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Le élites ecclesiastiche bizantine di fronte alla minaccia turca nel XIV sec.: l'Athos, Gregorio Palamas, Giovanni VI Cantacuzeno e il patriarca Callisto I.
No full textTHE RELIGIOUS BYZANTINE ÉLITES FACE TO FACE WITH THE TURKISH THREAT IN THE 14TH CENTURY: MOUNT ATHOS, GREGORY PALAMAS, JOHN VI CANTACUZENUS AND THE PATRIARCH CALLISTUS I.
For Byzantium the relationship and the cohabitation with the Islamic-Turkish world are inexorable necessity to know and to understand the last centuries of the Greek Empire. Nevertheless at the beginning of 14th Century the process of formation of Turkish emirates in the Western lands of Asia Minor meant an absolute novelty for the political and religious scene of Byzantium. Necessary and constant exchanges, the aggressive policy of the numerous emirates, the need to rely on them to work out the institutional muddle of the civil wars have been reasons of acceleration of the phenomenon which have finally led to the end of the Empire. Obviously other elements – seemingly unrelated – have contributed: the convulsive development of the palamitic debate, the social changes and the troubled relationship with the Latin World are only the main factors.
To be interested to the perception of the Turkish danger is a necessary engagement to fully understand the 14th Century. We must consider that the main figures who debated about the Islamic-Turkish matters are the same who played an important role in the religious and political life at that time (John VI Cantacuzenus, Gregory Palamas, Callistus I patriarch).
But there are some other factors for the urgency of the study we offer. First of all the renewed interest that it finds in the scientific literature. Then we have to consider the lack of comprehensive studies available on the matter. The Khoury’s works, for now the summa for everyone who likes to approach the byzantine antislamic controversy, don’t deal with 14th Century authors or writings.
The convergence of these three elements (relevance of the matter, renewed interest and lack of comprehensive studies) have persuaded us to take up this matter.
Our work is divided into five parts: the presentation of four dossiers and a conclusion that revalues and upgrades the materials we gathered. Indeed other sources have allowed us to enlarge the objective of our observations. So we have been able to define a significant overview.
First of all we have selected four areas of research according to the importance and dimension of the available works. So we have focused our attention on authors and documents relating to the middle of 14th Century: documents from the archives of the monasteries of Mount Athos, lives of the great monastic figures of this time, the letters from captivity written by Gregory Palamas (1354-1355), the Apologiae IV and Orationes IV by John VI Cantacuzenus composed after his abdication and finally the pastoral discourses of the patriarch Callistus I to the people of the capital.
The first part deals with the condition of Athos in 14th Century until his official subjugation to the Ottoman authority in 1423-1424. Although there are some short publications (Lemerle-Wittek, Beldiceanu-Steinherr, Zachariadou, Oikonomides, Živojinović), first of all we have looked the archive of each monastery up to notice the impact of raids against the Holy Mount. So we have defined three phases: 1) from 1305 to 1348 that is from the arrival of the Catalan Company with Turkish mercenary troops until the death of Umur of Aydin, protagonist of a wide pirate-like action in the Aegean Sea; 2) the Serbian domination of the Athos in the middle of the Century (1350-1370); 3) the last period from the Maritza’s defeat (1371) until the official subjugation. We have examined the life in the hermitages and the imperial and patriarchal actions to shelter them. Then we have noticed demographical changes into the Athos and the fading of the Greek component (Gregory Sinaites and Gregory Palamas are the prominent examples). This condition goes on until the 1340s (Athanasios Meteorites’ escape, the kidnapping of the committee of inquiry against the bogomil practices on Athos). Only the patrol of Western fleet and the Umur’s death bring peace to Haghion Oros. The absorption under the Serbian influence and the election of protoi related to the Nemanja family support some communities who begin a season of land-increase. Deserted and run-down kellia and monydria are given to the great monasteries to rebuild them and to warrant a loan for the Protaton. Moreover they can receive the new-coming monks from Balkans. But this doesn’t remove the Turkish imminent danger. For these years we have noticed the reinforcement of defences and many sources – especially hagiographies – testify stress and uncertainty for the athonite monks. But for this period the main consequence consists in the availability of the monastic communities to judge the Serbian authority as warrant for the framework in the Holy Mountain. So they can receive benefits, gifts and exemptions as the byzantine emperor did before. In this context we consider the first and legendary news of contacts between Athos and Ottomans. After the death of John Uglieša (1371) Mount Athos came back under the control of Constantinople. So we have thought to enlarge our analysis to the fiscal documents produced by Byzantine and Ottoman chancellery. The conquest of Macedonia (1383-1402) brings about a magmatic condition as the diversified treatment, shown to each community by Ottoman government, testifies. After the battle of Ankara (1402) the emperor Manuel II tries to strengthen his control on the Athos. Each monastery becomes again owner for the properties alienated during the Ottoman occupation and all the transactions are recognized. But at the same time the tax (haraç) is upheld. This cash-tax implies that the amount is probably found by the grant of adelphata. In the 1380s and 1390s we assist to the increase of this fiscal mean. At the beginning of 15th Century the struggle into the Ottoman family allows another peaceful period for the Holy Mountain until the siege of Constantinople (1422) and Thessalonica (1423-1430) by Murad II. So we arrive at the definitive subjugation of Athos. The deed of transfer of Thessalonica to the Venetians gave the chance to the Athonites to negotiate with the sultan freely, as it happened with the Serbian Kral. Then the sources let us think that the athonite authority are persuaded to receive a special treatment as Bayazid I did before. Finally the athonite subjugation allowed Murad to concentrate on the siege of Thessalonica after having pacified a strategically area for the control of Macedonia.
