerogative of Byzantine emperors to bestow particles of the True Cross, and associated John III with one of the most accomplished generals among his imperial predecessors. By contrast, the foreign policy of Michael Palaiologos, conducted in the climate of controversy and disputed legitimacy which marked the first years of his reign, availed itself of other imperial paradigms, set in a more recent past. Rather than emulating earlier practices, Michael VIII followed the patterns of Komnenian diplomatic traditions of the eleventh and the twelfth centuries, which included trade concessions, and grants in money and silks to Italian maritime republics in exchange for their military help.58 In this context, the significance of the Genoese pallio is greater still, as this textile represents the first diplomatic gift to a western polity from the first Palaiologan emperor sent in an attempt both to establish the continuity of the Byzantine state, and to identify himself as a legitimate successor of the rulers who occupied the Constantinopolitan throne before the disaster of 1204. This message may have not been subtle, but it had to be communicated in persuasive terms that would resonate with both sides of the agreement, and it therefore required careful consideration. By way of a suitable approach, Michael VIII’s diplomatic gift combined the standard attributes of imperial largess, such as monumentality and sophistication with an idiosyncratic iconographic programme, which amalgamated two seemingly opposed narrative genres: a hagiographic story highly relevant to the spiritual history of the gift recipient, and a donor composition showing the benefactor as an active participant in this story. In this way, the pallio merged two distinct realms into a single reality that both symbolized the basic premises of the agreement and anticipated many of the benefits that it would bring. The donor composition is somewhat larger than the other scenes on the pallio such that it dominates the iconography of the entire piece. However, for all its impact, this image offers only an elided visual reference to the act of patronage, and it uses no distinct language of imperial largess.59 It depicts Michael Palaiologos as he enters the Cathedral of Genoa in the company of St Lawrence and St Michael, the holy figures who grant divine sanction to his actions. The winged archangel has his hand placed protectively on the emperor’s shoulder, while the martyred deacon leads the emperor by the hand towards the church. The three form a compact group. Each figure, looking straight ahead, has direct visual 57

On the reliquary, see: Klein 2008, Rhoby 2010, 331-4. Such treaties were concluded in 1082 (Alexios I/Venice), 1111 (Alexios I/Pisa), 1136 (John II/Pisa), 1155 (Manuel I/Genoa), 1170 (Manuel I/Genoa). 59 For elided visual references in imperial donor compositions and the visual language of imperial largess, see: Brubaker 2010. 58

contact with the viewer. The attributes and gestures of the figures surrounding the emperor all point to the political status of Michael VIII, who is represented in full imperial regalia and identified by the solemn inscription in gold.60 The inscription describes the scene accurately, except in one, albeit significant detail: it omits to mention that the Taxiarch of the Army of God and the heavenly guardian of Byzantine emperors also appears in this scene as a champion of the ensuing alliance. While it remains unclear whether this omission was deliberate or accidental – the allocated space for this inscriptions seems barely sufficient for the amount of text that it carries – there is no doubt that the depiction of this saint in Byzantine art was frequently associated with the idea of imperial power, and that in the case of Michael VIII, this association was even more emphatic. Not only were many representations of this emperor accompanied by the images of his celestial patron, but he is also known to have been himself portrayed and described as winged and angelic.61 For this reason, the iconography of the central scene on the pallio, in contrast to the accompanying inscription, adds a distinct Byzantine tone to what may otherwise be understood as a Western interpretation of the newly forged union. By conflating heavenly and terrestrial powers, the pallio of Genoa utilizes imperial ideology, which attributes divine qualities to the emperor and stresses his role as an intercessor with saints and angels on behalf of the commune.62 Furthermore, the scene of the imperial entrance may be perceived as corresponding to the rhetorical laus urbis with which Holobolos begins his ekphrasis. Just as the description of Genoa serves to set a new scene for his audience, which has previously followed the story of the emperor’s deeds in the preceding year, the representation of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo on the pallio guides the viewer toward the new destination of the gift.63 While the encomium situates the act of imperial gift-giving within the broader context of imperial ideology, the pallio represents, in pictorial and self-referential terms, the legally ratified relationship between Constantinople and Genoa. The verbal and the visual in this case have a certain synergy, making use of similar symbolic and metaphoric imagery. They relate to different aspects of the alliance, but address the respective sides participating in the union in a way that allows for a considerably deeper insight into the nature of the diplomatic exchange that takes place. The Latin terminology used in the text of the Treaty of Nymphaion, which includes the phrases solertium and privilegium, reveals the formal status of the Genoese 60

For the text of the inscription, see above and below, Appendix One. In his Typicon (ll.1215-16) for the Monastery of the Archangel Michael on Mount Auxentios near Chalcedon, Michael VIII calls the Archangel Michael his vigilant guardian who has lead him to victory over both domestic and foreign foes. For further textual and material evidence of this association, see: Talbot 1993, 258-60 and Maguire 1997, 254-5. 62 On Byzantine caesaropapism, see: Dagron 2003, 282-312. For recent assessment of the relationship between the secular and sacred in the medieval world, see: Walker and Luyster 2009. 63 The parallel strategy of binding two polities into a legal contract was employed in another diplomatic gift the Byzantine manuscript for Agnes of France: Hilsdale 2005. 61

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IDA TOTH: THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE GENOESE PALLIO AND THE SILKEN DIPLOMACY OF MICHAEL VIII PALAIOLOGOS pallio as a gift.64 On the Byzantine side, Holobolos’ reference to this textile as τÄ ÚερÄν το²ς γενναίοις Ðνάθημα μάρτυσιν (the sacred offering [scil. made by the emperor] to the heroic martyrs) highlights the spiritual aspect of the alliance. The predominantly religious character of the iconography on the pallio as a whole, the landscape of the donor composition, and the allegorical representation of the Cathedral of San Lorenzo as an active participant in the union, all indicate that the intended recipient of this silk was the archbishop, rather than the commune, of Genoa. Furthermore, the imposing architecture of the Genoese church, which also serves as a backdrop for the first scene of the subsequent hagiographic narrative, allows a smooth transition between the two generically and chronologically diverse stories. Whereas the scene of the emperor’s entrance in San Lorenzo undoubtedly marks a focal point and a rubric in any reading of the pallio, the cathedral performs a further (spatial) role. It unites the places of the saint’s miracle working (Genoa) and his martyrdom (Rome) into one timeless locus sanctus; and this, in turn, serves as the setting for the lengthy and elaborate story of St Lawrence and his fellow martyrs, St. Sixtus and St. Hippolytus, that follows.

FIGURE 6. The Genoese pallio: The Cathedral of San Lorenzo

The clue for the viewing of this martyrdom story is also readily available. In order to uncover it, we have to return to Holobolos and his description of the imperial silk: ‘… the large peplos presented a sacred offering to the heroic martyrs so wondrously that indeed it no longer was a peplos, but a book proclaiming, not God’s ordinances and commandments, but the vigorous endeavors of the martyrs of Christ’. 64

The Treaty of Nymphaion, 795, ll. 18-21.

This user-friendly advice seems clear enough: the pallio is a book and, as with any book, it presumably reads from left to right and from top to bottom. For those considering the book’s contents further information is forthcoming. In fact, the passage communicates in no uncertain terms the literary source for the iconographic narrative of the Genoese pallio. For Holobolos, the peplos is ‘a book of the endeavors of the martyrs of Christ’, a martyrion, ‘a story of a martyr or a group of martyrs presenting not their lives but their passion: the saint’s questioning by the authorities, their torture and execution’.65 In the Byzantium of Holobolos’ time, the only widely available martyrion that incorporated such hagiographical information about Sts Lawrence, Sixtus and Hippolytus, came from a liturgical book, the Synaxarion, whose close reading indeed verifies Holobolos’ claim and thus confirms the timeless cliché of Byzantine religious art regarding the precedence of text over image.66 Any remaining doubt that the pictorial narrative of the Genoese pallio closely follows the story of St Lawrence from the Synaxarion is quickly dispelled by the contents of the accompanying Latin inscriptions, which correspond closely and fundamentally to the iconographic programme, and were most certainly composed to accompany the images. These texts are no mere labels, but serve as a detailed and definite guide through the depicted hagiography, featuring lines of text that relate so closely to the Greek original, that at times they function as quotations from, as well as being translations of, their literary source.67 Holobolos’ remark, instructive as it is, is also most unusually explicit and, in consequence, sits rather uncomfortably with the idea of abstract and sublime rhetorical writing which informs the literary genre of imperial oration. We must therefore assume that the decision to reveal to his own audience, post festum, the narrative strategies of Michael VIII’s diplomatic gift, constitutes part of Holobolos’ own agenda, and that it may indicate his own concerns. At least one among these can readily be guessed at if we bear in mind the problematic layout of the story of St Lawrence as it features on the Genoese pallio, which requires that viewers begin their ‘reading’ from the scene immediately following the donor composition, which happens to be the sixth, rather than the first, in the upper register. Could Holobolos himself have perceived the order of scenes as counterintuitive and in need of further clarification? Did he perhaps think that flagging the correct sequence of storylines as they appear in the martyrion would pre-empt any potential misreading of the pictorial narrative? Finally, might this have been a way of making sure that his audience understood that the idea of a Latin story about a Genoese (and Roman) saint on a Byzantine diplomatic gift was not so controversial after all because it ultimately originated from a Byzantine liturgical book? While we may never be able to find definite answers to these questions, the impulse to ask 65

