Greek Monasteries and the Making of Manuscripts
Why do so many of our manuscripts have a monastic provenance?
Short history of monasticism in the Christian World focusing on Byzantium.
Many medieval Greek manuscripts were made and used in monasteries. This is not surprising as scholars estimate that in the Middle Byzantine era (ca. 843 – 1204) monks made up at least half of the literate population.
St Anthony the Abbot in the Wilderness
St Anthony the Abbot in the Wilderness
The idea of monasteries derived from the stories of hermits and “Desert Fathers” in early Christianity. Individuals like St Anthony (or Anthony the Great), abandoned civilisation to live a solitary, ascetic life focused on spirituality, religion and philosophy.
Monasteries started as close groups of men and women who dedicated their lives to a similar aim: a life of spirituality without the distractions of the outside world.
At first these groups were centred around activities such as prayer and manual labour. Soon they started sharing other areas of life, and living together in closed communities. Groups of men and women always lived in separate communities.
Eventually, these groups become more formalised, with patron saints, vows and building complexes to house the monks and nuns.
Athos, Greece. Stavronikita Monastery from south; the vegetable garden (cauliflowers), aqueduct. Taken between 1987-99.
Athos, Greece. Stavronikita Monastery from south; the vegetable garden (cauliflowers), aqueduct. Taken between 1987-99.
There were (and continue to be) different types of monasteries. In some, the monks (or nuns) come together only occasionally, and their lives are predominantly solitary; this is known as the Lavriotic form. In the Coenobiotic form, a shared daily routine is key to the lives of the monks and nuns, including worship, meals and labour.
Labour could include farming, and any other activities that made the monastery self-reliant and financially stable. Some monasteries focused on cultivating more intellectual talents, and in these houses production of icons and manuscripts provided some financial stability.
Religious thinkers of the period argued about the purposes of monastic life and the best ways in which an ascetic life could be achieved. This was important to Christians at the time, as they believed that asceticism could bring them closer to Heaven. The most influential thinkers on this subject were Gregory of Nazianzus and Basil of Caesarea.
Garden Scene, BnF Greek 74, New Testament, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Garden Scene, BnF Greek 74, New Testament, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Saint Mark in a scriptorium, Greek New Testament, CUL MS Dd.9.69
Saint Mark in a scriptorium, Greek New Testament, CUL MS Dd.9.69
Trinity College MS B.8.1. Life of St Gregory of Nazianzus.
Trinity College MS B.8.1. Life of St Gregory of Nazianzus.
Garden Scene from New Testament, Greek 74, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Garden Scene from New Testament, Greek 74, Bibliothèque nationale de France
Saint Mark in a scriptorium. CUL MS Dd 9.69.
Saint Mark in a scriptorium. CUL MS Dd 9.69.
St Catherine’s Monastery on Mount Sinai
Egypt was one of the original heartlands of the Christian faith. The monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai was built between 548 and 565 CE, and was one of the most important monasteries of the medieval world. It still functions to this day and its library is the oldest continuously operating library in the world. The enclosed monastery was built as a fortress, evident still today through its high outside walls.
Monastic scribes produced manuscripts to order for a specific need or for a commission. Therefore, a book that was copied at Mt Sinai, was not necessarily intended to stay in its library. Equally, not all of the manuscripts found in the library were necessarily copied in the monastery.
Byzantine scribes were rarely required to produce an exact copy of another manuscript, instead adapting what they took from their source or sources in various ways to fulfil the demands of the new project. The decoration around the text is the most obvious place for such adaptations, though scribes could also “correct” the text, or insert new scholia (notes).
An example of manuscript decoration. MS NN.2.36
An example of manuscript decoration. MS NN.2.36
Monastery of St. Catherine beneath Mount Sinai. Coloured lithograph by Louis Haghe after David Roberts, 1849.
Monastery of St. Catherine beneath Mount Sinai. Coloured lithograph by Louis Haghe after David Roberts, 1849.
St Catherine’s old library holds around 2300 Greek codices, and numerous fragments and papyri which have not yet been catalogued or even counted. The contents of the library reflect the needs of the monastery. There are few non-religious books, the most notable of these being a ninth-century copy of the Iliad.
St John’s Guide to Religious Life
MS Dd.10.54
Monks living in the monasteries were not just copyists. Many learned men who spent time in monasteries composed their own works considering religious and philosophical questions.
This manuscript, (CUL MS Dd.10.54), dating to the late 10th or early 11th century, is a copy of the Ladder of Divine Ascent by St John "Klimakos" (who died in 649 CE), a name meaning John "of the Ladder", derived from the title of this work .