The second section of this first part deals with the structures of defense in the properties on the Athos and into the metochia to face the Turkish raids. Within the bounds of the Holy Mountain we observe the monasteries enforced the inner fortifications. The rebuilding of the pre-existent towers was more expensive, but useful to catch a new real estate; finally in the area of the isthmus, more stressed by raids, a lot of fortifications were built, especially in the 1330s. The same condition we have noted for the peninsulas of Kassandra and Longos. A complicated question is in Chalcidiki and Macedonia. Here the goal of the monasteries lies in the defense of own metochion, as through the purchase and the building of a tower at his expense as through the acquisition of an already fortified estate. Finally on the islands the monasteries look about the harbors, nerve centers of the monastic economy.
The final section of the first part deals with the psychological impact and the reactions of the athonite communities faced the Turkish danger. Here we have examined the hagiographical sources, so rich of details and sketches. The management of this huge material has let us to gather evidences according to these criterions: 1) witnesses of the incursions and escapes from the Athos (so we have completed what we have told about it in the first section); 2) capture and kidnapping of athonite monks; 3) evidences of the results of the Turkish raids into the Byzantine territories; 4) the fears and the psychological impact of the raids on the athonite population and finally 5) the relationship between pilgrim-monks and the Islam in the Holy Land.
The second part deals with the epistolographical dossier written by Gregory Palamas (March 2, 1354 – Spring 1355). It’s a primary source. First of all it’s an eye-witness of a protagonist of the religious and political scene in the middle of the 14th Century. Then we can read the reports of the debates which the metropolitan led with some Muslims (Ismael, the son-in-law of the emir Orhan, the Chiones, the tasimanes). We have presented a detailed analysis of the three texts (Letter to His Church, Letter to anonymous and the Dialexis). Then we have defined the chronology and the date of composition. Concerning to the Letter to anonymous and the Dialexis we have also discussed about the problem of the different versions we read in the manuscripts. Moreover we have suggested a solution for the identity of the anonymous addressee. After this philological introduction, a survey on the reasons of the Palamas’ sea-trip and how and when he was delivered follows. At last we have tried to reconstruct the condition of the Bithynian communities he saw (Lampsakos, Pegai, Prusa, Nicaea) and to define the judgment of the prisoner about the cohabitation and the attitude of the conquerors to the Christian people.
What remains is only dedicated to the study of the argumentations adopted in each debate (in Lampsakos, the meeting with Ismael, the cross-examination with the Chiones and the dispute with the tasimanes). Each paragraph is introduced by a portrait of the interlocutor; on the contrary for the Dialexis we have preferred to deepen the figure of the physician Taronites, probably the author of the work. Every debate is analyzed according to specific themes and argumentations we can read in. This methodological approach has allowed a synoptic reading with the Byzantine apologetic-polemical tradition against Islam. So from time to time we have observed continuity and innovation as regards that tradition.
To the second part is connected the Appendix. Here we have faced up to geographic matters concerning to the places Palamas visited. We have reconstructed their history and the condition of their Christian communities until the Turkish conquest.
The third part concerns to the antislamic corpus written by John VI Cantacuzenus. If we leave out the K. P. Todt’s monography (1991), these discourses aren’t ever studied deeply in spite of the prominence of the author. The interest on these writings is due to the fact that they are considered as a novelty because of the relationship with the Contra Legem Sarracenorum, composed by the Dominican Riccoldo da Monte Croce at the end of 13th Century and translated into Greek by Demetrius Cydones.