The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, s.v. ‘martyria’. On the Synaxarion, see: Kazhdan 1996. The text of the martyrion of St Lawrence: Synaxarium mensis Augusti, dies 10. 67 For the illustration of the close relationship of the inscriptions on the pallio and the martyrion from the Synaxarion, see Apendix One. 66

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD them illustrates how dependant our reading of such gifts can be on the narrative contexts provided by authors whose concerns are not wholly clear. On a different level, these questions once again remind us of Holobolos’ insider knowledge regarding the Byzantine-Genoese negotiations, of his linguistic proficiency and – if a further unverifiable conjecture is not entirely out of place – of his possible direct involvement in the process of preparation of the Genoese pallio as a diplomatic gift. As to the hagiographic story of St Lawrence on the Genoese pallio, it begins, as noted above, in the sixth scene of the upper register,68 which depicts the Pope Sixtus ordering St Lawrence to dispose of church belongings.69 In the next two scenes (seven and eight), Lawrence carries out Sixtus’ orders: he sells the church treasures and distributes the money to the poor.70 In scene nine Sixtus argues with the emperor Decius about Lawrence’s actions, while scene ten represents Sixtus’ martyrdom.71 At this point, the viewer needs to return to the beginning of the upper register where the story continues. In scene one, just as Sixtus does in scene nine, Lawrence argues with Decius about the sale of the church treasures.72 Scene two sees the martyr present to the emperor the people to whom he distributed the money.73 As a result, the saint is seen being flagellated in scene three and imprisoned in scene four.74 The lower register reads uninterruptedly from left to right. In the first scene, the imprisoned Lawrence heals the sick who seek his help.75 In scene two, the jailer lies prostrate before Lawrence, who baptises him in the next scene.76 The fourth scene represents Lawrence’s martyrdom on a

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For the correct order of scenes and inscriptions, see Appendix One. Inscription, scene six: S(anctus) Xistus Ep(i)s(copus) Rome | p(re)cipien(s) S(anc)to Laur(entio) Archid|iac(ono) dispensare vasa | Eccle(sie) (St Sixtus, the Pope of Rome, commands the Archdeacon St Lawrence to distribute church vessels). 70 Inscription, scene seven: S(anctus) Laur(entius) | venunda(n)s | vasa Ec|clesie (St Lawrence selling the vessels of the Church); inscription, scene eight: S(anctus) Laurent(ius) p(e)cu(niam) vaso(rum) | que vendidit disp(e)rgens pau|peribus (St. Lawrence divides the money [acquired] from the vessels that he sold). 71 Inscription, scene nine: S(anctus) Xistus disputans im|peratori Decio (St Sixtus arguing with the Emperor Decius); inscription, scene ten: S(anctus) Xistos gladio ca|pite amputatus (St. Sixtus decapitated by the sword). 72 Inscription, scene one: S(anctus) Laurenti(us) disputan(s) impera|tori Decio de vasis que | vendidit (St. Lawrence arguing with the Emperor Decius over the vessels that he sold). 73 Inscription, scene two: S(anctus) Laur(entius) qui opperabat veiculis | claudos et cecos quibus disp(o)sit | precium vasorum ad imperatorem (St Lawrence who drove on carts to the Emperor Decius the crippled and the blind to whom he divided the money from the [sail of the] vessels). 74 Inscription, scene three: S(anctus) Laurenti(u)s vapulatus (St Lawrence flogged); inscription, scene four: S(anctus) Laurentius in carcere (St Lawrence in prison). 75 Inscription, scene one: S(anctus) Lau(rentius) curans in carcere | om(ne)s infirmos ad eu(m) venientes (St. Lawrence in prison healing all the ailing who come to him). 76 Inscription, scene two: Tiburcius Calinicus pre(ce)ptor | carceris credens in Cr(ist)o (Tiburcius Calinicus the jailer of the prison believing in Christ). Inscription, scene three: S(anctus) Laurentius baptisans | Tiburcium Calinicum (St Lawrence baptizing Tiburcius Calinicus). 69

gridiron.77 The fifth scene portrays the saint’s burial by his fellow martyr Hippolytus.78 In scene six, Hippolytus argues with Decius, in scene seven he is tortured by iron nails, and is then being dragged by horses in scene eight.79 The final two scenes depict the burials of Lawrence’s fellow martyrs, Hippolytus and Sixtus.80 Even a swift glance over the Genoese pallio uncovers influences from diverse cultural traditions, and an artistic lingua franca whose elements can be traced in a number of comparanda from Byzantine and Western illuminated manuscripts, wall paintings, carvings and mosaic cycles.81 The techniques underlining the execution and decoration of the pallio predominantly follow the traditions of Palaiologan church embroidery.82 In spite of the operating language, the textual source for the main story is, as has already been argued, also Byzantine. However, the theme of the martyrdom of St. Lawrence remains today without parallel in Byzantine art. Moreover, there survive no other textiles whose iconography incorporates a sequenced hagiographic narrative and an imperial composition in the way that this silk’s does, although some precedents for each of these conventions have been separately attested. Domestic textiles with Christian narratives, for example, are known to have been used in Egypt, and probably much more widely, from the sixth century and well into the Middle Ages.83 The evidence suggests that by far the most popular theme depicted on these cloths was the Old Testament cycle of the Life of Joseph. Coincidentally, one of the extant Joseph silks, a fragment of a woven tapestry preserved in the Cathedral Treasury in Sens (France), presents the story across two registers, and includes explanatory inscriptions, in a way that highly resembles the Genoese pallio.84 The same could be said about the practice of including the image of a Byzantine emperor in the decoration of ceremonial textiles. Although such silks have been recorded,85 their imperial compositions are never set in the context of a sequenced story. The majority of imperial silks known to us tend to 77 Inscription, scene four: S(anctus) Laur(entius) sartaginibus ignis excensi Deo sp(iritu)m | com(m)edans (St Lawrence commends his spirit to God on the iron-hot gridiron). 78 Inscription, scene five: S(anctus) Ypolitus sepel|liens S(an)c(tu)m Laurentium (St Hippolytus burying St Lawrence). 79 Inscription, scene six: S(anctus) Ypolit(us) di|sputans imperatori Decio (St Hippolytus arguing with the Emperor Decius); inscription, scene seven: S(anctus) Ypolit(us) unguibus | eneis lacerates (St Hippolytus tortured by iron nails); inscription, scene eight: S(anctus) Ypolitus p(er) equos | feroces tractus (St Hippolytus dragged by wild horses). 80 Inscription, scene nine: S(anctus) Ypolitus | sepultus (St Hippolytus buried); inscription, scene ten: S(anctus) Xist(us) | sepultus (St Sixtus buried). 81 H. Belting used the term of Mediterranean lingua franca to explain the hybrid artistic style that emerged wide across the Eastern Mediterranean in the thirteenth century: Belting 1979, 1982. For artistic comparanda, see Johnston 1976, 105 ff; Falcone 1996; CalderoniMansetti 1999. 82 The use of the couched metal thread, the frame of a narrow border of vegetal decoration and the background scattered with decorative motifs of a Greek cross inscribed in a circle all point to the Palaiologan tradition of church embroidery. Johnstone 1976, 102. 83 Maguire 1990. 84 Idem, 222 and plate 36. 85 Scott 1992, 163; Muthesius 1992, 240-1; Parani 2007, 120-1.

