The Byzantine Background

Chapter 4 examines the surviving nomocanonical manuscripts from the period of Byzantine rule in early medieval southern Italy (tenth–eleventh centuries). Very few manuscripts survive from before the twelfth century, so their content must be reconstructed from later codices. Nonetheless, this chapter argues that enough evidence has been preserved to prove that Byzantine canon law was firmly established in southern Italy from the time of the empire’s ecclesiastical and administrative reorganisations of the ninth and tenth centuries. The chapter shows that, as the Byzantines reconquered territories from the Lombards and established new ecclesiastical centres in Reggio, S. Severina, and Otranto, they introduced the Nomocanon in Fourteen Titles, the Nomocanon in Fifty Titles, and the Synopsis of Canons to serve as legal reference works. It then focuses on the Carbone nomocanon (Vat. gr. 1980–1981), the only complete nomocanon to survive from the era of Byzantine rule, arguing that it was probably produced in the eleventh century for use by a Greek bishop in Lucania. The manuscript’s contents and marginalia indicate that its owner was fully aligned with the legal system of Constantinople and show no influences from neighbouring Latin jurisdictions. Finally, the chapter looks at evidence from the period of Norman conquest in the late eleventh century, revealing how the resulting tensions between Latin and Greek Christians in the region left traces of contemporary Byzantine polemic against the azyma (unleavened bread in the Eucharist) in Calabrian nomocanons of the twelfth century.

‘They Do It Like This in Romania’

Chapter 10 explores the changing uses of Byzantine canon law among the Italo-Greeks in the thirteenth century. The Greek churches and monasteries of southern Italy became increasingly integrated into the administration of the Roman church following the Fourth Lateran Council (1215). Nonetheless, as the Salentine Group shows, some Italo-Greeks continued to copy nomocanons as late as the fourteenth century. Chapter 10 argues that the manuscripts retained a value as sources of cultural authority, explaining and justifying Greek religious ritual, even as they lost their value as sources of legal authority. To illustrate this point, the chapter begins with a discussion of Nektarios of Otranto’s Three Chapters, a polemical work of c. 1220–1225 that relies heavily on citations of Byzantine canon law to refute Latin attacks on Greek rites and customs. It then considers who these refutations were aimed at, looking in particular at the abortive attempt of Archbishop Marinus of Bari to outlaw Greek baptism in 1232 as a specific example of Latin criticism. It notes, however, that criticism like this from the official church hierarchy was rare and that controversy was probably more restricted to an unofficial, local level. The chapter concludes by examining evidence that canon-law based defences of Greek religious practice were not just aimed at Latins but also at other Greeks. As many Italo-Greeks began to adopt (consciously or otherwise) Latin rites into their worship, more conservative sections of the community attempted to resist such cultural change by mobilising canon law as polemic.

Monastic Nomocanons II

Chapter 6 builds on the discussion of Chapter 5, taking a closer look at the content and material character of the monastic nomocanons produced under Norman rule. It observes that the manuscripts can be divided into three broad categories in which text and aesthetics are closely aligned: ‘traditional’ monastic nomocanons of the Southwest (i.e. Calabria, Lucania, Sicily); ‘deluxe’ nomocanons of Rossano and Messina; and two nomocanons produced by St Nicholas of Casole in the Salento. The traditional nomocanons are characterised by archaic textual content (primarily the Nomocanon in Fifty Titles) and simple, old-fashioned Italo-Greek ornamental styles. By contrast, the ‘deluxe’ nomocanons of Rossano and Messina were based on an eleventh-century Byzantine model imported in the early twelfth century by St Bartholomew of Simeri, even mimicking the Perlschrift calligraphy and Blüttenblat style of art. Like the traditional nomocanons, the deluxe manuscripts were evidently intended for use as practical reference guides. The Casulan manuscripts, for their part, demonstrate a unique connection to twelfth-century Byzantium, containing Aristenos’ commentary on the Synopsis of Canons (c. 1130) and a unique witness to Arsenios of Philotheou’s (different) Synopsis of Canons. The Casulan nomocanons represent a more didactic turn, in which canon law is used more as a source for teaching correct religious practice than as the basis of a formal juridical system.

