Cyprus – Pilgrim Libraries: books & reading on the medieval routes to Rome & Jerusalem

On the commemorative practices surrounding pilgrimage: some examples from Cyprus

Blog-post author Dr. Marina Toumpouri, Researcher, Αθωνική Ψηφιακή Κιβωτός, Greece.
Email: marina.toumpouri@gmail.com

The maritime routes from the West to the Holy Land often included a stop on the island of Cyprus. Pilgrims were given the occasion to disembark for sightseeing or for visiting the island’s monasteries and shrines. Accounts written by travellers who departed from the West and mention that they visited pilgrimage sites or mention holy/venerated places on the island include Paula, a wealthy Roman lady hosted by Epiphanios of Salamis (Constantia) in 386[1]; and later, just to mention few, Wilbrand of Oldenburg (1211)[2], Wilhelm von Boldensele (1334)[3], Iacopo da Verona (1335)[4] and Nicolas de Martoni (1394) whose account is the most detailed[5].

Undeniably the most well-known and venerated pilgrimage site on the island was the monastery of the Holy Cross (Stavrovouni). Its buildings suffered though extensive damage from the Mamluk raids of 1426, as well as a number of devastating incidents like the earthquake of 1491, and the fire of 1888. Today, only the foundations of the original structure remain and hence, all the commemorative material evidence that could eventually testify the visit of pilgrims was lost and can’t be restored.

Image 1. The Monastery of the Holy Cross (Stavrovouni), Cyprus today. [Source: https://archive.churchofcyprus.org.cy, with permission]

A number of monuments on Cyprus, somewhat less renown were also attracting pilgrims since they possessed relics as well. Although the most important monasteries like those of the Virgin of Machairas and of Kykkos were also destroyed by fire, evidence of the expression of faith of pilgrims still survives in a number of other cult-related sites.

Image 2. The Monastery of the Virgin of Machairas, Cyprus today. [Source: https://archive.churchofcyprus.org.cy, with permission]

Image 3. The Monastery of the Virgin of Kykkos, Cyprus today. [Source: http://www.kykkos.org.cy, with permission]

These traces of interaction with edifices constitute a corpus of evidence that is contrasted or distinct to the recurring and idealized textual descriptions of the travel narratives, since they attest to actual devotional practices carried out at sites that are rarely or never mentioned in texts. How then these physical manifestations of personal and temporary encounter with the holy could add to the knowledge provided by texts regarding pilgrimage? How books –that interest in particular the members of this research network– relate to other material evidence surrounding pilgrimage, and in which way and for which reasons these diverse expressions of faith and commemoration on different media were diverging?

Recent contributions (Walsh, 2007; Trentin, 2010; Grigoryan, 2017; Demesticha et al., 2017) as to the material evidence of the presence of pilgrims on Cyprus paid a great deal of attention to the individualized marks left on a number of sites, almost exclusively carvings, that are still detectable on the surfaces of monuments. The material in question is an important witness of the pilgrimage traffic since it provides valuable information regarding the identity, the social status, the travel patterns, the attitudes and the motives of the people who were on the move.

It is notable that the essays point to a diversified human landscape consisting of visitors with different economic, cultural and social backgrounds; Orthodox, other Eastern and Latin Christians. It appears that all these people were not visiting exclusively pilgrimage sites belonging to the religious group of which they were members. Thus, Catholic pilgrims stopping over Cyprus, or, belonging to the local Latin community were visiting as well the numerous Orthodox shrines. In fact, the embracement of the cults of local Orthodox saints and icons by the Latin community of Cyprus –not because what mattered to the Lusignan kings was to attain a religious co‑existence– had deeper motives since the aim was to make appealing to a wider audience the local shrines and cults, with all the benefits their appropriation and connection with them could involve (Grivaud, 2003; Olympios, 2013).

If though all these religious groups were visiting the same shrines, the picture that emerges as to their attitudes towards the monuments and the holy, are very dissimilar, indicating unalike motives and mentalities. The evidence of the graffiti on the interior walls of churches point to differences between Latins and Greeks. More precisely, the alphabetic graffiti indicate that Greek pilgrims started being concerned with the commemoration of their visit from the 15th century on, much later than the Latins whose earliest graffiti date from the 12th century. Latins were also much more informative than the Orthodox while the words and images carved were betraying a strong wish to affirm that they have actually visited the holy place. The fact is also supported by the placement of their graffiti near doors and passages. On the other hand, the disposition of graffiti by Greeks points to a desire to become related with the holy, since they are very carefully placed, denoting a knowledge of the iconographical subjects and the hierarchy and symbolism of the iconographical programs of the churches. They were hence carefully placing their graffiti next to the effigies of saints and are either votive or devotional in character (Trentin, 2010; Demesticha et al., 2017).