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IDA TOTH: THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE GENOESE PALLIO AND THE SILKEN DIPLOMACY OF MICHAEL VIII PALAIOLOGOS conform to a repertoire of courtly themes, and to use decorative and heraldic motives or, more rarely, figured scenes, but with very little or no accompanying text. Ecclesiastical silks, even if containing donor compositions, customarily depict figural biblical imagery designated by their function in the liturgy. But in either of these genres, there survives nothing that matches the subject matter of the Genoese pallio and its distinctive treatment. The narrative strategies found across the pallio, on the other hand, do not seem to demonstrate any special novelty. In fact, they utilise standard techniques for communicating pious content, found in wall paintings, illuminated books and vita icons, the media in which the hagiographic genre found its major pictorial interpretation in the Middle Ages. The vita icons in particular attracted the widest of audiences as they delivered instant access to the edifying stories of saints’ lives.86 These depicted biographies first appeared in the thirteenth century in the Mount Sinai, where they served the polyglot communities of pilgrims who gathered there, and they then quickly spread to Italy, Cyprus and Russia. Some of these iconographic narratives consciously mixed different traditions in order to appeal to their culturally (and linguistically) diverse audiences, or to assimilate the veneration of saints common to two cultures. Most of them were large-scale panels intended for public display, featuring central portrait icons surrounded by long narrative cycles of the saints’ lives. Since they offered the pictorial equivalent of the text of saints’ lives, they have been defined as ‘reading icons’87 – a term that seems equally suitable to the Genoese pallio and its rich narrative, which could be employed to similar ends as a particularly effective medium of communication between the Byzantines and the Genoese.

FIGURE 7. The Genoese pallio: St Lawrence sells church treasures

Indeed, on the most basic level, the pallio performs the same educational function as any written or illustrated hagiography. Its role is to edify and improve, and, ultimately, to inspire emulation of universal Christian values. The message that salvation could be achieved through good deeds and self-sacrifice may be expressed in a somewhat erratic manner, but the seemingly scattered order of the scenes by no means precludes the existence of programmatic elements within the overall narrative. One theme instantly stands out: the sale and sharing of possessions. The charitable actions of the saint, as they are illustrated on the pallio, closely relate to the act of imperial generosity and, through this, to the very nature of this silk as a diplomatic gift.88

86 On vita icons: Patterson Ševčenko 1999, 163; Belting 1994, 249-60; on iconographic narratives in general, see: Bal 1991; Barry1999; Hahn 1995; Kessler 1985. 87 Belting 1994, 249. 88 For a similar case whereby a large narrative programme relates to the economic and political contexts of its creation, see Nelson 1999.

FIGURE 8. The Genoese pallio: St Lawrence distributes money to the poor

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD A similar principle may be identified in the way in which the imperial scene relates to the episodes of martyrdom. In spite of its central position and its significance as a donor composition, the lack of a decorative border or any other ornamental device, which would isolate it from the surrounding story, allows the viewer to read it alongside the account of martyrdom, or even to integrate it in the hagiographic narrative.89 Viewers who understood rhetorical strategies commonly employed in panegyrical literature and art (and their number was not insignificant due to a high level of visual literacy) would not fail to note contrast in the representations of the antithetical imperial models. In this context, the cruel and inflexible disposition of the Roman Emperor Decius serves to increase the merits of the munificence and benevolence of his Byzantine counterpart.

FIGURE 9. The Genoese pallio: St Lawrence argues with the Emperor Decius

Just as an understanding of the symbolic and metaphorical imagery is essential for any interpretation of the donor composition, an appreciation of the standard techniques of synkrisis and antithesis considerably expands the range of both narratives on the pallio and, consequently, allows for a more nuanced and better informed viewing experience.90 Clearly, the visual language of Byzantine hagiography 89

‘Rationally this [scil. imperial scene] should have been lifted out of the main story by some device in the layout or decorative border’: Johnstone 1976, 106. 90 On the use of the techniques of synkrisis and antithesis in Byzantine art, see: Maguire 1988; idem 2003.

could be successfully employed to communicate the story of the celestial patron of Genoa and the saint to whom the city’s cathedral had been dedicated since the eleventh century. The martyrion of St Lawrence was beyond doubt the most appropriate subject for the Byzantine diplomatic gift, and not only because of its significance for the Italian commune, but also because of its relevance to Constantinople’s own history of the veneration of this saint. A church dedicated to St. Lawrence had existed in the Byzantine capital from an early age, and the gridiron, on which St Lawrence was martyred, was reportedly kept in Constantinople throughout the middle Byzantine period until as late as the beginning of the fifteenth century, when the Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos sent it as a diplomatic gift to King Martin of Aragon.91 This evidence establishes an important link between the sacred histories of the two cities and adds a further, religious component with a message of spiritual authority to the Byzantine diplomatic gift. The anticipated reciprocity between Genoa and Byzantium, however precisely stipulated in legal documents, is once again expressed in fundamentally hieratic and asymmetric terms. However, for the full effect of the ideological ideas of religious precedence, technological superiority and political might to take place, this gift needed to reach, and to be displayed before, its target audience.92 Unfortunately, our inadequate knowledge of the setting of the pallio in Genoa and of its function, if any, in the context the liturgy in the church of St Lawrence, prevents us from drawing any definite conclusions regarding its afterlife, ‘publicity value’ or any new meaning that may have been attached to it by its recipient. We assume that the silk was intended for exhibition in a prominent space within the San Lorenzo, but have no confirmation about its location before 1386, when it was listed as an altar cloth in an inventory of the treasury of the cathedral, where it seems to have stayed until 1633. Thereafter the silk was handed over to the commune, was marked by a plaque and exhibited in order to commemorate Genoa’s glorious historical past and its enduring greatness.93 This evidence accentuates the symbolic value that the pallio had for the Genoese. After all, we have to keep in mind that the silk was manufactured on their request and that, once it reached its intended destination, it stayed in their permanent possession. Although the consideration of the economy of gift-giving is not central to this paper, it would be difficult to ignore the commercial ramifications of the diplomatic exchange, of which Genoa became a major beneficiary. In the second half of the thirteenth century, this maritime republic saw a great cultural, financial and commercial expansion: their seafaring and military skills had enabled the Genoese to develop longdistance trade, to establish permanent presence in eastern markets and, as a consequence, to secure such high profits that, by the beginning of the fourteenth century, ‘Genoa might well have been the wealthiest city in the 91

Van Millingen 1912, 64-5; Majeska 1984, 230, 347 and note 58; Klein 2004, 311-12. 92 Cutler 2008, 92. 93 For the history of the pallio in Genoa, see: Parma Armani 1984, 3841.

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IDA TOTH: THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE GENOESE PALLIO AND THE SILKEN DIPLOMACY OF MICHAEL VIII PALAIOLOGOS wealthiest part of Europe’.94 The treaty of Nymphaion played no small part in prompting these developments as it enabled the Genoese to expand their colonial dominion to the Black Sea, a region that exported, among other goods, raw material required by the developing silk industry of Liguria.95 The artistic medium of silk, chosen (or requested) for the diplomatic gift, and the promise of substantial revenue that the pallio underscored, must have resonated so clearly with the local mercantile class – a surprisingly large segment of Genoese society96 – that even the threat of papal excommunication, which, in fact, was realised soon after the signing of the treaty, did not deter Genoa from concluding a lucrative deal with Byzantium. Although not without its share of controversy,97 the union with the Genoese found its justification in the realm of Byzantine imperial ideology, to the main tenets of which it formally adhered. The terms of the agreement allowed Michael VIII Palaiologos – nominally, at least – to assume the role of a supreme Christian ruler who followed in the footsteps of his imperial predecessors by welcoming his new ally into the ‘Byzantine family of princes’. That this basic premise was officially sanctioned soon after the signing of the treaty in 1261 becomes clear from the Palaiologan treatise on the ceremonial of the Byzantine court attributed to PseudoKodinos. This source confirms that Michael VIII in person concluded ‘perpetual peace’ with the Genoese, who, in response, were required to demonstrate mandatory reverence owed to the sovereign, whose rightful place was at the very pinnacle of the hierarchy of states.98 However, beyond the confines of imperial 94 Doosselaere 2009, 62. On Genoa’s economic prosperity and culture in the second half of the thirteenth century, see: Epstein 1996, 140-88. 95 On the Ligurian silk industry: Jacoby 1999. 96 On the social diversity and networks of Genoese trading communities in the thirteenth century, see: Doosselaere 2009, 78-117. 97 The depiction of Michael VIII entering a Latin church could hardly have been perceived as entirely unproblematic, especially if we consider the consequences of the negotiations over the Church Union in 1274, which triggered violent riots in Constantinople, just over a decade after the pallio was produced. Furthermore, even with the high degree of interaction between the two cultures and the novel modes of communication integrated into Byzantine and Genoese diplomacy as exemplified by the Genoese pallio, it is still difficult to see how a Byzantine diplomatic gift could include the titulature of Michael VIII referring to the emperor as Altissimus Imperator Graecorum. While this title was customarily used in western sources to denote the Byzantine basileus, it was never sanctioned by the Byzantines themselves. A possible explanation in this case may be found in the execution of the Latin inscriptions, which, according to P. Johnstone (Johnstone 1976, 76), indicate Latin workmanship. The caption above the imperial scene on the pallio may have been added without direct consultations with the Byzantine court by a Latin scribe/craftsman who adopted the existing formula (the Latin translation of the Treaty of Nymphaion uses the same wording) and, moreover, possessed insufficient visual literacy to recognise and label the saintly figure of St Michael. 98 Pseudo-Kodinos clarifies that each podestà sent from Genoa to govern the Genoese colony in Galata was required to pay deepest honours to the emperor by double prostration and by kissing his hand and foot. The same was demanded of all other Genoese archontes, who took part in the daily ceremonial of the court. Genoese ships were also obliged to pay their respect to the emperor by acclaiming him on their arrival at Constantinople. Furthermore, the Genoese governor took part in the ceremony of the prokypsis, during which he acclaimed the