Patterns of Source Survival

Chapter 3 describes how the extant Italo-Greek nomocanons survived from the medieval period to the modern day, noting two main vectors: the monastic Order of St Basil (concentrated in Sicily, Calabria, and Lucania), and the Renaissance book market in the Salento peninsula. It also considers the implications of these patterns of source survival for what kind of evidence has survived and what sort of conclusions we can draw from it. Beginning in the late Middle Ages, it explains how the Council of Ferrara-Florence (1438–1445) inspired Pope Eugenius IV to create the monastic Order of St Basil to provide an institutional structure to Byzantine-rite monasticism in southern Italy; this would play a pivotal role in supporting the remaining Italo-Greek monasteries and preserving their manuscript collections into the early modern period. The chapter then turns to the Salento peninsula, observing that families of secular Greek clergy (rather than monasteries) played the most important role in copying and preserving manuscripts in the region. During the Renaissance, the Salento became a popular region for scholarly book collectors to purchase manuscripts, bringing them to great Renaissance libraries such as the Biblioteca Ambrosiana in Milan. The chapter also looks at other ways that manuscripts survived, such as through the efforts of the seventeenth-century Russian monk Arsenii Sukhanov. For the most part, manuscripts that were not stored in Basilian monasteries or purchased from the Renaissance Salento have not been preserved.

Introduction

The introductory chapter poses the central question of the book: why did the Greeks of medieval southern Italy continue to produce and read collections of Byzantine canon law even after they had ceased to be a part of the Byzantine church and had instead become subjects of the Roman papacy? The Norman conquest of the region took place in the 1040s–1070s, yet the Italo-Greeks were still copying Byzantine canon law manuscripts as late as the fourteenth century. What does this say about the nature of law and religion in southern Italy in the Middle Ages? The chapter then contextualises the book by discussing its place against the background of Byzantine legal scholarship, highlighting the potential of legal anthropology and the concept of legal pluralism to contribute to the field. It then moves on to discuss the significance of law for the study of religion and culture and sets out the rationale behind the way in which the book approaches the subject. Following this, the chapter introduces the thirty-six manuscripts that serve as the book’s primary sources, explaining how the approach of material philology informed its methodology. Finally, it provides an overview of the content and arguments of the rest of the book’s chapters.

Monastic Nomocanons I

Chapter 5 explores how, following the restoration of relative peace and stability after the Norman conquest, several newly founded and important Italo-Greek monasteries developed their own independent legal jurisdictions on their own property. The chapter argues that the Normans’ opposition to papal and episcopal interference created a laissez-faire atmosphere in which Italo-Greek monks could continue to follow Byzantine canon law. Many such monasteries enjoyed the patronage of the Norman nobility throughout the late eleventh and twelfth centuries. These monasteries were responsible for producing the majority of surviving nomocanons from medieval southern Italy. It divides them into two broad categories: the royal archimandritates (monastic federations) of Rossano and Messina; and lesser archimandritates and autodespotic (independent) monasteries such as SS Elias and Anastasios of Carbone and St Nicholas of Casole. It observes that the production of a monastic nomocanon was closely linked to a monastery’s acquisition of legal privileges from the kings of Sicily, indicating that they were produced to meet a practical legal need and not simply out of academic curiosity. Lastly, the chapter asks how Italo-Greek monks under Norman rule perceived their relationship to papal jurisdiction, using the examples of Bartholomew of Grottaferrata’s comments on papal legislation and Neilos Doxapatres’ work on the Order of the Patriarchal Thrones to show that they still felt themselves to be a part of the legal sphere of the Patriarchate of Constantinople.

Introducing the Byzantine Nomocanon

Chapter 1 introduces the reader to the nomocanon, a type of Byzantine manuscript that serves as the primary source material for the book. Nomocanons are largely unknown among Byzantinists and medievalists, so this chapter explains the basic facts of what they are, how they are designed, and why they are historically significant. Beginning with the emergence of the corpus of Byzantine canon law in Late Antiquity, it outlines the development of the texts from the first systematic collections in the sixth century to the great Byzantine canonists of the twelfth century (Aristenos, Zonaras, and Balsamon). The chapter then describes the typical content and structure of a nomocanon, discussing the example of the eleventh-/twelfth-century manuscript BN II C 4. It closes with a discussion of the material and aesthetic qualities of nomocanons, arguing for the importance of studying the manuscripts not just as sources for textual editions but also as artefacts of specific socio-historical contexts.

