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A woman’s prayer to St Sergios in Latin Syria: interpreting a thirteenth-century icon at Mount Sinai

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Lucy-Anne Hunt
Lucy-Anne Hunt*
Affiliation:
School of Continuing Studies, University of Birmingham
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Extract

Amongst the collection of icons at St Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai, is a small panel depicting a woman wearing a black veil kneeling before the equestrian saint Sergios (fig. 1). The icon is one of a group of thirteenth-century Sinai icons, many of equestrian saints, whose date and provenance has been a matter of debate. But lacking from this debate has been interpretation of the icon as an indicator of a particular social, religious and political field. The intrusion of the material world of the viewer in this icon, through the gesture of the kneeling woman, enables it to be interpreted as a personal prayer, an act of supplication for protection at the critical period before the final loss of Latin Syria to the Mamluks. It was arguably commissioned from one of the Syrian Orthodox artists whose work can be seen displayed in the churches to the east and south of Tripoli. This identifies an intense period of activity in wallpainting and icon production in Syria during the middle to second quarter of the thirteenth century of which work at the end of the century in Cyprus was the continuation. Looked at from the perspective of the woman herself, the icon raises issues of the role of women in the patronage and veneration of icons in the Latin East.

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Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 15 , 1991 , pp. 96 - 146
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Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1991

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References

1. Kind permission was given me to study icons at St Catherine’s Monastery, Mount Sinai. I am also grateful to the Department of Antiquities in Damascus for permission to visit monuments in Syria in September 1985. My visit was facilitated by a grant from the Field and Expeditions Fund of the University of Birmingham. This paper was read and discussed at a colloquium to mark Professor Hugo Buchthal’s 80th birthday (Warburg Institute, London University, 30 June/1 July, 1989) and subsequently at seminars at Birmingham and Warwick Universities.

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6. The partial inscription is illegible. The orange-red of her cloak, signalling her virginal status, corresponds to other representations of this saint, as in another of the Sinai icons (here fig. 6).

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9. G. and Soteriou, M., Icônes de Mont Sinaï, II, 169–70 Google Scholar. Mouriki, D., ‘The Wall Paintings of the Church of the Panagia at Moutoullas, Cyprus’, in Hutter, I. (ed.), Byzanz und der Western: Studien zur Kunst des Europäischen Mittelalters (Oster- reichische Akad. d. Wissenshaften, Phil. Hist. Klasse, Sitzungsberichte, 432 Band) (Vienna 1984) esp. 205–8 Google Scholar; Mouriki, Icon Painting in Cyprus, 36–37.

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12. Weitzmann, Icon Painting in the Crusader Kingdom, 72 (Studies, 346). Western dress, including a stiff headdress under the wimple, was worn by Frankish women: see Holmes, U.T., ‘Life among the Europeans in Palestine and Syria in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries’, in Hazard, H.W. (ed.), The Art and Architecture of the Crusader States, Vol. IV of Setton, K.M. (ed.), A History of the Crusades (Madison 1977) 23.Google Scholar

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14. Given the large number of widows in Outremer, a widow had the right (‘le ten de plor’) to remain unmarried for a year according to William of Tyre, Historia rerum in partibus transmarinis gestarum: see Recueil des Historiens des Croisades. Historiens Occidentaux, 1(2) (Paris 1844) 1029 quoted by Holmes, Lifeamongthe Europeans, 24.

15. Danforth, L.M. (photography by Tsiaras, A.), The Death Rituals of Rural Greece, (Princeton 1982)Google Scholar 54 records that in rural Greece women exchange their black mourning clothes for dark blue and brown ones as the period of mourning comes to an end. Mourning garb comprises dressing completely in black, including a black kerchief covering the head, forehead and neck. A widow, however, wears black for the rest of her life unless she remarries (which she should not do before the exhumation of her husband’s body). It may be supposed that medieval ritual did not vary significantly, especially as strict social pressures are brought to bear to enforce mourning practices, as Danforth points out. In the early Christian period, despite the admonitions of the church fathers, mourning lasted for at least one year, during which time black clothes were worn: Alexiou, M., The ritual lament in Greek Tradition (Cambridge 1974) 32–33 Google Scholar. Alexiou here (32 with note 40) refers to the ancient triakòstia (offerings on the 30th day, replaced in Christian practice with a memorial on the 40th) which comprised psalms, hymns and prayers rather than dirges, and was most widely practised amongst early oriental Christian communities, including the Syrian.