Image 4. Twelfth-century fresco with later graffiti and pilgrim records from the Church of Christ Antiphonitis, Cyprus (now in the northern occupied area) [Source: Wikimedia commons]

Among the pictorial graffiti, nautical representations located both on the interior and the exterior walls of the churches are the most common (Walsh 2007; Demesticha et al., 2017). Surprisingly enough they are not detected on the walls of monuments found near the coast but of monuments of the hinterland, indicating that the individuals who executed them were not involved in maritime activities. Instead, it was suggested that the churches and/or monasteries might have been visited by those pilgrims who wished to disembark, since it appears that they were placed on the established routes of pilgrimage that were connecting the two major ports of the island –of Famagusta and of Larnaca– to a network consisting of the local major shrines and other less important ones, that were offering shelter to travellers for the night (Demesticha et al., 2017). This possibility remains though a hypothesis.

Image 5. The area with monuments bearing nautical graffiti associated (Demesticha et al., 2017) with an established route connecting the two harbours. [Annotated Google maps images: Marina Toumpouri]

Two newly discovered maps of the island of Cyprus involve the question whether they were executed for a person planning to make a tour of the island, or, for someone who already completed the journey and wanted to record the names of the places –locations and shrines– visited. The maps were designed freehand in two manuscripts that contain medical treatises, i.e. Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana, A95 sup.; and its copy, Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, gr. XI.21. Both of them are dating to the mid-14th century and they are considered very rare documents, since Byzantine maps are extremely scarce and local ones even scarcer. It is interesting that although the locations/place-names are written in Greek, there is no resemblance with other Byzantine examples of contemporary cartography. There are neither any resemblances with Western maritime charts, apart from mentioning localities also included in them (Cronier and Dalché, 2017).

The place-names included in the two maps, with few exceptions –Kyrenia and Nicosia–, are coastal villages or cities, or at least, locations easy to reach from the coast. These are, apart from the two inland aforementioned cities: Cape Andreas, Karpasia Peninsula, Kyrenia, Pendayia, Poli Chrysochous, Pyrgos, Paphos harbour, Akrotiri Peninsula, Limassol, Aradippou and Famagusta. Interestingly, three important pilgrimage sites were also included: the monastery of the Holy Cross (Stavrovouni) –the most visited shrine of the island– the basilicas of Saint Auxibios at Soloi, and of Saint Epiphanios at Salamis, still in use during the 14th century (Nicolaou, 2017)[6].

Image 6. The basilica of saint Auxibios at Soloi, Cyprus today (now in the northern occupied area)
[Photo: Rania Michail, with permission]

Image 7. View of the mosaic floor of the basilica of saint Auxibios at Soloi, Cyprus today (now in the northern occupied area). [Photo: Dr. Doria Nicolaou, with permission]

Image 8. General view of the basilica of saint Epiphanios at Salamis, Cyprus today (now in the northern occupied area). [Photo: Rania Michail, with permission]

Image 9. The tomb of saint Epiphanios (?) at Salamis, Cyprus today (now in the northern occupied area). [Photo: Dr. Doria Nicolaou, with permission]

In Ambrosiana, A 95 sup., the hand that designed the map (fol. 180r) juxtaposed to it a note that mentions a donation to the monastery of the Virgin of Kykkos. This included two manuscripts of medical content and other utensils for being used by the monk-physician of the community[7]. The person who made the donation was probably the physician who owned the manuscript (Cronier and Dalché, 2017). One could then wonder which was the reason for not including in the map the monastery of Kykkos. Was the visit to this specific monastery not included in the itinerary initially planned? Was the person who designed it a pilgrim? Was he someone who was on the island for professional reasons and had to visit the Virgin of Kykkos, and probably also the monasteries included in the map, for providing his specialized counsels and/or for delivering medical material?

The questions can be multiplied since it is impossible to know who finally the author of the map was and what he had in mind when designing it. I would though in conclusion like to pose one last question. If the well-known monasteries of Cyprus were also frequented by non-pilgrims, i.e. by persons curious to see these places or just for accommodation and hence without religious zeal, how different finally their commemorative practices surrounding their travel to these religious sites were from pilgrims’?

