KOURELIS 1

Zaraka SurroundedThe Archaeology of Settlements in the Peloponnesian Countryside© Kostis Kourelis

Submitted for review

The Cistercian Monastery of Zaraka, Greece

ed. Sheila Cambpell (Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto)INTRODUCTIONThe Cistercian abbey of Zaraka is a Romantic ruin in a beautiful pastoral setting,surrounded by the waters of Lake Stymphalis, the peaks of Mount Kyllene, and a fertile plateau.

The archaeological investigations within the walls of the monastery have sharpened our understanding of Frankish Greece but have also highlighted lacunae in our understanding of themedieval landscape beyond the walls. While sustaining a spiritual community within, themonastery targeted native populations and natural resources outside its walls.

Thus, we canappreciate the significance of the monument more fully by situating the Cistercian experiment inits broader ecological context. More than just a masterpiece of medieval architecture, themonastery of Zaraka was a self-conscious expression of urbanistic, ecological, and productiveagendas.Rural archaeology in the Peloponnesos has revealed a dynamic landscape undergoingcontinuous transformations. After a prosperous Late Roman and Early Christian period (fifth-sixth centuries), rural life in Stymphalis seems to have collapsed during the Dark Ages (sixth toninth centuries). Although not explicitly documented in Stymphalis, some slow recovery beganin the Peloponnesos during the Middle Byzantine period (ninth century). Coinciding with thefoundation of the monastery in the thirteenth century, the medieval countryside experienced a profound transformation, as new settlement patterns took hold. The process of nucleation, or

This paper was developed during a one-year Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the PontificalInstitute of Mediaeval Studies under the direction of Sheila Campbell in 2004-2005. On siteinvestigations of the Stymphalian landscape followed in the summer of 2005 with Campbell andHector Williams. In 2004, the author worked with Ben Gourley at the Sikyon ArchaeologicalProject. Gourley, who had been field director of landscape studies in the excavations of AncientStymphalos, offered great insights. In 2007, the author co-directed an architectural field schoolwith Joseph D. Alchermes and Anthony Masinton for Connecticut College. The paper wouldhave not been possible without the hospitality and intellectual support of Williams and theinsights of Sandra Garvie-Lok, Camilla MacKay, Diane Reilly, William Caraher, Guy Sanders,Mary Lee Coulson, Diana Wright, Demetris Athanasoulis, and Athanasia Ralli.

Brenda Bolton argues that the Cistercians were unsuccessful in colonizing Greece, moreinterested in exploiting the landscape for their own purposes and acquiring relics than convertingthe Orthodox, see, “A Mission to the Orthodox: Cistercians in the Latin Empire,” in

TheOrthodox Churches and the West

, ed. Derek Baker (Oxford, 1976): 169-181. On the failure of the Cistercians in Greece more broadly, see Peter Lock,

The Franks in the Aegean, 1204-1500

(London, 1995): 223-226.

KOURELIS 2

incastellamento

, which had overtaken the Greek countryside right before the Frankish contexthad, interestingly enough, already transpired in western Europe centuries earlier.

A landscape of hill towns and fortified castles would have been extremely familiar to the Latin newcomers evenif it were new to the Greek population.The Cistercian community at Zaraka seems to be minimally cognizant of the dynamic processes during this period, if not maximally instrumental in exploiting those processes.Although no literary text testifies to this explicitly, archaeological surveys and architecturalstudies conducted in the countryside have shown that the dispersed rural hamlets of the MiddleByzantine period were abandoned, and a series of large nucleated hilltop settlements took their place. Although nucleated in its urbanism, the new settlement pattern was dispersed in itsnetworks. Seemingly isolated in the plains and valleys, the monasteries of the Peloponnesos weredrawn into a new system of dependencies drawn by the villages. In other words, a tighter network of nodes compensated for the apparent nucleation of settlement. Whether Catholic or Orthodox, Latin or Greek, the medieval monastery played sacred and profane roles within thisnew geographical system. Seen in isolation, both medieval villages and monasteries seem to turnaway from the world and compound their isolation through a defensive architecture of segregation. Seen as a geographical group, however, villages and monasteries reveal a highlycommunicative and integrated system that made the landscape work. This new network of nucleated nodes, moreover, flourished for another four centuries before the advent of globalcapitalism in the eighteenth century demanded different ecological relationships.Excavations within the monastery’s walls and geophysical survey around AncientStymphalos hint at a self-conscious manipulation of the local resources, most notably water.