16. The gesture is anticipated in a different context by that of Terra supporting the emperor’s foot in the sixth century Barberini Diptych ivory panel: Kitzinger, E., Byzantine Art in the Making (Cambridge, Mass. 1977) 97–97, fig. 176.Google Scholar

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18. From the south wall: J. Lauffray, ‘Forums et monuments de Béryte: le niveau médiéval’, Bulletin du Musié de Beyrouth (1946–48), 14. I am grateful to Professor E. Cruikshank Dodd for this reference. Folda, J., ‘Crusader Frescoes at Crac des Chevaliers and Marqab Castle’, DOP 36 (1982) 190, 195 with figs. 12 and 14.Google Scholar

19. Folda, Crusader Frescoes, 196 dated it with other fragments, to the late twelfth or early thirteenth century. He does point out, however, that there are two or even three phases and that his dating is tentative.

20. J. Lauffray, Forums et monuments de Béryte, 14, with fig. 4. E. Cruikshank Dodd, ‘The Influence of Cyprus in Lebanon in the 13th Century’, Fourteenth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference: Abstracts of Papers (Houston, Texas Nov. 10–13 1988) 46 names him as Phillippe.

21. Lauffray, Forums et monuments de Béryte, 7–16, with fig. 2, suggested an identification with the church of St. Saviour. For the plan of the chapel: Lauffray, J., ‘Forums et monuments de Béryte’, Bulletin du Musée de Beyrouth 7 (1942-44), pl. Ill opposite 18.Google Scholar

22. Lauffray, Forums et monuments de Béryte, 11–12 (graffiti); 8 (ossuary: whether the bones were female or male is not stated).

23. A daughter house of St Mary Magdalen at Acre: Hamilton, Cistercians in the Crusader States, 410–12.

24. Weitzmann, Painting in the Latin Kingdom, 72 (Studies, 346) first suggested it was a rosary. For prayer beads and piety, see Thurston, H., ‘Chapelet’, in Cabrol, F. and Leclercq, H. (eds.), Dictionnaire d’archéologie chrétienne et de liturgie, III (1) (Paris 1913) cols. 390–406.Google Scholar

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26. ‘… circulum gemmarum, quem filo insuerat ut singularum contactu singulas orationes incipiens numerum non praetermitteret; hunc ergo gemmarum circulum collo imaginis sanctae Mariae appendi jussit.’

“… a circle of gems which she had threaded on a string so that beginning individual prayers by contact with individual gems she would not miss any out. She ordered this circlet of gems to be hung about the neck of an image of St Mary’. This text is quoted by Thurston, Chapelet, col. 401. The translation here is that of K. Down, who kindly answered my queries concerning the text.

27. Jerusalem, Armenian Patriarchate MS 2563, fol. 380r: Nersessian, S. Der, Armenian Art (London 1978) 144–50, fig. 107Google Scholar; Narkiss, B. (ed.), Armenian Art Treasures of Jerusalem (Oxford 1980) 63–64, fig. 77.Google Scholar

28. An example is a weeper from the tomb of Phillipe Le Hardi, Duke of Burgundy (school of Claus Sluyter) of c. 1385–1410 reproduced in Boase, T.S.R., Death in the Middle Ages (London 1972) 84, fig. 69.Google Scholar

29. Hamilton, Cistercians in the Crusader States, 414–5.

30. Nicolle, D.C., Arms and Armour ofthe Crusading Era 1050–1350, 2 Vols. (New-York 1988) I, 333, II Google Scholar, fig. 843.