ceremonial, the Treaty of Nymphaion did not bring much benefit to Byzantium: Michael VIII’s unprecedented generosity was not reciprocated as the Genoese were slow to render the services they had promised, while their presence in Constantinople in subsequent years caused a great deal of trouble and even resulted in a conspiracy against the emperor.99 Moreover, the damage that Byzantium suffered as a result of the abolishment of the commercial tax (kommerkion) eventually became irreparable. A fourteenth-century Byzantine author pointed out the great disproportion in the profit made from trade on the part of Genoa and Byzantium respectfully, and confirmed that the Byzantines understood soon enough that their partnership with the Italian commune was a transaction they could ill afford.100 A further upshot followed: the enduring memory of Michael VIII Palaiologos as the emperor who allowed ‘the greedy, cruel, murderous and ungrateful [scil. Genoese] race’101 into Byzantium regrettably became the one legacy of his reign that withstood the test of time. IV. THE SILKEN POLITICS OF MICHAEL VIII PALAIOLOGOS On 15 August 1261, the feast day of the Dormition of the Virgin, Michael VIII Palaiologos celebrated the reconquest of Constantinople by staging a solemn procession, in which he himself played an unusual but carefully chosen role: through the Golden Gate and along the Mese towards the Church of St Sophia, he walked bare-foot behind the icon of the Theotokos of the Hodegon Monastery, the palladium of the Byzantine empire and a symbol of divine sanction granted to God’s people and their pious basileus.102 His humble adventus, and the prominent place within it accorded to the image of the Mother of God, bore a strong resemblance to a number of eleventh- and twelfth-century triumphal ceremonies, in a way that would anticipate other similarities between Komnenian and Palaiologan imperial traditions.103 Many among these were inaugurated soon after the emperor’s arrival at his capital city, as the New Constantine – this epithet became part of Michael Palaiologos’ title very early on – embarked on a series of highly ambitious ventures aiming at rebuilding Constantinople, re-establishing educational institutions, reviving imperial ceremonial, and renewing diplomatic relations in an attempt to restore conditions as they had

emperor in Latin and received from him the gift of a kolikion. PseudoKodinos, 208-9; 235-6. 99 Geanakoplos 1973, 168-71. 100 Nikephoros Gregoras, History, I, 527. 101 Alexios Makrembolites, Logos Historikos, 144. 102 The ceremonial entry was planned as a religious celebration ‘pleasing to God rather than befitting an emperor’ (θεοπρεπ´ς μάλλον ù βασιλικ´ς): Akropolites, History, 187, lines 26-7. On the processional icon of the Virgin Hodegetria and its use in the imperial ceremonial, see: Angelidi and Papamastorakis 2001 and 2005; Pentcheva 2006, 109-45. 103 Macrides 1994, 274 list several Komnenian imperial triumphs, which were probably used as models for Michael’s entry to Constantinople.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD existed before 1204.104 Both the gift of the Genoese pallio and Holobolos’ encomium, which celebrated Michael Palaiologos’ accomplishments, can be construed in the context of these developments. Holobolos’ appointment as the rhetor ton rhetoron, the office he held at the time he delivered his oration, was the first of its kind to be awarded since such titles ceased to exist in the twelfth century. Although antiquarian in character, this ecclesiastical post embodied the true spirit of Michael VIII’s revivalist politics, because it was endorsed, not as a pointless exercise in the restoration of pre-1204 practices, but with a quite specific contemporary agenda in mind.105 Similarly, the obsolete custom of imperial largess in precious silks intended for Italian maritime republics, another relic from the Komnenian era, afforded an effective means of furthering Michael VIII’s interests. The text of the Treaty of Nymphaion clarifies this as it explains that the request of the gift of pallia was made in order to commemorate the same privileges that the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos had granted to Genoa in the second half of the twelfth century.106 Indeed, Manuel I committed himself to sending silk peploi on at least two occasions, in 1155 and 1169,107 though he probably failed to honour either of these promises. By contrast, Michael VIII could exploit what was a timely Genoese petition to confirm his position of higher authority and to pursue what would prove his most consistent foreign policy – and another that he shared with his Komnenian predecessors – that of establishing a network of Western alliances using all diplomatic means available. The alliance with Genoa in 1261 was by no means the only event in Michael VIII’s reign that gave rise to the manufacture and presentation of precious textiles. In fact, no other Palaiologan emperor used the medium of silk in the display of imperial power as did the founder of this imperial dynasty, whose actions provide abundant evidence for a wide range of roles that these luxurious fabrics played in the sepulchral, ecclesiastical, and diplomatic aspects of public life in contemporary Byzantium. Numerous testimonies, mainly surviving in the historical work of George Pachymeres, reveal lavish production of silks under Michael VIII, predating even the Treaty of Nymphaion and the bequest of the Genoese pallio. In his account of the discovery of the remains of Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer, Pachymeres reports that Michael VIII provided silks embroidered in gold, on 104

On Michael VIII’s revival of Komnenian traditions and his image as a New Constantine, see: Macrides 1980, 22-4, Macrides 1994, Talbot 1993, Angelov 2007, 42-7. 105 The office of the rhetor ton rhetoron had been prominent in the twelfth century, but subsequently became obsolete in the Empire of Nicaea, only to be renewed at the time when Michael VIII required stronger support of ecclesiastical authorities for his actions. Holobolos remains the only Palaiologan author known to us, who acted as the rhetor of the Church and composed annual imperial encomia. On the office, see: Darouzes 1970, 101, 200-1. On Holobolos’ appointment, see: Macrides 1980, 19ff. 106 The Treaty of Nymphaion, 795, ll. 21-2. 107 Dölger 1932, nos. 1402, 1489. On Byzantine-Genoese diplomatic contacts between 1155 and 1204, see: Day 1988, 15-46.