But no significant medieval occupation has been discovered in the immediate vicinity of themonastery, making it difficult to prove any specific exploitation of the existing humangeography. Excluding the remains of an Early Christian community buried along the city towersor the evidence for inhabitation from the reign of Justinian, Ancient Stymphalos seems to have been fully abandoned before the Cistercian arrival.

The ideals of austerity, manual labor, andindependence from feudalism might suggest that the Cistercians came to Zaraka to be alone andto exercise their spiritual needs in isolation. But the placement in the heartland of Orthodoxyindicates that the monastery had some compelling geopolitical objectives, including missionaryactivity directed toward the local population or toward curbing Orthodox monastic influence.The continual presence of human activity through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries at themonastery further suggests the local vitality of the site long after the Cistercians abandoned the

The processes of

incastellamento

have been closely studied in Italy, hence the Italianterminology to describe it. Scholars disagree on the precise dates of this phenomenon, but theyagree on its effects, Timothy W. Potter,

The Changing Landscape of South Etruria

(London,1979), Chris J. Wickham,

Framing the Middle Ages: Europe and the Mediterranean 400-800

Oxford, 2005).

Hector Williams “

Στύ

φαλος

. Topographical and Geophysical Survey,”

Πρακτικά

1982[1984]: 184-186.

Sandra Garvie-Lok has excavated the remains of an Early Christian community buried by thecity walls. The Greek archaeological service excavated material from the rein of Justinian thathave not been published, personal communicate, Hector Williams.

KOURELIS 3abbey.

Although we will never know the precise motivations for founding a monastery in themountainous edges of the Corinthia, such an enterprise must have certainly embraced therealities of the human and physical geography.

In order to supplement the excavations of Zarakawith a regional perspective, we must turn to regional surveys outside the limits of Stymphalosand reconstruct the regional scenario that would have affected the choices and tacticsimplemented by the monastery during its short lifespan. The first part of the essay will consider fundamental geopolitical changes that, ultimately, gave Stymphalis some real estate value duringthe Frankish period, which it lacked during the Middle Byzantine period. The second part of theessay will look at the archaeology of villages in the Peloponnesos. The urbanistic perspectivewill help us fill in the landscape with contemporary vernacular activity.GEOPOLITICAL TRANSFORMATIONSThe site of Ancient Stymphalos lay abandoned for seven centuries. What happened in thethirteenth century to make this particular location once again desirable for permanentinhabitation? The answer lies partially in the Frankish principality’s alignment of power, namelyfrom a new center in Eleia far away from Corinth, where Byzantine power had resided previously. After the conquest of the peninsula in 1206, the Latin Principality established threenew sites, Andravida, Glarentza, and Chlemoutsi, from which it governed the peninsula. Thenew triangle of power of Eleia had to be connected with the old power center in the Corinthiathat retained its economic and political value.

Inland routes and inland sites acquiredsignificance by connecting the eastern and western regions of the peninsula more efficiently thanthe ancient coastal highways.The gradual feudalization of Byzantine society in the twelfth century gave additionalimpetus to the centralization of rural power.

It was fueled by an aggressive exploitation of rawmaterials (wool, wood, water) and an intensive development of upland settlements.Archaeological field surveys in Greece are able to outline a clear phenomenon of

incastellamento

. The feudal organization of the Latin Principality benefited Greek families thathad already begun to amass great estates before 1206. The constellation of Frankish prioritiesgave further momentum to the development of a new urban typology for the villages of thethirteenth century. As great landowners, Orthodox monasteries played a role in the reshufflingof geographical control. Through a system of tenant farmers (

paroikoi

), pious donations, anddependent satellites (

metochia

), monasteries grew into powerful players. Like the aristocratic

See numismatic chapter by Julien Baker and pottery chapter by Camilla MacKay in thisvolume.

A letter of Pope Innocent to the first Latin bishop of Corinth (1212), places the coastal westernlimits of the Corinthia to Akrata. Zaraka would have, thus, occupied the southwestern limits of the territory, see Michael S. Kordosis,

Συ

βολή

στην

ιστορία

και

τοπογραφία

της

περιοχής

Κορίνθου

στους

έσους

χρόνους

(Athens, 1981): 32, Innocentii III, romani pontificis, Operaomnia,

216: 586-587.

Demetris Athanasoulis has eloquently called this a “triangle of power,” “Andravida, Clarentza,and the Crusader Presence,” in “Morea: The Land and Its People in the Aftermath of the FourthCrusade,” Dumbarton Oaks Spring Symposium 2009.

For an overview, see Alexander Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein,

Change in ByzantineCulture in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries

(Berkeley, 1985).