31. Deschamps, P., ‘La légende de saint Georges et les combats des croisées dans les peintures murales du Moyen Age’, Fondation Eugène Piot: Monuments et Mémoires 44(1950) 113–15, 126.Google Scholar

32. Weitzmann, Icon Painting in the Crusader Kingdom, 79, (Studies, 353), fig. 63, describes it as ‘of good quality and pure Byzantine style’; Cormack, R. and Mihlarios, S., ‘A Crusader Painting of St George: “maniera greca”, or “lingua franca”?’, Burlington Magazine 126 no. 972 (1984) 134, fig. 5.Google Scholar

33. Cormack and Mihalarios, A Crusader Painting of St George, 132–41. This article disregards the evidence of local wallpainting in proposing that the artist was an itinerant Frenchman.

34. Hamilton, B., The Cistercians in the Crusader States, in Pennington, M.B. (ed.), One Yet Two. Monastic Tradition East and West (Cistercian Studies 29) (Kalamazoo 1976)Google Scholar rpt. in Hamilton, B., Monastic Reform, Catharism and the Crusades (900–1300) (London 1979) 408–10.Google Scholar

35. Boulanger, R. (trans. Hardman, J.S.), The Middle East, Hachette World Guide (Paris 1966) 354 Google Scholar. Today the monastery has several post-medieval icons of St George. I owe the suggestion of the medieval importance of this monastery of St George to Professor R. Huygens.

36. Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, I., Byzantine Icons in Steatite (Vienna 1985)Google Scholar suggests steatites of military saints to have been as popular with civilians as with the military.

37. Weitzmann, Icon Painting in the Crusader Kingdom, 79–80, fig. 64; Cormack and Mihalarios, A Crusader Painting of St George, 134, fig. 5.

38. Walter, Ch., ‘Two Notes on the Deësis’, REB 26 (1968) 317.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39. Schor, N., Reading in Detail: Aesthetics and the Feminine (New York and London 1987)Google Scholar passim.

40. Carr, A. Weyl, ‘Women Artists in the Middle Ages’, Feminist Art Journal 5 (1976) 5–9, 26 Google Scholar, esp. 8. Carr, A. Weyl, ‘Women and Monasticism in Byzantium’, Byzantinische Forschungen 9 (1985) 14–15 Google Scholar, attributes the anonymity of women as scribes and painters both to the probable ‘cottage-industrial’ nature of the book trade and the practice of daughters working for their painter fathers.

41. Nasrallah, J., ‘Voyageurs et Pèlerins au Qalamoun’, Bulletin d’Etudes Orientates (Institut Francais de Damas) 10 (1943–44) 5–78, especially 13–17.Google Scholar

42. St Procopius in another thirteenth century Sinai icon is being invested with a similar diadem as a Christian martyr according to Walter, C., ‘The Iconographic Sources for the Coronation of Milutin and Simonida at Gracanica’, L’Art Byzantin au Début du XIVe Siècle (Belgrade 1978) 190 Google Scholar, but the diadem seems to have no additional significance.

43. Dodd, E. Cruikshank, ‘Notes on the Monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi, near Nebek, Syria’, in Folda, J. (ed.), Crusader Art in the Twelfth Century (British Archaeological Reports, International Series 152) (Oxford 1982) 172, with pl. 7.7Google Scholar. Cruikshank Dodd here (171, 173–74 applies the dated inscriptions of 1058 and 1100 (corrected verbally to 1192) to the first and second phases of wallpainting, inscribed respectively in Greek, and Syriac with Arabic; E. Cruikshank Dodd, ‘The Last judgement in Mar Musa al-Habashi’, paper read at the London meeting cited above, note 1. There is, however, considerable discrepancy within the plaster layers and it is feasible to assume thirteenth-century work amongst the painting here. Cruikshank Dodd’s further study is awaited to resolve these problems. In September 1985 Italian-Syrian restoration work was commencing on the church.

