Ignatius of Smolensk and the Late Byzantine Monasteries of Thessaloniki - article ; n°1 ; vol.49, pg 143-169

Marcus L.Rautman

Description

Revue des études byzantines - Année 1991 - Volume 49 - Numéro 1 - Pages 143-169
REB 49 1991 France p. 143-169
M. L. Rautman, Ignatius of Smolensk and the Late Byzantine Monasteries of Thessaloniki. — The «Description of Thessaloniki», written by the Russian pilgrim Ignatius of Smolensk c. 1405, is one of the earliest accounts by medieval travelers to the late Byzantine city and an important witness to its ecclesiastical landscape. Recently published documents and study of the surviving monuments permit a reappraisal of the text within the architectural and historical context of early 15th- century Thessaloniki. This analysis clarifies certain implicit limitations of the pilgrim's account and illustrates the problems of medieval topographic research.
27 pages
Source : Persée ; Ministère de la jeunesse, de l’éducation nationale et de la recherche, Direction de l’enseignement supérieur, Sous-direction des bibliothèques et de la documentation.

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• Publié par: REVUE_DES_ETUDES_BYZANTINES
• Publié le: 01 janvier 1991
• Nombre de lectures: 107
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Marcus L. Rautman
Ignatius of Smolensk and the Late Byzantine Monasteries of
Thessaloniki
In: Revue des études byzantines, tome 49, 1991. pp. 143-169.
Abstract
REB 49 1991 France p. 143-169
M. L. Rautman, Ignatius of Smolensk and the Late Byzantine Monasteries of Thessaloniki. — The «Description of Thessaloniki»,
written by the Russian pilgrim Ignatius of Smolensk c. 1405, is one of the earliest accounts by medieval travelers to the late
Byzantine city and an important witness to its ecclesiastical landscape. Recently published documents and study of the surviving
monuments permit a reappraisal of the text within the architectural and historical context of early 15th- century Thessaloniki. This
analysis clarifies certain implicit limitations of the pilgrim's account and illustrates the problems of medieval topographic research.
Citer ce document / Cite this document :
Rautman Marcus L. Ignatius of Smolensk and the Late Byzantine Monasteries of Thessaloniki. In: Revue des études
byzantines, tome 49, 1991. pp. 143-169.
http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/rebyz_0766-5598_1991_num_49_1_1838OF SMOLENSK IGNATIUS
AND THE LATE BYZANTINE
MONASTERIES OF THESSALONIKI*
Marcus L. RAUTMAN
Crossroads of empire, queen of the Aegean, mother of all
Macedonia, Thessaloniki has since its foundation stood poised
between East and West, attracting visitors to its fairs and markets
and forming a celebrated meeting ground for very different Medi
terranean worlds. As the largest port and commercial center between
Venice and Constantinople, Thessaloniki was an important stop for
Western travelers on their way to the Byzantine court, and later to
the Sublime Porte in Istanbul. The city was no less frequented by
Eastern visitors, ranging from medieval pilgrims journeying to
Constantinople and Mount Athos to Turkish sailors and geographers,
from Piri Re'is to Hadji Chalfa and Evliya Çelebi. Common to the
accounts of most visitors to Thessaloniki in medieval and early
modern times are references to and at times even vivid recollections
of the city, its setting, inhabitants and above all its architectural
monuments, ranging from antiquity to the present day. Ringed by
sturdy fortifications and overlooked by a steep citadel, medieval
Thessaloniki continuously impressed its guests with its setting,
people, markets, palaces, and especially its churches and monasteries,
which were found in such numbers as to make the city a model of
Orthodox piety.1
* My work with Ignatius and his "Description" of the monuments of Thessaloniki
has benefited from helpful discussion with Prof. George P. Majeska, although I am
responsible for any problematic interpretations that remain.
1. For a selection of medieval enkomia on Thessaloniki see V. Täpkova-Zaimova,
La ville de Saint-Démétrius dans les textes Démétriens, Ή Θεσσαλονίκη μεταξύ
'Ανατολής xal Δύσεως (= Πρακτικά συμποσίου τεσσαρακονταετηρίδος της 'Εταιρείας Μακεδόνι
κων Σπουδών, 1980), Thessaloniki 1982, ρ. 21-30. The accounts of travelers to the city
are discussed in K. Simopoulos, Ξένοι ταξιδιώτες στην 'Ελλάδα MV, Athens 1970-1979;
Revue des Études Byzantines 49, 1991, p. 143-169. 144 M. L. RAUTMAN
The historical value of such written sources for reconstructing a
picture of medieval Thessaloniki can hardly be overstated. Together
with the surviving monuments, travel accounts provide essential
evidence for understanding the city's people and topography.
Ottoman documents and later records survive in relative abundance,
but the city is much less well represented among the preserved
Byzantine sources.2 Amidst this dearth the testimony of the Russian
pilgrim Ignatius of Smolensk assumes special significance, both for
the timing of his record and for the contents of its abbreviated but
important text.