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank Dr. Doria Nicolaou and Ms. Rania Michail for their kind permission to publish their photos and for their help regarding the afterlife and current state of the early Christian basilicas of saint Auxibios (Soloi) and saint Epiphanios (Salamis).

References

Cobham, C.D. (ed.), Excerpta Cypria. Materials for a History of Cyprus, Cambridge, 1908.

Cronier, M. and Dalché, P.G., “A Map of Cyprus in Two Fourteenth-Century Byzantine Manuscripts”, Imago Mundi, 69/2 (2017), p. 176-187.

Demesticha, S. et al., “Seamen on Land? A Preliminary Analysis of Medieval Ship Graffiti on Cyprus”, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 46/2 (2017), p. 346-381.

Grigoryan, G., “On the Interpretation of the Crosses Carved on the External Walls of the Armenian Church in Famagusta”. In: Walsh, M. (ed.) The Armenian Church of Famagusta and the Complexity of Cypriot Heritage, New York, 2017, p. 125-139.

Grivaud, G., “Pèlerinages grecs et pèlerinages latins dans le royaume de Chypre (1192-1474): concurrence ou complémentarité?”. In Vincent, C. (ed.) Identités pèlerines, Rouen, 2003, p. 67‑76.

Nicolaou, D., “Νέα ερμηνευτική πρόταση και αναχρονολόγηση του Παλαιοχριστιανικού συγκροτήματος των Σόλων”, Deltion of the Christian Archaeological Society, 38/4 (2017), p. 57‑86.

Olympios, M., “Shared devotions: non-Latin responses to Latin sainthood in late medieval Cyprus”, Journal of Medieval History, 39 (2013), p. 321-341.

Trentin, M.G., “Mediaeval and post Medieval graffiti in the churches of Cyprus”. In Christodoulou, S. and Satraki, A. (eds), Postgraduate Cypriot Archaeology Conference, Newcastle, 2010, p. 297‑321.

Walsh, M., “‘On the Princypalle Havenes of the See’: The Port of Famagusta and the Ship Graffiti in the Church of St George of the Greeks, Cyprus”, The International Journal of Nautical Archaeology, 37/1 (2007), p. 115-129.

Footnotes

[1] “[…] falling at the feet of the holy and venerable Epiphanius, she was by him detained ten days; […] she visited all the monasteries on the island […].” Jerome, Letter 108.7.

[2] “We continued our pilgrimage thence to visit the cross of the thief who was crucified on our Lord’s right hand […]. Hence, we made the ascent of the mountain called of the Holy Cross […]. On its peak is a small convent. […]. Within the convent is a small chapel, in which that precious cross is kept with much honour. It hangs and swings in the air, they say, resting on no support.” Excerpta Cypria, p. 14.

[3] “There is in Cyprus […] the cross of the good thief, and part of a nail of the Passion; and other worshipful relics. Also in Cyprus is the body of the blessed Hilarion […]. And another saint who is called Zozonion or Zozomion is held in this island in great reverence, whose head is preserved in the royal chapel. S. Barnabas also of the city Salamina or Constantia now destroyed, near Famagusta, was born in Cyprus.” Excerpta Cypria, p. 16.

[4] “[…] we all, merchants and pilgrims and sailors and crew, went to the church of S. Maria de la Cava [Famagusta]. […]. In that island is a very high mountain […], and on the mountain a renowned monastery […] called of the Holy Cross, and a church. Between two rocks hangs the cross of the good thief […] and a vast multitude visit it. It is called the mountain of the Cross […]. To this monastery […] I went on my return from Nicosia. I arrived there with devotion and reverence, and saw and touched that blessed wood […].” Excerpta Cypria, p. 16-18.

[5] “[Famagusta] In this town is a house of S. Francis […]. In the same city is a church dedicated to S. Stephen, a fine building with a hospital […]. In the same city is a monastery of S. Maria de Cammino. […]. In this church I saw the undermentioned holy relics, to wit: the head of the blessed Ursuline, very beautifully shrined in silver. A bone of the shin of S. Leo, Pope. The head of S. Cufinus. The head of S. Sosius. And a piece of the wood of the holy cross of our Lord. […]. There is […] a monastery of S. Dominic […]. […] and went to the place where one can see the castle of the city stood, […] and there directly is that room, now destroyed, where the blessed Catherine was born: near it now stands a seemly chapel […]. [Nicosia] […] S. Sofia is a fair and great church […]. In this city are monasteries and places, of S. Francis to wit, of S. Dominic and S. Augustine […]. I […]went towards the mountain where is the holy cross […]. I reached the church. […] on the right-hand side is a little chapel, and there is the said blessed cross, raised and suspended, and nowhere attached, which seems a great miracle; and in this cross, is a piece of the wood of the blessed cross of our Lord Jesus Christ […]. […] the monks […] showed me […]: a large piece of S. Anne. An arm of S. Blaise. A nail fixed in the hands of Christ. A rib of S. George. A stone with which S. Stephen was stoned. And a piece of the wood of the said cross […]”. Excerpta Cypria, p. 22-27.