44. Cruikshank Dodd, Mar Musa al-Habashi, 172, pi. 7.7.

45. J. Folda, ‘Crusader Frescoes 192, 194–95 fig. 22 (north wall).

46. Mention is made of the Bahdeidat paintings by Tallon, M., ‘Peintures byzan-tines au Liban: Inventaire’, Mélanges de I’Université Saint Joseph 38 (1962) fasc. 13, 291 Google Scholar; Sader, J., Peintures murales dans les églises maronites médievales (Beirut 1987)Google Scholar, a reference kindly communicated by Professor J. Folda, has been unavailable to me.

47. A photograph of St Theodore at Bahdeidat is deposited in the photographic collection of the Courtauld Institute of Art, London University.

48. Lauffray, Forums et monuments de Biryte, 14 with notes 1–3. Other features link the Qalamoun and Tripoli groups of wallpaintings, including the elaborate canopies as a framing device. The same twisted ribbon motif on the arch frames the panels at Qara (fig. 4), Amioun and Beirut (figs. 8, 9).

49. E. Cruikshank Dodd, seminar at Oxford University, March 1977.

50. Folda, J., Crusader Manuscript Illumination at Saint-Jean d’Acre, 1275–1291 (Princeton 1976) 169 Google Scholar, assumes that ‘A distinctive culture and its artistic manifestation were cut down in the vigour of youth at Acre in 1291’.

51. The effect of eastern imagery on westerners visiting shrines in the east must have been profound. For example, it has been suggested that Conrad, Bishop of Halberstadt’s decision to enter the Cistercian order might well have been associated with his cure at the shrine of the Virgin at Tortosa in 1204–5: Andrea, A.J., ‘Conrad of Krosigk, Bishop of Halberstadt, Crusader and Monk of Sittenbach: His Ecclesiastical Career, 1184–1225’, Analecta Cisterciensia 43/1 (1987) 48–49 Google Scholar. This shrine had an image of the Virgin, although of which type is not known.

52. Hauser, R., Die Zeit der Staufer: Geschichte-Kunst-Kultur, Katalog der Austellung, Würtembergisches Landesmuseum, Stuttgart (Stuttgart 1977) 1, 542–43, no. 722 with summary bibliographyGoogle Scholar. Legner, A., Ornamenta Ecclesiae: Kunst und Künstler der Romanik, Katalog zur Austellung des Schnütgen-Museums in der Josef-Haubrich Kunsthalle (Köln 1985) 1, 316–18, no. B89Google Scholar. Schadek, H. and Schmid, K., Die Zähringer: Anstoss und Wirkung, (Freiburg 1986) 67–69, no. 41Google Scholar. I am grateful to Dr D. Zinke for these references and for supplying the photograph reproduced here.

53. This is in parallel with the commonly held misapprehension that the bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius in Rome represented Constantine: Seidel, L., Songs of Glory: The Romansesque Facades of Aquitaine (Chicago 1981) 6–7, with note 7.Google Scholar

54. Weitzmann, Icon Painting in the Crusader Kingdom, 78–81, (Studies, 352–55), fig. 62.

55. Brossé, Ch.-L., ‘Les peintures de la Grotte de Marina près Tripoli’, Syria 7 (1926) 34–35, 37–38, pl. X Google Scholar. The other three panels represent St Marina/Marinos attacking a devil, the Annunciation and Deisis.

56. Mouriki, Moutoullas, 208.

57. The Hodegetria at Moutoullas is at the east end of the south wall of the nave: Mouriki, Moutoullas, 174, 191, fig. 10.

58. Mouriki, Moutoullas, 193–94, fig. 20.

59. This is consistent with the evidence of ceramic finds in Cyprus of imitation Port St Symeon ware, copying oriental-style ceramics, which were made near Antioch for both Syrians and Latins in the thirteenth century prior to 1268: Patterson, N. Ševčnko, ‘Some Thirteenth Century Pottery at Dumbarton Oaks’, DOP 28 (1974) 360 with fig. 27.Google Scholar

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65. Buchthal, Miniature Painting, 9–10, 133–34, pi. 17.