The limited and incomplete introduction in the K. Förstel’s critical edition has imposed a deep revaluation of the ecdotic problems on us. First of all we have tried to answer to the question about the identity of the cited protagonists (Meletius the converted monk, and the Persian Sampsatines from Isfahan, the author of the letter which opens the work). Then we have passed to consider the work’s chronology, so essential to set conveniently the discourses into the ex-imperor’s life. For this point we have looked through the chronology of the Cydones’ translations from Latin and the Cantacuzenus’ activities after his abdication. The relationship as with the Riccoldo’s pamphlet as with the other polemical work of Cantacuzenus (the nine discourses Contra Iudaeos) have shown that the supposed novelty of these works against Islam has to be substantially narrowed. The real elements of novelty for Apologiae and Orationes is the relationship between the anti-Judaic tradition and the news which John read in the Contra Legem Sarracenorum.
Only through these preliminary outcomes we could propose a correct framework of the main apologetic-polemic items. We have preferred – and now we tell again about it – to put first the analysis of the argumentations which are new as opposed to the Byzantine polemic tradition and the Riccoldo’s work. In these so long discourses only these passages show a novelty which anyway integrates in the mould of the age.
The fourth part deals with Callistus I patriarch, a figure only now appraises through the C. Paidas’ studies. The novelty of this chapter lies as in the comprehensive survey about his personality and activity, before and after his accession on the patriarchal seat, as in the reading of his pastoral writings whose most isn’t published yet. First of all we have rebuilt the biographical experiences when Callistus was captured by Turkish pirates in 1344. So we have explained fears and bitterness against the Turks we read in his homilies.
As we have observed at the beginning of this introduction, a crucial element to understand the perception of the Turkish-Islamic matter in the Palaeologian Byzantium is the relationship with the Latin world, so open to lend support to Constantinople provided to an inevitable subjugation to the Papacy. To examine Callistus’ anti-Latin policy has been a good lock pick to framework his pastoral writings as best we can. Our analysis is organized in two phases: 1) we have examined the patriarchal regesta and 2) we have focused on the homiletic discourses. Then we have passed to the analysis of the Homely against false prophets and leaders where Callistus hurls abuse on Mohammed. After a short in-depth analysis on a passage of the homily Against the Latins where Callistus mentions two extremely rare cases of conversions from Islam, we have focused on his homiletic and euchologic production.
This long and windy path of analysis has given us a complex and comprehensive survey on the policy and the mind of this patriarch. In Callistus’ writings we read the apprehension who is unable to give explanations to the decay he sees; the evocative tone of his discourses remember to his community the pain suffered by Christians, the anxiety for the prisoners become slaves. The heresy of Latins and Latinophrones, the palamitic debate are only the noble and intellectual avant-garde for a spiritual crisis which runs over all the Byzantine people deeply. The sin, so widespread, is, in his point of view, the real cause for the victories of the Turkish armies and the abandonment by God induces the inability and the ineffective reaction of the imperial framework to the daily problems.
Even we read this explanation in Callistus, in the Athos’ documents, in the works of so many peers like Palamas and Cantacuzenus, for us it doesn’t seem decisive. In the fifth part we have tried to enlarge our survey noting how other historical sources (Gregoras and once again Cantacuzenus) sketch the Turkish enemy. Then a short digress about the supposed openness of the 14th Century hesycast milieu. From the macrostoria we have passed to the microstoria that is how some direct evidences and other less-known sources (Matthew of Ephesus and Theophanes of Nicaea) told about the Turkish advance until the age of Georgios Gennadios Scholarios, the first patriarch under the Turcocracy. In this section we have allowed for further consideration about Alexios Makrembolites, for us an exceptional witness for the fears of the Byzantine middle class.
Finally we have tried to answer to the easiest and inescapable question: how Byzantines excused Turkish victories. Official treatises (Palamas and Cantacuzenus), homiletic discourses (Callistus I), hagiography and Athos’ documents, epistolography (Matthew of Ephesus and Theophanes of Nicaea) and private literature (Alexios Makrembolites) all jab at the moral decay whose the Byzantine society is at fault, that is the sin. We have found wide acknowledgment in the patriarchal regesta which in this period show so many examples, more or less scandalous. But, reading between the lines of these writings, we have an inkling a millenaristic anxiety that explains the widespread sin. So the last section deals with the apocalyptic literature so wide in this period. In the 14th Century the strike of the seventh millennium, the fulfilment of the new testament-pictures about the Antichrist are the true interpretation to understand the perception of Turkish victories. The fourteenth Century is an apocalyptic age and in the way it reads the events which put out the torch of the Greek and Christian Empire
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