[6] Dr. Doria Nicolaou is actually working on another paper dealing with the cultic activity at the early Christian basilicas of Cyprus and how it developed or transformed through time. I would like to thank her for sharing the draft of the paper in question that will be entitled “The afterlife of the Early Christian Basilicas of Cyprus: continuities or interruptions?” and will be published in late 2018.

[7] “[In] Cyprus, upon its mountain, in the monastery of the All-Saint Mother-of-God, called [at?] Kikos, I gave to the spiritual father [Ger?]manos: two books of medicine, one with wooden boards covered with leather, and the other too; good scales; a jar of glass, like the Alexandrian vessel; and medical utensils, with a paper bag”. The translation is of Cronier, M. and Dalché, P.G., 2017.

A Pilgrim’s Book in Acre: John of Joinville and the Credo

Blog-post author, Dr Laura Morreale
Fordham University
– Lmorreale3@fordham.edu

It was the year 1250 and John of Joinville — who in his golden years would write the monumental Life of St. Louis—was sick. In 1248, a young John had joined Louis IX of France in Cyprus during the first of the King’s ill-fated crusades to the Holy Land, a trip that John later characterized in his writings as a pilgrimage, and in which he regularly identified himself as a pilgrim.[1]

Joinville presents his writings to King Louis X. Source: BNF Fr. 13568, f. 1r.

By 1250, however, it was clear that the campaign was not going well. The French troops, who had successfully invaded Egypt in June of 1249, were compelled to retreat from their advanced positions on one of the Nile tributaries early in April of 1250, and Louis, John, and their noble companions were captured by enemy forces on the fifth of that same month. The royal entourage was held prisoner in Egypt for several weeks, then finally ransomed on May 6, 1250. Once released, they journeyed to the port city of Acre and arrived, exhausted, a week later. At this point the French King and his troops reassessed whether to remain in Palestine and resume their efforts, or abandon their cause in the Holy Land and return to France without delay. John counselled Louis to stay, and it was this advice that the King ultimately heeded. Following this decision, Louis, John, and a sizable French contingent remained in residence in Acre until 1254.

From his own reports, however, John was not just ill upon his arrival in Acre in 1250; he feared he was near death. He was so weak he could no longer dine with the King, who had repeatedly requested his presence during mealtimes. John was instead compelled to convalesce at the nearby parish church of St. Michael, where he lodged at the church priests’ house, located between the Hospitaller palace and the northern wall of Acre’s old city.[2]

The City of Acre in the Thirteenth Century. Source: British Library, Add MS 27376, f. 190 r

Perhaps in response to his frail condition, or because he could hear a steady stream of final blessings pronounced over the Christian dead coming from the chamber adjacent to his own sickroom, Joinville created a devotional work based on the tenets of the Apostles Creed, now generally known as his Credo.[3] This highly interactive book, created between August of 1250 and April of 1251, was replete with images, scriptural passages, and personal recollections designed to draw Joinville’s reader-listener into a full articulation of each article of the Christian faith. [4]

The work Joinville created was no simple undertaking. The Credo featured a point-by-point presentation of words and images crafted to work together to reinforce each successive tenet of the Creed. The integrated program served as a kind of backstop of faith that Christians would consume both aurally and visually at their hour of death.[5] Joinville himself notes that he designed the Credo to be read aloud to the Christian faithful, “so that in the final moments, when temptation to sin was at its greatest, Christian believers might fill their eyes and ears with the tenets of the faith and thereby be saved.”[6]

Image from Facsimile edition the Credo. Source: BNF Nouv. Acq. Fr. 4509

Through the Credo’s words and images, reader-listeners were drawn into a physical, sensory, and spiritual engagement with each article of his faith. The author indicated repeatedly that the book’s consumers would see (verrés) each of the elements of the faith depicted in accompanying images, and hear the scriptures that elucidated the meaning of each point read aloud. He mentions, among many others, “The prophesy of deeds on the cross, that is Isaac, that you will see hereafter illustrated,”[7] or “The prophesy of the works of he who was placed in the tomb, that is concerning Jonas, that you see illustrated here.”[8]