which to lay the body, before he had it transported to its permanent resting place in the Monastery of the Saviour in Selymbria.108 The same author mentions that Michael VIII adorned the Church of St Sophia with textiles and other furnishings immediately after the recapture of Constantinople.109 Following the initial restoration work, a number of images were created to commemorate the first Palaiologan emperor as the New Constantine. Among them was a figure of Michael VIII as the Thirteenth Apostle embroidered on a peplos, commissioned by the Constantinopolitan Patriarch Germanos III, and later displayed between two porphyry columns at the west end of the Cathedral of Constantinople.110 Furthermore, when Michael VIII’s illegitimate daughter Maria was sent as a bride to the Mongol ruler Hulagu Khan in 1265, her entourage included an abbot of the Pantokrator monastery, who carried with him a skenikos (probably a portable chapel in the shape of a tent) made of sturdy new silk peploi depicting gold-embroidered images of saints.111 However, when on another occasion the Mongols themselves were direct recipients of Michael VIII’s silks, they showed no appreciation for the emperor’s generosity. Their ruler Nogay Khan derided Palaiologos’ presents, stating that such luxuries had no practical value and would do nothing by way of protecting from elements or pain.112 Impressive as it may seem, the full range and quantity of Michael VIII’s diplomatic largess remains regrettably unverified, largely due to the fact that a cargo of treasures, sent on a ship from Constantinople to the West when the Byzantine delegation left for Lyons in 1274, was irretrievably lost in a sea storm. It is again Pachymeres who sheds light on this accident. Although he does not specify the content of the shipment beyond stating that it contained icons and liturgical vessels, he mentions a magnificent altar cloth, which the emperor had previously donated to the Church of St Sophia and then, under the pressure of time constraints, decided to use as a gift for the Pope.113 Eventually, the Roman pontiff did receive a new, custom-made, pallium from Michael VIII, who presented it to the Vatican to mark the proclamation of the Union of the Churches in 1274. This precious textile has not survived and is known only from the inventory of the papal treasury made in 1295, which describes it as a purple embroidered imperial silk, inscribed in both Greek and Latin, depicting narrative scenes from the lives of the apostles, and the figures of 108 Pachymeres, History (Failler), 175-7. This reference is significant because it adds to our otherwise insufficient knowledge of the use of silk in Byzantium to encase important relics. On the problem of sparse documentary evidence for this practice, see: Brubaker 2004, 194. 109 Pachymeres, History (Failler), 233, ll. 11-3. Cf. Talbot 1993, 251. 110 Pachymeres, History (Bekker), 614, ll. 9-15. In the first decade of the 14th century, the Patriarch Arsenios ordered this image to be altered to represent St Constantine, and not the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty, who, by that time, had been condemned to damnatio memoriae due to his highly unpopular religious policy: Macrides 1980, 23. 111 Pachymeres, History (Failler), 235, ll. 13-18. 112 Pachymeres, History (Failler), 447, l.26-449, l. 11. Cf. Cutler 2001, 268. 113 Pachymeres, History (Bekker), 384, l. 10-385, l. 8.

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IDA TOTH: THE NARRATIVE FABRIC OF THE GENOESE PALLIO AND THE SILKEN DIPLOMACY OF MICHAEL VIII PALAIOLOGOS Christ, the Virgin, various angels and St Peter, to whom Michael VIII is presented by the Pope Gregory X.114 Clearly this intricate piece replicates the ideas and symbolism of the Genoese pallio, and, just with the Genoese silk, should be viewed as an instrument of Michael VIII’s carefully designed and precisely targeted ‘silken diplomacy’, harking back to a practice that had seen its heyday in the middle Byzantine period and came to a halt before 1204. However, it was only after the intense but short-lived revival in the second half of the thirteenth century, rather than directly following the fall of Constantinople to the Crusaders, that the Latin West ceased to receive diplomatic silks from Byzantium. This chronology could be explained by the loss of Byzantine Nicaea, a major centre of silk production, to the Ottoman Turks during the reign of Michael VIII’s son and successor, Andronikos II Palaiologos; while the establishment of silk production in the West in approximately the same period may additionally have tempered any demand for Byzantine luxurious fabrics, even those that came with the stamp of imperial authority. Owing to these and other contributing factors, in the last century of Byzantium, west-bound imperial largess changed both in content and in character. Highly sought, holy objects such as relics and icons, became the main currency in Byzantine diplomatic transactions. The Byzantine emperor remained the most prominent distributor of such items. However, his role as the sacred guardian and defender of Christian material heritage was severely compromised by the need to use artefacts of such high status as merchandise in a desperate attempt to secure the political and economic survival of his empire.115 The Genoese pallio informs the art and diplomacy of contemporary Byzantium in a markedly different way. While still operating within the traditional language of imperial ideology, this silk is also exeptional by being personalised, self-referential and remarkably wide in scope. The textile’s carefully spun narrative fabric increases its value as a purpose-made imperial gift, but it also, uniquely, testifies to the high degree of political and cultural exchange between Byzantium and Genoa under Michael VIII. In this respect, the Genoese pallio can be perceived as an idiosyncracy, emblematic of Byzantium in the second half of the thirteenth century: its luxurious material, intricate embroidery, rich iconography and elaborate text epitomize the artistic and intellectual achievements of the early Palaiologan period; its polyvalent nature as a diplomatic gift, on the other hand, stands as a symbol of the resourcefulness of imperial oikonomia, to which the ever more vulnerable Byzantine state was increasingly forced to resort.

114

Molinier 1885, 18-9, no 811. Klein 2004, 306-14; Mergiali-Sathas 2004, 55-60; Shepard forthcoming.

115

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FIGURE 10. The Pallio, Palazzo Bianco, Genova. (Photos provided by kind permission of Dr. Loredana Pessa, Collezioni Tessili, Raccolte Ceramiche, Museo Luxoro, Genova)

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD

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Appendix One Scene sequence Donor composition (Five, Upper Register)

One (Six, Upper Register) Two (Seven, Upper Register) Three (Eight, Upper Register) Four (Nine, Upper Register) Five (Ten, Upper Register) Six (One, Upper Register) Seven (Two, Upper Register) Eight (Three, Upper Register) Nine (Four, Upper Register) Ten (One, Lower Register) Eleven (Two, Lower Register) Twelve (Three, Lower Register) Thirteen (Four, Lower Register) Fourteen (Five, Lower register) Fifteen (Six, Lower Register) Sixteen (Seven, Lower Rester) Seventeen (Eight, Lower Register) Eighteen (Nine, Lower Register) Nineteen (Ten, Lower Register)

Inscriptions on the Genoese pallio S(anctus) Lau(rentius) Induce(n)s altis|simum Imp(er)atorem gre|co(rum) D(omi)n(u)m Mich(ae)l(em) Duca(m) Ang(e)l(u)m Co(m)nenu(m) Paleologu(m) in ecc(les)iam Ian(uensem). S(anctus) Xistus Ep(i)s(copus) Rome | p(re)cipien(s) S(anc)to Laur(entio) Archid|iac(ono) dispensare vasa | Eccle(sie) S(anctus) Laur(entius) | verunda(n)s | vasa Ec|clesie S(anctus) Laurent(ius) p(e)cu(niam) vaso(rum) | que vendidit disp(e)rgens pau|peribus S(anctus) Xistus disputans im|peratori Decio S(anctus) Xistos gladio ca|pite amputatus S(anctus) Laurenti(us) disputan(s) impera|tori Decio de vasis que | vendidit S(anctus) Laur(entius) qui opperabat veiculis | claudos et cecos quibus disp(o)sit | precium vasorum ad imperatorem S(anctus) Laurenti(u)s vapulatus S(anctus) Laurentius in carcere S(anctus) Lau(rentius) curans in carcere | om(ne)s infirmos ad eu(m) venientes Tiburcius Calinicus pre(ce)ptor | carceris credens in Cr(ist)o S(anctus) Laurentius baptisans | Tiburcium Calinicum S(anctus) Laur(entius) sartaginibus ignis excensi Deo sp(iritu)m | com(m)edans S(anctus) Ypolitus sepel|liens S(an)c(tu)m Laurentium S(anctus) Ypolit(us) di|sputans imperatori Decio S(anctus) Ypolit(us) unguibus | eneis lacerates S(anctus) Ypolitus p(er) equos | feroces tractus S(anctus) Ypolitus | sepultus S(anctus) Xist(us) | sepultus

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Text from the Synaxary

…, κελεύει ὁ ἅγιορ Ξύζηορ Λαςπενηίῳ ηῷ ἀπσιδιακόνῳ αὐηοῦ διοικῆζαι ηὰ ζκεύη ηῆρ ἐκκληζίαρ. …ὁ δὲ ηαῦηα πωλήζαρ… … διένειμε πηωσοῖρ

… ξίθει ηὴν κεθαλὴν ἀπεημήθη.