The Papacy Takes Charge

Chapter 8 moves from the Norman kingdom of the twelfth century to the newly changed situation in the early thirteenth century, as the demise of the Hauteville dynasty and the minority of the young king Frederick II Hohenstaufen (r. 1198–1250) created an opportunity for Pope Innocent III (r. 1198–1216) and his successors to enforce their authority in southern Italy. Meanwhile, the Latin conquest of Constantinople in the Fourth Crusade (1204) created an imperative for the papacy to develop a coherent policy towards the integration of Greek Christians into the Roman church’s administrative and legal structures. The chapter discusses how the papacy formulated this policy at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) and the resulting increase in papal interventions in the legal affairs of the southern Italian Greeks. It then looks at Pope Honorius III’s (r. 1216–1227) short-lived effort to organise Byzantine-rite monasteries into an Order of St Basil under Grottaferrata (a predecessor to Eugenius IV’s more successful fifteenth-century order). It examines the Grottaferrata Nomocanon (Marc. gr. 171), a manuscript produced at the monastery in c. 1220–1230 that was apparently intended to provide a legal guide for the new order yet was still entirely Byzantine in character. The chapter finishes by focusing on the conflict between the Holy Saviour monastery of Messina and the papacy in the 1220s–1230s as an important example of the papacy’s efforts to bring the royal monasteries of the Kingdom of Sicily under episcopal control.

Greek Christianity in Medieval Italy

Chapter 2 offers a historical narrative of Greek Christianity in medieval southern Italy from the era of Byzantine rule in the early Middle Ages to the fifteenth century. It begins with the transformation of Byzantine Italy during the era of Iconoclasm (8th–9th centuries) and the Macedonian dynasty (9th–11th centuries). Faced with the external crisis of Islamic invasion and the internal political crises that resulted, the Byzantine authorities placed southern Italy under the patriarchate of Constantinople and established a military government (the katepanikion) over the region, bringing settlers from Greece and Anatolia to reinforce the Greek presence there. It then describes the impact of the Norman invasion of the eleventh century, noting the hostilities that flared between Greek and Latin Christians in southern Italy as a result. Next, the chapter moves on to address the aftermath of the Norman conquest for the Italo-Greeks, discussing the so-called ‘Italo-Greek Renaissance’ of the twelfth century and Norman patronage of Greek ecclesiastical institutions such as the Patiron of Rossano and the Holy Saviour of Messina. It then details the changing circumstances of the thirteenth century, with the demise of the Norman Hauteville dynasty and the arrival of the Hohenstaufen dynasty. It also highlights the significance of the Fourth Crusade and the Fourth Lateran Council as developments that heralded increased papal interference in Italo-Greek affairs. Lastly, the chapter examines the impact of the Angevin conquest and the relegation of the southern Italian Greeks to an ethnic minority within the hierarchy of the Roman Church.

The Secular Church and the Laity

Chapter 7 examines the surviving evidence for nomocanon use among the secular (i.e. non-monastic) church and lay officials under Norman rule. While far fewer manuscripts survive from these circles than from monasteries, it is nonetheless clear that nomocanons continued to be used not only by Greek bishops but even by lay judges and notaries. The chapter begins with an examination of the Italo-Greek episcopate, highlighting the significance of the bishop’s judicial role in the Byzantine church and the lack of evidence for any kind of influence of Latin canon law on the nomocanons of Greek bishops of southern Italy in the twelfth century. It then discusses two fascinating twelfth-century nomocanons: the Epitome Marciana from southern Calabria and the ‘Nomocanon of Doxapatres’ from Rossano. The manuscripts provide decisive evidence that Greek lay judges in the Norman kingdom played a role in the administration of ecclesiastical justice, relying entirely on Byzantine legal sources. In some cases, as in Rossano, Greek aristocratic families would dominate both the archiepiscopal and civil judicial offices, with the result that the family would possess multiple manuscripts of Byzantine civil and canon law.