Although he does not explain why the hour of death was the moment when a Christian’s faith might be severely tested, Joinville did place the Credo within the arc of his own personal experience, narrating events that had occurred during his imprisonment in Egypt just a few months before. Joinville recounts that

In reference to His [Christ’s] resurrection I will tell you what I heard of in prison the Sunday after we had been captured … We heard a great number of people cry out. We asked what it was, and they told us that it was our people whom they had placed in a large field, encircled with an earthen wall: those who did not want to renounce [their faith], they killed, those who did renounce, they left alone. [9]

After this alarming scene, Joinville explains that he and his fellow prisoners also feared for their lives shortly thereafter, when negotiations with their captors had come to an impasse and several young Saracens crowded into their quarters, heavily armed. Thankfully, he reports, they were delivered from harm by an elderly man who entered the tent shortly thereafter, assuring Joinville and his fellow prisoners that they would be saved if they remained steadfast in their faith. It is in this passage particularly that we see how Joinville’s Credo can, in some ways, be understood as a pilgrim’s book, and his trip to the East, a journey of faith.

While it is remarkable to hear of Joinville’s own struggles, to see his attention to the needs of his fellow Christians pilgrims and his acknowledgement that death was a real possibility during such a journey, it is also striking to consider the material realities that would have been required to create a work like the Credo in thirteenth-century Acre. Although we no longer have Joinville’s autograph from the 1250s, three manuscripts of the Credo remain, one which was created in Acre in the 1280s, thereby attesting to the continued presence and impact of the work in the East. But even without the author’s own copy, the Credo’s text, required images, and stated format reveal how Joinville imagined his book would be fabricated and consumed in the context of the Latin Christian community of Acre.

Joinville assumed he would have access to the materials, skilled scribes, painters, and illuminators to transform his words and the images that accompanied them from the vision in his own mind into an actual, physical book. He also anticipated an audience of fellow believers who would receive and use his book according to his design. This was clearly not an outlandish presumption, as Louis IX also commissioned at least one costly book during his time in Acre, a translation of the New Testament into Old French, now known as the Acre Bible.

Image from the “Acre Bible,” Source: BNF Nouv. Acq. Fr. 1404 f. 56r

The fabrication of both the Credo and the Acre Bible would have required skilled interpreters or writers of French as well as artists, illuminators and sources for parchment and the other material needs of book production. All of these resources were clearly available at this time in Acre, and formed part of the local pilgrim economy, even if the pilgrims who commissioned these works were of exceptionally high status.

The story of the Credo does not end in Acre in 1251, however. John eventually regained his health, and remained in the East with the King until his departure in 1254. Back in France in 1287, Joinville returned once again to his Credo, this time appending to his original text a prologue that explained how and why the work was first produced. [10] Thus the Credo is precious evidence not only of the creation of pilgrim’s book in Acre, but also of the memories of that same pilgrim, returned safely to France, who looked back on his writing and on the book he had commissioned in the East some thirty years earlier.

Acknowledgement
Thanks to Jamie Doherty and Caroline Paul for their help with the Credo.

References

[1] Caroline Smith, Crusading in the Age of Joinville (2006), 114-15.
[2] Denys Pringle, Churches of the Crusader Kingdom, Volume 4, (2009), 57.
[3] Text and Iconography for Joinville’s Credo, ed. Lionel Friedman (1958).
[4] Aden Kumler, Translating Truth (2011), 68.
[5] Michael Curschmann, “The performance of Joinville’s Credo,” in Medieval and Early Modern Performance in the Eastern Mediterranean, ed. Arzu Öztürkmen and Evelyn Birge Vitz, (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014) 63-76 at 63.
[6] Credo, ed. Friedman, 51; Image from Credo du sire de Joinville, ed. and trans. Artaud de Montor (1837), http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k3156549/f22.image
[7] “La profecie de l’evre suer la crois, ce est de Ysaac, qu vous verrés ce après point,” ibid., 35.
[8] “La profesie de l’euvre de ce qu’il fu mis ou sepulcher si est de Jonas, que vous veez ci point,” ibid., 37.
[9] Ibid., 39-40.
[10] Joinville’s prologue explains, “Et je, pour esmovoir les gens a croire ce de quoi il ne se pooient soffrir, fit je premier faire cest euvre en Acre,” Credo, ed. Freidman, 30.