… καὶ λαβὼν ηοὺρ σωλοὺρ καὶ ἀναπήποςρ, οἷρ διένειμε ηὰ σπήμαηα, ηαῖρ ἁμάξαιρ ἐπιζηοιβάζαρ ππὸρ ηὸν βαζιλέα ἤγαγεν. …κελεύει ηὸν ἅγιον Λαςππένηιον ηςθθῆναι ζθοδπῶρ … εἶηα βληθῆναι ἐν ηῇ θςλακῇ ἐν ᾗ [scil. θςλακῇ] γενόμενορ ἰᾶηο πάνηαρ ὅζοι ἂν ππὸρ αὐηὸν ἐθοίηων, … Ἅπεπ ὁ ηπιβοῦνορ Καλλίνικορ βλέπων, ὃρ ἐπεζηάηει ηῆρ εἱπκηῆρ, ἐπίζηεςζε ηῷ Χπιζηῷ καὶ ἐβαπηίζθη ἐπὶ ἐζσάπαρ ἁπλοῦηαι ὑθαπηομένος πςπόρ· καὶ ἐν αὐηῇ ηῷ Θεῷ εὐσαπιζηήζαρ, ἀθῆκε ηὸ πνεῦμα κηδείαρ ηῆρ ὀθειλομένηρ παπὰ ηοῦ Ἱππολύηος ηςγσάνει ἐκέλεςζε κηνάπαιρ αὐηὸν ζιδηπαῖρ μαζηιγωθῆναι ἐκέλεςζε καὶ ἵπποιρ ἀγπίοιρ πποζδεθῆναι· ὑθ’ ὧν ἐπὶ πολὺ ζςπόμενορ…

Conclusion Henry Maguire In discussing the theme of objects in motion, one can make a distinction between movement, and portability. By movement, I mean movement carried out by the agency of the objects themselves, as well as movement outside the objects, by their viewers or users. By portability, I refer to the problems of controlling the uses made of portable objects and the difficulty of guaranteeing their validity. I turn first to movement by the objects themselves. In Late antiquity, by means of the processes of theurgy, pagan statues were brought to life, that is animated, through dedicatory inscriptions, or through rituals such as burnt offerings or the insertion of particular inscriptions, objects, or substances into cavities in the god’s statue.1 Christians, too, took part in such practices – as in the case of the tokens of St. Symeon with their images that were enlivened, and encouraged to heal, by their inscriptions.2 Later in the middle ages we find a striking parallel to the pagan statues that were animated by inserted inscriptions and substances, namely the numerous sacred statues that enclosed and were empowered by relics – the Gero crucifix and St. Foie of Conques come to mind as conspicuous examples.3 This brings us to a dilemma that resulted from the medieval belief that images had the potential to be animated. From the Christian perspective, moving images could be good or bad – if the icon of a Christian saint came to life and moved under the agency of that saint, it was a sign of sanctity, or a miracle. The many stories of icons of the Virgin moving in response to prayers, or of frescoes of St. George smiting the enemies of Christ with his spear, demonstrate that images of Christian saints could move in ways that were considered beneficial.4 But there was also a more sinister scenario. If demons got hold of a Christian image they could cause it to move, but in bad and inappropriate ways. Sometimes we hear of Christian icons that had been corrupted through their use 1

J. Duffy, “Reactions of Two Byzantine Intellectuals to the Theory and Practice of Magic: Michael Psellos and Michael Italikos”, in Byzantine Magic, ed. H. Maguire, Washington, D.C., 2008, 83-97, esp. 85. 2 G. Vikan, Byzantine Pilgrimage Art, Washington, D.C., 1982, 27-40; idem, “Art, Medicine, and Magic in Early Byzantium”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 38 (1984), 65-86, esp. 67-74. 3 P. Lasko, Ars sacra, 800-1200, Harmondsworth, 1972, 104-5, pl. 98; I.H. Forsyth, The Throne of Wisdom: Wood Sculptures of the Madonna in Romanesque France, Princeton, 1972, 77-9, 116-17, figs. 13-15, 34. 4 H. Maguire, The Icons of their Bodies: Saints and their Images in Byzantium, Princeton, 1996, 74-6, 92-3.

in magical rituals. At other times the Christian image was compromised by being painted over a pagan one. The result was frequently some erratic movement on the part of the icon; it might suddenly turn itself around, for example, and face the wrong way.5 If a pagan statue was animated, it was probably the work of demons. But sometimes, pagan statues could also be set in motion by events and rituals that were Christian. According to John of Damascus, for example, in the temple of Hera built by Cyrus there were gold and silver idols which danced all night when Christ was born.6 From these stories, fanciful though they may seem in our semi-rational age, we can appreciate the medieval anxiety that existed about images coming to life and moving. All images had the potential to be animated, and there was a host of invisible forces, good and bad, waiting to animate them. The movement of images was both difficult to control and to interpret. I turn now to the motion of the viewer in relation to the object. Anthony Cutler raises this important issue by describing the different directions that could have been taken in the viewing of ivories – whether from above or from below, from one leaf of a diptych to another, or from the front of an ivory-clad book to its back. In addition, he discusses the sometimes opposed directions in which narratives depicted on ivories could have been read. There is also another kind of motion that involves the viewer, and that is the movement of the viewer into the imagined space created by the object. An example is the famous sixth-century ivory in the British Museum, originally the right half of a diptych, which portrays an angel standing on a flight of steps beneath an arch.7 Here it can be proposed that the viewer is being invited into the angel’s world; that is, the viewer is being encouraged to mount the steps on which the angel stands. The position of the angel at the top of the stairs has a counterpart in the reliefs sculptured on the base beneath the obelisk erected by the Emperor Theodosius I in the Hippodrome of 5 E.D. Maguire and H. Maguire, Other Icons: Art and Power in Byzantine Secular Culture, Princeton, 2007, 43, 154. 6 Sermon on the Nativity, ed. S. Eustratiades, Neos Poimen 3 (1921), 32-3. 7 R. Cormack and M. Vasilaki, ed., Byzantium, 330-1453, exhibition catalogue, Royal Academy of Arts, London, 2008, 80, 383, no. 21.

OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD Constantinople. In the carvings on the base of the obelisk two officials are represented standing on the steps that lead up to the imperial box.8 A set of instructions for the attendance of the emperor at the chariot races, later included in the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies of the Byzantine court, explains the role of these attendants.9 According to the Book of Ceremonies, before the races began the emperor was to seat himself on the throne in the kathisma, the imperial box. An official named the praepositos was to position himself at the top of the stairs leading to the box, so that before the games started he could summon the patricians to climb the steps and make obeisance to the enthroned emperor.10

objects were difficult for the authorities to control. As Canepa observes, a miniature Manichaean codex could easily be hidden during persecutions; that was good for the wearer, perhaps, but not for the persecutors. In the Christian context, the secret, concealable nature of small objects raised the issue of unauthorized access to supernatural powers, which bypassed the proper channels and hierarchy of the Church. An image fixed and on view in a public place, such as a church building, was easier to supervise. One could ascertain who was using it and how. In the eyes of the authorities, portable objects raised two separate, but equally important concerns. First, there was the nature of the powers to which the object gave access – were they properly Christian, or were they heretical, or pagan, or worst of all, a mixture of all these. The phenomenon of hybridization appears vividly in the syncretism of Manichaean magic spells, a recurring theme in Canepa’s paper. Indeed, one of the characteristic features of Late Antique magic in general is its tendency to syncretism, expressed in the simultaneous evocation of as wide a variety of supernatural powers as possible, for maximum effect. To take an example totally at random, we may cite an Egyptian amulet, written on parchment, designed to protect a certain Philoxenos from evil. It invokes, in turn, the powers of Yao Sabaoth, Mithras, and the last words spoken by Christ on the cross. It also calls on a host of angels – the seven archangels, the seven cherubim who fan the face of God, and the great cherub of fire whose name no one knows.14 In terms of modern healing, the magic spell, with its listing of multiple angels and gods, is the equivalent of the maximum strength multivitamin capsule, with the obscure names of its innumerable ingredients written in small letters on the bottle.

Two other sets of directions in the Book of Ceremonies concern the promotion of a courtier to the office of magistros. One passage stipulates that the emperor will make a sign to the praepositos, who will then approach him and tell him the name of the candidate to be promoted.11 The second passage explains that that the praepositos will lead the candidate “to the feet of the emperors”, who will be enthroned at the top of a flight of porphyry steps.12 It can be seen, then, that the angel depicted in the ivory takes on the role of a palace functionary charged with guiding a candidate up the steps and into the presence of the ruler, who is, in this case, Christ. An inscription carved above the angel specifies his role further. It may be translated: “Receive the suppliant before you, despite his sinfulness”.13 The angel, therefore, in the same manner as the praepositos in the earthly palace, announces to Christ the suppliant who will ascend the stairs to his promotion in the palace of heaven. In the case of the ivory, the name of that person is now unknown, but since ivory diptychs were associated with the elite, he must have been someone of very high status, possibly the emperor himself. It is probable that the man referred to in the inscription was shown on the missing left-hand panel of the diptych.

