Nicolas Oikonomides

Society, Culture and Politics

in Byzantium

edited by Elizabeth Zachariadou

Professor Nicolas Oikonomides

ASHGATE
VARIORUM ,.'
 This edition C 2005 by Elizabeth Zachariadou
The editor has asserted her moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act,
1988, to be identified as the editor of this work.

Published in the Variorum Collected Studies Series by CONTENTS

Ashgale Publishing Limited Ashgate Publishing Company
Gower House, Croft Road, Suite420
A1dershot, Hampshire 101 Cherry Street Preface, by Paul Magdalina
GUlI3HR Burlington, VT05401-4405
Great Britain USA ., r." Acknowledgements
IAshgate website: http://www.ashgale.com ,j

LANGUAGE AND LITERACY

ISBN 0-86078-937-3
L'''Unilinguisme'' officiel de Constantinople byzantine
Britisb Library Cataloguing in Publieation Data 'l ~
(VlIe-XIIe S.)
Oikonomides, Nicolas . . .
Society, culture and politics in Byzantiu~. - (V~orum ~I~~ studies senes) Symmeilcta 13. Athens, 1999
I. Byzantine Empire - History 2. Byzantme Empire - clVlltzatlon
I. Title II. Zachariadou, Elisavet A. n Mat~oUK{va-Ma"t~oUK6.tO~ in Ptochoprodromos 315-319
9495'02 ~IAEMHN 17. Studies in Honour 0/ Raben Browning,
ed. C.N. Constantinides, N.M. Panagiotakes, E. Jeffreys and
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A.D. Angelou. Venice, 1996
Oikonomides, Nicolas
Society, culture, and politics in Byzantium/Nicolas Oikonomides; edited by
Elizabeth Zachariadou. m Mount Athos: levels of literacy 167-178
p. em. - (Variorum collected studies series; CS824) Dumbanon Oaks Papers 42. Washington, D.C, 1988
Includes index.
ISBN 0-86078-937-3 (alk. paper) IV Literacy in thirteenth-century Byzantium: an example
I. Social bistory - Medieval, 500-1500. 2. Byzantine Empire - Social from Western Asia Minor 253-265
conditions. 3. Byzantine Empire - Politics and government. 4. Byzantine TO EMHNIKON. Studies in Honor 0/ Speros Vryonis, Jr., Vol. I,
Empire - Civilization. I. Zachariadou, Elisavet A. II. Title. III. Collected studies; ed. JaM S. lAngdon, Stephen W. Reinen, Jelisaveta StQllOjevicIJ
CS824. AUen and Christos P. 1oannides. Scarsdale, N.Y., 1993
HNII.OS6200S
949.S'02-i1c22 2005048071 V Byzance: a propos d'a!phab6tisation 35-42
Baan et Perspectives des £tudes Mldihales en Europe,
ed. J. Hamesse. Louvain-la-Neuve, 1995

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American VI H tyypaj1Q"tCIlaUvrJ "ttbv KptJnJCli)v y6jXO atO 1200 593-598
National Standard for Information Sciences - Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Acts a/the VIlth International Congress a/Cretan
Materials,ANSIZ39.48-1984. @ TM Studies,llI2. Rethymnon, 1995

Printed and bound in Great Britain by TJ International Ltd, Padstow, Cornwall

VARIORUMCOLLECTEDSTIJDIESSERIESCS824
 CONTENTS vii
vi CONTENTS

XVD Byzantium between East and West (XIll-XV cenL) 319-332

ART AND POLITICS
ByZlllltium and the West c.85O-c.1200. Proceeding' of the
111-115 XVIII Spring Symposium ofBYZIlIItine Studie,.
VD Some remarks on the apse mosaic of St. Sophia ed. J.D. Howard-Johnston. Amsterdam, 1988
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 39. Washington, D.C.• 1985

H otOATj "tOO mt1pxoo n 0 I:1CUAi-n;1J~ "t1J~. M~pi"t1J~
vm
Euphro:synon: Aphieroma ston Manoll Chatzidakl.
Athens. 1992
IX La couronne dite de Constantin Monomaque
Trawua et Memoires 12. Paris. 1994
422-434 xvm The Byzantine overlord of Genoese possessions
in Romania 235-238
Porphyrogenita. Essays on the History and literature
of ByZlllltium and the Latin East in Honour ofJulilut
Chrysostomides. ed. Charalambos Dendrinos.
241-262 Jonathan Harris. Eirene Harvalia-Croolc, Judith Herrin.
Aldershot: Ashgate. 2003