Few details of Ignatius' life are known.3 Internal literary evidence
in the three works attributed to him, the "Journey to Constantino
ple" (1389), the "Abbreviated Chronicle" (c. 1402) and the "Descrip
tion of Thessaloniki and the Holy Mountain" (c. 1405), suggest that
he came from western Russia, perhaps indeed Smolensk. He traveled
to Constantinople in mid-1389 as part of the entourage of Bishop
Michael, and remained in the capital through the 1390-1391 revolt
and the coronation of Manuel II in February 1392. It is unclear
whether Ignatius briefly returned to Russia or remained in the
Balkans around the turn of the century: his "Abbreviated Chronicle"
mentions both the 1396 earthquakes at Athos and a fire at the Great
Lavra complex in 1404.
The text of the "Description" has been less thoroughly treated
than those other accounts attributed to the pilgrim.4 Unlike the other
and across the province in J. Lefort, et al., Paysages de Macédoine. Leurs caractères,
leur évolution à travers les documents et les récits des voyageurs, Paris 1986. General
historical surveys remain Ο. Tafrali, Thessalonique, des origines au xiv siècle, Paris
1919; Idem, Thessalonique au quatorzième siècle, Paris 1913; A. Vacalopoulos, A
History of Thessaloniki, Thessaloniki 1963; and recently A. Papagiannopoulos, of 1985.
2. The Ottoman sources are discussed by M. Kiel, Notes on the history of some
Turkish monuments in Thessaloniki and their founders, Balkan Studies 11, 1970,
p, 123-156; H. Lowry, Portrait of a city: The population and topography of Ottoman
Selânik (Thessaloniki) in the year 1478, Δίπτυχα 2, 1980-1981, p. 254-293;
B. Demetriades, Τοπογραφία της Θεσσαλονίκης κατά την εποχή της Τουρκοκρατίας 1430-
1912, Thessaloniki 1983.
3. For a recent appraisal see G. P. Majeska, Russian Travelers to Constantinople in
the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, Washington 1984, p. 48-73.
4. The Russian text is published in Khozdenie Ignatiia Smolnianina, 1389-1405, ed.
S. V. Arseniev, Pravoslavnyi Palestinskii Sbornik 12, IV, 3, St. Petersburg 1887.
Early editions of Ignatius' "Description" are discussed by Majeska, Russian Travelers.
The account is most widely known in the West by Mrs. B. de Khitrowo, Le
pèlerinage d'Ignace de Smolensk, 1389-1405, Itinéraires russes en Orient, I, I, Geneva
1889, p. 127-164, at 147; reprinted in J. P. A. Van der Vin, Travellers to Greece and
Constantinople: Ancient Monuments and Old Traditions in Medieval Travellers' Tales, IGNATIUS OF SMOLENSK 145
manuscripts, it refers to Ignatii Smolnianin in the third person and
places him in Thessaloniki in 1405. In further contrast to the detailed
descriptions of places and monuments in Constantinople, the
"Description" is a bare list of churches. Ignatius' discussion of Mount
Athos includes the Great Lavra and 33 other chapels, which he notes
with fair accuracy; yet his familiarity with the Athonite monasteries
seems limited to the Lavra and its immediate dependencies.5 The
section dealing with the monuments of Thessaloniki is even shorter:
In the year 1405 (6913) Ignatius of Smolensk was in Thessaloniki and
venerated St. Demetrius and St. Theodora the myrrh exuding, receiving
their holy myrrh, and toured the wondrous monasteries. These are:
Vlatades (Vivlotades), and Isaak, Latomou (Elatomu), Akapnios (Apo-
kniya), Nea Mone, Philokalous, metocheion Chortiates, Prodromos,
Pantodynamos, Gorgoepekoos (Gorgoniko). The parish churches are:
St. Sophia the Metropolis, Acheiropoietos (Akhironiti), and Holy Asomatoi
and many others. The city itself is also very wondrous.
Ignatius' brevity has been ascribed to the incomplete state of his
writings, to which he may have intended to return and elaborate at a
later date. The textual tradition of the account, though, leaves little
doubt that the extant text is that left by the Russian pilgrim
c. 1405. 6
Ignatius' "Description" is one of Even in its present laconic form,
the most important accounts documenting late Byzantine Thessaloni-
ki's urban topography. The text dates from a critical and poorly
understood period of the city's history immediately following
Thessaloniki's first Ottoman occupation, which lasted from 1387 until
the city was returned to Manuel II Palaeologos by treaty in 1403. 7
Leiden 1980, p. 599. The only systematic analysis of the "Description" is by
M. Laskaris, Ναοί καΐ μοναί Θεσσαλονίκης το 1405 εις τό όδοιπορικόν τοϋ έκ Σμόλενσκ
'Ιγνατίου, Τόμος Κωνσταντίνου 'Αρμενοπούλου (= 'Επιστημονική Έπετηρίς της Σχολής
Νομικών και Οικονομικών τοΰ 'Αριστοτελείου Πανεπιστημίου Θεσσαλονίκης 6), Thessaloniki
1952, ρ. 315-344.
5. Majeska, Russian Travelers, p. 55-56.
6. The textual history of the "Description" has been extensively discussed by
K. D. Seemann, Zur Textüberlieferung der dem Ignatij von Smolensk zugeschriebenen
Werke, Polychordia. Festschrift Franz Dölger zum 75. Geburtstag, II (= Byzantinische
Forschungen 2), Amsterdam 1967, p. 345-369, who answers some of the doubts
Ignatius' actual authorship of the "Description" raised by Laskaris, Ναοί concerning
και μοναί, ρ. 316-318.
7. Concerning the first occupation of Thessaloni