Of course, to the Christian church such hybrid magical charms were anathema. In the seventh century miracles of St. Demetrius, we encounter the pious eparch Marianos, whom the devil had afflicted with paralysis. His servant, hoping to cure him, procured a magical amulet, an inscribed parchment, which, in the words of the text, combined magical formulae written in Greek and in Hebrew letters, together with the names of obscure angels whose names were “unknown to the many”. But the good Marianos was immediately suspicious of this variety of invocations and names, and rejected the proffered spell indignantly.15

So it may be that we have here an implication of a double movement. On the one hand there is the motion of the dignitary depicted on the missing panel, from the left to the right of the diptych. But also there is the invitation to the viewer, who is outside the frame, to mount those angel-guarded steps to the palace of heaven. From objects that moved on their own account, or that invited their viewers to move, I turn to those that were portable (that is, were liable to be carried from place to place by their users), and to the difficulties that this class of objects created. Easily portable items with numinous powers, such as the portable altars discussed by Crispin Paine and the miniaturized Manichaean and Christian texts described by Matthew Canepa, were inherently problematic. Like concealable weapons today, these

A magical text, written on a small piece of papyrus or on a metal lamella, could easily list a multiplicity of supernatural powers. But on a small-scale object, such as a pendant, it was difficult to achieve an equivalent catalogue through multiple images, for the images would have taken up too much room, unless they were too tiny to be identified. A solution to this problem was to employ an ambivalent image, one that could reference several

8 B. Kiilerich, The Obelisk Base in Constantinople: Court Art and Imperial Ideology, Rome, 1998, 50, fig. 20. 9 Ibid., 130, 146-9. 10 A. Vogt, ed., Le Livre de Cérémonies, vol. 2, Paris, 1967, 115. 11 Ibid., vol. 1, 132-4. 12 Ibid., vol. 2, 40-1. 13 ΔΕΧΟΥ ΠΑΡΟΝΤΑ/ΚΑΙ ΜΑΘΩΝ ΤΗΝ ΑΙΤΙΑΝ.

14 M.W. Meyer and R. Smith, ed., Ancient Christian Magic: Coptic Texts of Ritual Power, Princeton, 1994, 115-16. 15 P. Lemerle, Les plus anciens recueils des miracles de Saint Démétrius, vol. 1, Paris, 1979, 61.

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HENRY MAGUIRE: CONCLUSION powerful forces at the same time. An example of this type of motif is the Holy Rider, which often appears on early Byzantine amulets. On a bronze pendant found at Smyrna, the rider appears together with an inscription that identifies him both as Solomon and as the Saints Sisinnios and Sisinnarios.16 Solomon was the author of the magical primer, The Testament of Solomon, which lists the names of the demons and reveals the specific troubles that they caused.17 Sisinnios and Sisinnarios were rider saints who destroyed demons, especially those responsible for killing children in their infancy. On many Late Antique amulets the rider appears without any inscription at all, leaving his identity entirely open. Here the protective rider could be interpreted as Solomon, Sisinnios, Theodore, or even Christ from the Entry into Jerusalem.18 In the eyes of the church such ambiguous images were highly suspect, since they reeked of syncretism.

operating in an autonomous fashion, compelling the saints to act, like a magical amulet acting on a god, or did it work through the orthodox channels of intercession? The somewhat embarrassed explanation appended by the author to the end of the story, that the woman was healed by the visitation of the saints, hardly resolves the issue.

For the ecclesiastical authorities, the second problem inherent in portable objects was the nature of their use. Even if the object gave access to an approved power – Christ or one of his saints – was the means of access authorized? Did the use of the object place the owner in direct contact with divine forces, so that the church had no role in the transaction and no control over it? This was certainly not a state of affairs to be encouraged. Canepa refers to the common practice of wearing canonical scriptures on the body as amulets. But, in a well-known passage, Asterius, who was bishop of Amaseia at the turn of the fourth and the fifth centuries, objected to people wearing images of the Miracles of Christ woven into their clothing.19 On the other hand, elsewhere the same Asterius described at length and with great approval the scenes of the martyrdom of St. Euphemia that were painted on the walls of a church.20 In the eyes of the bishop, the main difference between the two sets of images appears to have been that the miracle scenes on the garments had been chosen by the wearers themselves, and given directly to their weavers. Asterius complains that these patrons were lay people, and, in particular, women. The paintings in the church, on the other hand, had been chosen by, and were supervised by, the male clergy.

Of course, the most convincing authentication of a sacred object would be a miracle, or else an event that could be claimed as a miracle, such as victory in battle. If for example, as Georgia Frank reports, the oil lamps near the True Cross relics at Poitiers continuously boiled over, this was surely a good sign of the relics’ authenticity. But, absent such a miracle, the simplest way to reassure users of the genuineness of relics was to label them carefully, as is done with medicines today. In medieval reliquaries, such labeling could take several forms. Sometimes the place, or person, of origin was written directly onto the object itself, as in the case of the stones from pilgrimage sites in the Holy Land contained in the box from the Sancta Sanctorum cited by Frank. Sometimes the inscriptions were written on authentications, small strips of parchment that accompanied the relics in their compartments. Sometimes the names and places appeared all together in one list attached to the reliquary.22

If portability raised problems for the authorities, this was no less true for the consumers. To return to the analogy of pills in today’s market, we can identify two principal issues for the purchaser. The first problem is that of authenticity – is the pill a genuine antibiotic, for example, or is it merely a counterfeit? The second issue is that of effectiveness. Even if the capsule is the antibiotic it is supposed to be, will it actually work? Very similar issues faced the users of relics and pilgrims’ keepsakes. Did this bone really come from the body of such and such a saint? If it did, will it cure me of my affliction?

In her paper Frank draws our attention to another of the ways by which people were assured of the authenticity of the relics that they desired to venerate. She observes how, on the lid of the painted box from the Sancta Sanctorum, the painted images of Christ’s life ordered the memories evoked by the box’s contents, and she retrieves for us the word souvenir, stressing memory as well as experience. These pictures could be said not only to order the stones and their associated memories, but also to validate them. After all, the stones in the box could be any old pieces of rock. The pictures authenticated them. Conversely, the painted scenes were anchored in reality by the stones, which removed the images from the realm of the artist’s imagination and grounded them in the actual holy places.

In some cases, the private uses of Christian images evidently occupied a borderline position. Such was the case with the well-known account of the woman who drank the plaster from an icon of Saints Cosmas and Damian in her house in order to obtain a cure, a story which is related in their Miracles.21 Was this image 16 P. Perdrizet, Negotium perambulans in tenebris: études de démonologie gréco-orientale, Strasbourg, 1922, 27, fig. 7. 17 C.C. McCown, The Testament of Solomon, Leipzig, 1922. 18 Maguire, The Icons of their Bodies, 122-3. 19 Homilia I; ed. J.-P. Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus, Series Graeca, 40, cols. 165-8; partial English translation in C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire 312-1453, Toronto, 1986, 50-1. 20 Ed. F. Halkin, Euphémie de Chalcédoine, Brussels, 1965, 4-8; English translation in Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire, 37-9. 21 L. Deubner, Kosmas und Damian, Leipzig and Berlin, 1907, 137-8; J.D. Mansi, Sacrorum conciliorum nova et amplissima collectio, vol. 13, Florence, 1767, col. 68. On this story, see especially E. Kitzinger,

“The Cult of Images in the Age before Iconoclasm”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954), 81-150, esp. 107, note 89 and 147-8; L. Brubaker, “The Sacred Image”, in The Sacred Image East and West, ed. R. Ousterhout and L Brubaker, Urbana, 1995, 1-24, esp. 7. 22 For a reliquary that incorporates both authentications inserted into the compartments containing its wood and stone relics and a separate list of the contents attached to its back, see, for example, J. Durand, “L’icone reliquaire de la Nativité de l’ancienne collection Marquet de Vasselot”, Revue du Louvre 46.3 (1996), 29-41, esp.31-3, figs. 3-6.