X H au"t01Cjlcl"t£IjlO Ayia 1:olpla 1-11 The Turks in Europe (1305-13) and the Serbs in
XIX
Thymiama stl Mnimi tis Laskllrinas Mpoura. Athens. Asia Minor (1313) 159-168
1994. pp. 235-238 The Ottoman Emirate (1300-1389). ed. ElirJlbeth Zachariadou.
Halcyon Days in Crete I: A Symposium Held in Rethymnon
XI The significance of some imperial monumental 11-13 January 1991. Rethymnon: Crete University Press. 1993
portraits of the X and XI centuries 1-11
Zograf25. Belgrade. 1996. pp. 23-26 XX From soldiers of fortune to Gazi warriors:
the Tzympe affair 239-247
XU Pictorial propaganda in XUth c. Constantinople 93-102 Studies in Onoman History in Honour ofProfessor v.L. Menage.
Glas 390 de l'Acadhnie serhe des sciences et des ed. Colin Heywood and Colin Imber. Istanbul: The Isis Press. 1994
arts. Classe des sciences historiques 11. Belgrade. 2001
XXI Pour une typologie des villes "sCpar6es" sous
xm The holy icon as an asset 35-44
les Pal60logues 169-175
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 45. Washington. D.C.. 1991
Geschichte und Kultur der Palaiologemeit. ed. Werner Seibt.
Vienna, 1996
XIV An imperial Byzantine casket and its fate at a
humanist's hands (with Anthony Cuder) 1-29 xxn
The Art Bulletin 70. New York, 1988. pp. 77~7
Andronic II Pal60logue et la ville de Kroia 241-247
The Mediaeval Albanians. Intel7Ultional Symposium 5.
Athens. 1998
B'YZANTIUM AFrER 1204
xxm Byzantine diplomacy, A.D. 1204-1453: means and ends 73-88
XV La rinascita delle istituzioni bizantine dopo il 1204 320-332 Publicatians of the Society for the Promotian ofByzantine
Federico II e il mondo mediterraneo. Palermo. 1995 Studies. ed. Jonathan Shepard and Simon Franlclin.
Aldershot: AshgatelVariorum, 1992
XVI A propos des ann6es des premiers Pal60logues et des
compagnies de soldats 353-371 ATHOS AND THE CHURCH
TIUIIOIa et Memoires 8. Paris. 1981
XXIV To lISPf.llto "tCOV j1O\'ClO"tTJpuiIv crt"1JV cryopci "t1]t;
"tOUplCOlCpa:roUjt£UTJt; 0eoool.ovilCllt; (1400) 73-79
Demetria 28. 7th Scholarly Symposium, 'Christilut Thessalonica'
Stauropegial and Parochial Monasteries. Thessalonili, 1995 •
 viii CONTENTS
xxv Patronage in Palaiologan Mt Athos
Mount AtMs and Byzantine Monasticism. Papers from the
Twenty-Eighth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies,
Birmingham, March 1994, ed. Anthony Bryer and Mary Cunningham.
Aldershot, AshgateiVariorum. 1996
XXVl Le temps des faux
Mount AtMs in the 14th-16th Centuries. Athonikll Symmeikta 4.
Athens, 1997
xxvn Aypo'tl1c6 ltEp{crmrol1a lCat 0 p6A.o~ TOU lCp6:'tOU~
y6pro (J'to 1300
Manuel Panselinos and His Age. Byzantium Today 3. Athens, 1999
XXVIll Reflexions sur Ie monocondyle episcopal du 16e s.
The Greek Script in the 15th and 16th Centuries.
International Symposium 7. Athens, 2000
Index
This volume contains xii + 356 pages
•
99-111
PREFACE
69-74
The prodigious published output ofNikos Oikonomides was largely concerned
with the administrative and economic history of Byzantium before 1204, and
the critical edition of its extant documentary sources - both the few official
documents surviving in libraries and archives, and the vastly more numerous
195-205 lead seals once attached to a fraction of the paperwork that perished long ago.
However, his close attention to the texts and images of this material, together
with his thorough contextual reading of the literary sources and his sharp
53-63
eye for the neglected detail, provided him with many insights across the
boundaries of neighbouring fields. Constantly in demand for Festschrift
volumes, guest lectures and conferences - not least those he himself initiated
1-16 as director of the Institute for Byzantine Research at the National Hellenic
Research Foundation - he had frequent opportunity and incentive to follow
tangential leads that then became part of his core repertoire, especially in the
last ten years of his career, when most of the articles reprinted here were
written.
The twenty-eight articles collected in this, his fourth and last Variorum
reprint volume, fall quite neatly under four headings: Language and Literacy
(1-6), Art and Politics (7-14), Byzantium after 1204 (15-23), Athos and the
Church (24-8). Although seemingly unrelated, the categories represent natural
branches ofOikonomides' long-standing interests. Working with non-literary
texts made him sensitive to levels of functional literacy; monastic documents
provided a quantifiable sample for a pioneer analysis that has not yet been
surpassed. Reading the iconography of seals in conjunction with his extensive
knowledge of texts gave him an eye for the meanings of official imagery that
few if any art-historians could match, and he used it to make some penetrating
contributions to the study of artistic patronage. Byzantium after 1204, an alien
and uncongenial world to most historians of earlier centuries, was for the editor
of several monastic archives from Mount Athos a thoroughly familiar terrain,
especially since it was one where his interests met those of his wife, the
Ottomanist Elizabeth Zachariadou. Given his long familiarity with the Athonite
documentation, it is no surprise that it provided him with ready material for the
conferences on the Holy Mountain and related themes which prompted the
papers in the fmal section.
 x PREFACE