66. Two studies emphasise Melisende’s influence: Mayer, H.E., ‘Studies in the History of Queen Melisende’, DOP 26 (1972) 93–183 Google Scholar and Hamilton, B., ‘Women in the crusader states: the queens of Jerusalem 1100–90’, in Baker, D. (ed.), Medieval Women: Dedicated and presented to Rosalind M. T. Hill on her Seventieth Birthday (Oxford 1978) esp. 148–57 Google Scholar. Interaction in religious matters at this period between east and west included the correspondence of Queen Melisende with St Bernard of Clairvaux. B. Hamilton has suggested her as the initiator of the foundation of Cistercian monasticism in the Latin east: Hamilton, Cistercians in the Crusader States, 406.

67. On this general point see Hamilton, ‘Women in the Crusader states’, 143.

68. Syrian Patriarchate 12/3, formerly Jerusalem, St Mark’s Syr. 6: Leroy, Pein-tures syriaques, 319.

69. Renan, E., Mission de Phénicie (Paris 1864) 237.Google Scholar

70. The understanding of a picture itself could differ in the eyes of the female viewer. That the female auditor construed different meanings from the text of a courtly romance to her male counterpart has been argued by Krueger, R.L., ‘Love, honor, and the exchange of women in Yvain: some remarks on the female reader’, Romance Notes 25/1 (1984) 302–17 Google Scholar, where textual ambiguity is attributed to the presence of a female as well as a male audience.

71. Chabot, J.-B., Chronique de Michel le Syrien: Patriarche Jacobite d’Antioch (1166–1199), III (1905) 300–4 Google Scholar (French translation); Cahen, C., La Syrie du nord à l’époque des croisades et la principauté franque d’Antioche (Paris 1940) 568.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

72. Peeters, P., ‘La légende de Saïdnaia’, AB 25 (1906) 155 with note 6Google Scholar; Carr, A Weyl, ‘East, West, and Icons in Twelfth-Century Outremer’, in Goss, V.P. and Bornstein, C. Verzdr (eds.), The meeting of Two Worlds: Cultural Exchange between East and West during the Period of the Crusades (Kalamazoo 1986) 349–50 Google Scholar. The grotto at Saidnaya, its walls lined with icons, is still administered by nuns.

73. Peeters, P., La légende de Saïdnaia, 137–57 Google Scholar; P. Peeter’s review of Zayat, H., Histoire de Saidnaya (Harissa, Lebanon), 1932 (in Arabic; unavailable to me), AB 51 (1933) 434–38.Google Scholar

74. According to Thietmar’s account of 1217: Laurent, J.C.M., Magister Thietmari peregrinatio adfidem codicis Hamburgensis (Hamburg 1857) 17–18 Google Scholar. See also Matthew Paris: Luard, H.R. (ed.), Chronica maiora, Rerum Britannicarum Scriptores no. 57, II (London 1874) 484–87.Google Scholar

75. For the Saracen converted by the image of the Virgin see S. Ringbom, Icon to Narrative: The Rise of the Dramatic Close- Up in Fifteenth Century Devotional Painting (Abo 1965) 14 with fig. 1; Weyl Carr, ‘East, West, and Icons’, 249–50, both with references. For Gautier de Coincy’s French verse and a related mid-thirteenth century French verse from Tours, with commentary: Raynaud, G., ‘Le Miracle de Sardenai’, Romania 2 (1882) 519–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