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OBJECTS IN MOTION: THE CIRCULATION OF RELIGION AND SACRED OBJECTS IN THE LATE ANTIQUE & BYZANTINE WORLD There was a kind of mutual validation between the art and the relics. This circularity of authentication also applied to objects such as the labarum of Constantine, which, as Hallie Meredith explains, authenticated Eusebius’ account of the emperor’s vision, even as the vision itself authenticated the labarum.

reliquaries included collections of stones from all over the Holy Land.25 In these cases, it seems, a single relic of the cross was not enough. Then there is the role of texts, such as Eusebius’ Vita Constantini or the Glory of the Martyrs by Gregory of Tours, not to mention the numerous saints’ lives that conclude with the miracles performed at the saint’s tomb or by his or her relics. Frank relates the wonderful story of the blood of John the Baptist, which saved a city, and then created a secondary relic of a gem that in its turn created tertiary relics of water and wine that cured the sick. This kind of history shows vividly how medieval writers helped to create the mental box of belief that enabled relics and pilgrims’ tokens to do their work.

Another method of guaranteeing the authenticity of the relics, popular especially later in the middle ages, was to place them into a reliquary that contained old art from an earlier era – such as an antique gem, a Late Antique ivory, a tenth-century Byzantine ivory, or an ivory that pretended to be a tenth-century Byzantine ivory.23 If the art was old, so it seems to have been thought, then the relics that accompanied the art were old also. A very good example of this principle from later in the middle ages is a reliquary now in the treasury of the Cathedral at Halberstadt, which was made in the early thirteenth century to house a relic of the True Cross, which bishop Conrad von Krosigk brought back from Constantinople in 1208. The reliquary takes the form of a wooden tablet with a silver cladding. Twelve circular depressions around the perimeter of the tablet held the relics of the twelve apostles, each hollow compartment containing an authentication and being covered by a disc of rock crystal. The principal relics were housed in a square compartment in the center of the tablet, under a large square piece of rock crystal. There, under the crystal, we find wooden fragments of Christ’s cross, together with a thorn from his crown, and, somewhat surprisingly, a small early Byzantine inlaid silver plaque portraying the Crucifixion.24 The inclusion of this little icon together with the relics under the rock crystal appears to show that Byzantine works of art, especially ones that seemed to be old, could themselves acquire a quasi-relic like status, and thus they could help to authenticate the pieces of wood or stone with which they were associated.

Pictures, of course, also played their part in creating that mental box. In some cases, as at the church of St. Demetrius in Thessaloniki, portrayals of a cultic saint were accompanied by inscriptions testifying to his miracles. Both the portraits and the testimonials reinforced the devotees’ faith in the efficacy of the water and the oil that they carried away from the shrine.26 Alternatively, the standing of the relics could be enhanced by images of other saints, who made up a supporting cast that both affirmed the power of the principal relics and participated in their healing. At the monastery that housed the body of the monk Hosios Loukas in Greece, for example, the body of the saint exuded myron, an oil that was carried away by pilgrims as a cure for their ailments. Facing the tomb of the saint in the north arm of the church there is an early eleventhcentury mosaic portrait of the holy man with his hands raised in prayer, which is paired in the south arm with another mosaic of the doctor saint Panteleimon, holding his medical instruments. The role of St. Panteleimon here was not only to receive petitions in his own right, but also to support the belief of visitors in the medical powers of the local monk Holy Luke. The pilgrims needed to believe that the holy oil they took away from his tomb was effective medicine. The more widely known saint, Panteleimon, provided a testimonial for the curative powers of the newcomer, Holy Luke.27

As mentioned above, the second problem faced by the consumer of portable objects was their effectiveness. How was one to know that the relics, even if they were genuine, would work? One solution was to hedge one’s bets, by collecting as many different bits and pieces as possible – the technique of multiple drug therapy. Thus we have many medieval true-cross reliquaries, like the Halberstadt reliquary, which also incorporated relics of saints in addition to the sacred wood. Other cross

We can also see at Hosios Loukas how some of the other issues raised by the Late Antique amulets were resolved in the Middle Ages. Here the process of supernatural healing was firmly centered within the church. On the

23 See, on this principle, H.A. Klein, “Eastern Objects and Western Desires: Relics and Reliquaries between Byzantium and the West”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 58 (2004), 283-314, esp. 299-300. On later imitations of tenth-century Byzantine ivories, see H. Maguire, “Ivories as Pilgrimage Art: a New Frame for the ”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 63 (2009), forthcoming. 24 P. Janke, Ein heilbringender Schatz. Die Reliquienverehrung am Halberstädter Dom im Mittelalter, Geschichte, Kult und Kunst (Munich, 2006), 144-7, pl. 3, fig. 40. The same principle, of Byzantine art authenticating relics, also can be seen in the mid-twelfth century Stavelot Triptych, which houses two smaller Byzantine enameled triptychs, one incorporating splinters of the True Cross, and the other covering relics of the cross, a nail, the sepulcher, and the Virgin’s garment; W.M. Voelkle, The Stavelot Triptych: Mosan Art and the Legend of the True Cross, exhibition catalogue, Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, 1980, 9-25; Klein, “Eastern Objects and Western Desires”, 299-300.

25

A late-medieval cross reliquary at St. Albans Monastery, for example, contained stones from Nazareth, Bethlehem and the Holy Sepulcher, as well as pieces from “the altar of the Circumcision”, Gethsemane, the rock of Calvary, “the place of the Ascension”, and the Golden Gate; A. Frolow, La relique de la Vraie Croix. Recherches sur le développement d’un culte, Paris, 1961, 522. A similar selection of stones accompanied a cross fragment that Foulcher, Patriarch of Jerusalem, sent in 1156 to Conrad, Duke of Dalmatia, including particles of the crib, the place of the Presentation in the Temple, the Garden of Gethsemane, Calvary, the tomb, the Mount of Olives, and, finally, the Virgin’s tomb; ibid., 335. 26 R. Cormack, Writing in Gold: Byzantine Society and its Icons, London, 1985, 50-94. 27 A. Kazhdan and H. Maguire, “Byzantine Hagiographical Texts as Sources on Art”, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45 (1991), 1-22, esp. 14-16, figs. 30, 33.

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HENRY MAGUIRE: CONCLUSION physical level, access to the saint’s body and to its portable secondary relics – the oil – was carefully controlled by the monks. In the pictorial scheme of the church building the icons of the saints are at the bottom of a carefully arranged hierarchy of images that culminated in a mosaic of Christ and his heavenly court in the dome. There could be no doubt in this place about the ultimate source of Holy Luke’s power, and no possibility of short cuts by the petitioner in order to avoid the regular channels of appeal. The case of the portable altars discussed by Crispin Paine adds a further layer to this discussion. Here the sanctity of the objects derived not only from their inscriptions, their images, their materials, and the relics that they enshrined, but also from their ritual contexts, namely from their initial consecration by a bishop, and from their subsequent function as altars in the celebration of the mass. The consecration by the bishop provided a guarantee of both the orthodoxy and the authenticity of the altar and its relics, and also provided some control over who was to use the object, at least initially. In medieval Byzantium the role of visual imagery and of texts in supporting the numinous powers of objects can be seen at work in the realm of state diplomacy as well as in religious cult. The paper by Ida Toth and Milena Grabacic shows how, in a diplomatic context, a text (the oration of Holobolos) and objects with images (two embroidered peploi) guaranteed the agreements between the Byzantines and the Genoese that were enshrined in the treaty of Nymphaion. The embroidered portrait of the emperor Michael VIII was described in remarkable terms as a remedy, an apotropaion, a bulwark, and outwork, and a defensive wall for the Genoese, almost as if it were a magical object with protective powers in its own right.28 Although Holobolos was a learned and sophisticated author, writing in a high style, his characterization of the powers of the emperor’s portrait connects with medieval popular culture, in which images of usually anonymous emperors appeared together with magical signs on portable lead amulets as guarantees of safety and good fortune for their wearers.29 The embroidered peploi, with their associated rhetorical performances, and such exquisitely crafted portable altars as the Arnulf ciborium demonstrate that the issues raised by portability resonated at the highest cultural levels, as well as among the amulets and tokens of the common people. However dazzling the artistry, the same questions surrounded the numinous power of the object: what was its source, and how should it be controlled?

28 H. Maguire, “Magic and Money in the Early Middle ages”, in Approaches to Early-Medieval Art, ed. L. Nees, Cambridge, MA., 1998 (= Speculum, 72, 1997), 79-96, esp. 81-2. 29 Ibid., 88, fig. 14.

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