This volume - containing, it must be emphasised, only the tail end of his
published oeuvre - represents not only the wide range of but also the varied
style of his output. He was the master of the succinct, no-nonsense, strictly
empirical article ofless than ten pages proving a very specific point. He could
r
, I
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
also be controversial and speculative, especially when he engaged in art
history, and challenged the consensus on well-known objects. But if his
interpretations of some artefacts, such as the Crown of Constantine
Grateful acknowledgement is made to the following persons, institutions
Monomachos and the Madrid Skylitzes, have been overtaken by subsequent
research, others are difficult or impossible to refute. There is no getting around and publishers for their kind permission to reproduce the papers included
Oikonomides on the imperial mosaics ofHagia Sophia (see VII in this volume in this volume: Institute for Byzantine Research, National Hellenic Research
and XXIII in his 1992 Variorum volume). It would be hard to improve on his Foundation, Athens (I, XXVI, XXVII); Istituto Ellenico di Studi Bizantini e
reconstruction of a lost pictorial cycle from twelfth-century. Constantinople Postbizantini di Venezia (II); Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, D.C. (III, VII, XID);
(XII), or his discussion of the holy icon as an asset (XIII). Aristide Caratzas (IV); Societe! Intemationale pour l'Etude de la Philosophie
Even when arguing specific points or presenting specific material with great Mc!die!vale, Louvain-Ia-Neuve (V); The Metropolis ofRethymnon (VI); Greek
concision, Oikonomides never failed to show the more general interest of his Ministry of CulturalAffiars (VIII); Gilbert Dagron on behalfofthe friends ofthe
subject matter. Many other articles he wrote were mini-syntheses, to which one Centre d'Histoire et Civilisation de Byzance, Paris (IX, XVI); Benaki Musewn,
can tum for complete surveys and seminal statements on questions of central Athens (X); Dr. Smiljka Gabelie, Institut d'histoire de I'art, Belgrade (XI); Nikola
historical importance. In this volume, I would draw particular attention to his Tasie, Chairman of the Editorial Board, Serbian Academy of Sciences and
studies of Byzantine 'unilinguism' (I), literacy and patronage on MtAthos (IV, Arts (XII); Anthony Cutler, Pennsylvania (XIV); Sellerio editore, Palermo (XV);
XXV), and, above all, several articles in the section on Byzantium after 1204. James Howard-Johnston, Oxford (XVII); Ashgate/Variorum (XVIII, XXIII, XXV);
His discussions of Byzantine institutions post 1204 (XV), the Palaiologan army Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Rethymnon, Crete (XIX); Sinan Kuneralp,
(XVI), late Byzantium between East and West (XVII), and late Byzantine Istanbul (XX); Herwig Friesinger, Wien (XXI); Symposia, organised by the
diplomacy are fundamental. For them alone, this coIlection is worth having. Institue for Byzantine Studies, Athens (XXII, XXVIII); Centre ofThessalonican
History of the Municipality ofThessalonica (XXIV).
PAULMAGDALINO
St Andrews University, Fife
19th May 2005