76. Leroy, Manuscrits syriaques, 259–61, pl. 58 (2).

77. Soteriou, , Icônes du Mont Sinaï, I, pls. 54-55, II, 73–75.Google Scholar

78. On the Kykko icon and its copies, see K. Weitzmann, ‘Crusader Icons and Maniera Greca’, in Hutter (ed.), Byzanz und der Westen, 149–52; Hadermann-Misguich, L., ‘La peinture monumentale du XIIe siècle à Chypre’, Corsi di Culturasull’ Arte Raven-nate e Bizantina 32 (1985) 256–57 Google Scholar; Pace, V., ‘Presenze e influenze cipriote nella pit-tura duecentesca italiana’, Corsi di Cultural sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina 32 (1985) 272 Google Scholar; Mouriki, , Icon Painting in Cyprus, 26–32 Google Scholar; Carr, East, West and Icons, 351–53; Belting, H., Bild und Kult: Eine Geschichte des Bildes vor dem Zeitalter der Kunst (Munich 1990) 324–30.Google Scholar

79. Mouriki, Icon Painting in Cyprus, 30–31 argues this to be a Cypriot development.

80. The veil is pronounced in a later thirteenth century copy at Sinai (Kykkotissa) reproduced in colour in Weitzmann, The Icon, 227.

81. Icon no. B.M. 1136, T. 137, measuring 114 x 70 x 2.7 cm. M. Chatzidakis, ‘L’evolution de l’icone aux 11e-13e siècles et la transformation du templon’, XVe Congrès International d’Etudes Byzantines: Rapports et Co-Rapports, III, Art et Archéologie (Athens 1976) 185–86, pi. XXXVIII. I am grateful to Dr M. Acheimastou-Potamianou for information and for the photograph reproduced here.

82. Maguire, , ‘The Iconography of Symeon with the Christ Child in Byzantine Art’, DOP 34 and 35 (1980–1981) 296 with fig. 11Google Scholar. Corrie, R.W., ‘Byzantine Iconography of a Madonna by Coppo di Marcovaldo’, Tenth Byzantine Studies Conference: Abstracts of Papers (University of Cincinatti, Nov. 1984) 46 Google Scholar; Corrie, R.W., ‘The Meaning of the Virgin Kykkotissa in Cyprus and Italy in the Thirteenth Century’, Paper read at the Conference Latins and Greeks in the Aegean World after 1204 (Nottingham University, March 1988).Google Scholar

83. Mouriki, Icon Painting in Cyprus, 72 with note 192.

84. Dodd, ‘Notes on the Monastery of Mar Musa al-Habashi’, 172–73 with pl. 7.10 (as Sts Helena (?) and Julia).

85. Kühnel, Wall Painting, 106–112, no. 7 (sic) on general plan (fig. 3), fig. 74.

86. Brossé, Lespeintures de la Grotte de Marina, 32–33, fig. 1; the blue backgrounds and red frames of the lower layer are referred to (32), as at Qara and Nebek. Lafontaine-Dosogne, J., ‘Un thème iconographique peu connu: Marina assommant Belzébuth’, B 32 (1962) 251–59.Google Scholar

87. E. Patlagean, ‘L’histoire de la femme déguisée en moine et l’évolution de la sainteté féminine à Byzance, Studi Medievali, 3e sér., 17 (Spoleto 1976) (rpt. in Patlagean, E., Structure sociale, famille, chrétienté à Byzance [London 1981] no. XI), 615.Google Scholar

88. Harvey, S. Ashbrook, ‘Women in Early Syrian Christianity’, in Cameron, A. and Kuhrt, A. (eds.), Images of Women in Antiquity (London and Canberra 1983) 297 Google Scholar and eadem, Asceticism and Society in Crisis: John of Ephesus and The Lives of the Eastern Saints (Berkeley 1990) 115–16, refers to female saints, transvestite to pursue their ascetic vocation.

89. This is not to ignore the observation of P. Schine Gold in respect of twelfth century France that what is needed is ‘a recognition that images express not one attitude but many, that the experience of women, even of the women of the noble elite, was diverse and sometimes contradictory, and that the relationship between image, attitude and experience is not always direct or causal’: Schine Gold, The Lady and the Virgin, Preface, xvii.

90. Chadwick, Women, Art, and Society 55.

91. Alexiou, Ritual lament, 170–71.