The author was a monk of the Monastery of St Catherine, became a hermit and then served as abbot (head of the monastery) in his later years. This manuscript is a later copy of the work possibly made in southern Italy. It serves as a reminder of how monastic ideas and ideals spread throughout the Byzantine world and were sustained by networks of books, scholars and institutions.
The ‘Ladder of Divine Ascent’ is an instructional text, addressed to monks and ascetics, on religious virtues and how to attain a life that is close to the heavenly ideal.
Page from the Ladder of Divine Ascent (MS Dd.10.54)
Page from the Ladder of Divine Ascent (MS Dd.10.54)
The Ladder of Divine Ascent. A 12th-century icon described by John Klimakos. Monastery of St Catherine, Mount Sinai.
The Ladder of Divine Ascent. A 12th-century icon described by John Klimakos. Monastery of St Catherine, Mount Sinai.
Palimpsest in Greek and Arabic
CUL MS Add 1879.5
This fragment, obtained from a monastery by Constantin von Tischendorf, consists of a small scrap of parchment bearing two texts, one in Greek and one in Arabic written over the top of it. This is what is known as a palimpsest, a manuscript that has been scraped clean and used again, a newer text written over an older one.
The texts have been identified through comparison with other pages of the same manuscript at St Catherine’s Monastery and libraries in Leipzig and St Petersburg.
The Greek text is a fragment of the Old Testament, while the upper Arabic text contains “Lives of Saints” translated from Greek into Arabic, and copied by one Ḏāwīḏ al-Ḥimṣī (David of Homs) for Yannah of Raqqa, a monk of the great monastery of St Sabas (Mar Saba) in the Jordan valley.
By 924/5 Yannah had been appointed abbot of the monastery. The style of the Greek text suggests that the original manuscript (the lower text) was also produced in Palestine. Monasteries often traded or exchanged manuscripts, and many of the manuscripts in the library at St Catherine's were not copied at the monastery itself.
The Leipzig, St Petersburg and Cambridge fragments were all acquired in the mid-19th century by the scholar and collector Constantin von Tischendorf, on two different trips to the Middle East. He had visited both St Sabas and St Catherine’s monasteries on his journeys, therefore it is not certain from which of the monasteries the fragment now in Cambridge came.
Palimpsests are manuscripts from which the text has been scraped or washed off so they can be reused. Find out more about them in the 2021 Cambridge University Library Exhibition: 'Ghost Words'.
Monks Collecting Manuscripts
CUL MS Add. 1879.7
This single folio is part of the Book of Genesis in the usual ancient Greek translation, the Septuagint. Other, larger portions of the same original manuscript are now in London, Oxford and St Petersburg.
It was once owned by the Monastery of St Catherine, and acquired from there by the biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorf in 1853. The precise manner in which he acquired these folios is not known.
slanted ogival majuscule script
slanted ogival majuscule script
.
The manuscript this folio came from was not copied on Mt Sinai. The manuscript has been dated to the second half of the 10th century or the beginning of the 11th century, and the style of the script is associated with St Neilos and his pupils, who were active in Southern Italy.
It seems then that the monks of St Catherine's were collectors themselves.
mixed minuscule script
mixed minuscule script
This folio is interesting for another reason. One side of the page is written in majuscule (written in un-joined capital letters) while the other is written in minuscule (a script in lower case). It is very rare that both types of script are found in the same book.
Mount Athos
Mount Athos is a peninsula on the east coast of Greece. Many monasteries were founded there in the Middle Byzantine period, when holy mountains were a popular destination for men wishing to live a monastic life.
The architecture of the monasteries is typical of the period. Each of the monasteries is centered around a church, and the whole complex is enclosed with buildings such as sleeping cells, the refectory, and library. These monasteries have a long history, and have undergone numerous reconstructions as their needs have changed, hence their somewhat haphazard look. Today, the monasteries of Mount Athos welcome monks from all over the world, most commonly from traditionally Orthodox countries such as Serbia and Russia.
Mount Athos is also the supreme example of an enclosed monastic environment. Unlike an open monastery, where monks often interact with the local population, in an enclosed monastery, the members of the order isolate themselves from the outside world as much as possible. To this day, women are not allowed to enter the whole peninsula of Mount Athos.
Most of the libraries of the monastic houses were strictly dedicated to ecclesiastical and ascetical literature, like the library at Mount Sinai. However, the libraries of Mount Athos clearly included the greats of ancient Greek literature, as well as religious works. The monastery of Dionysiou on Mount Athos is one such example.
Mount Athos, Docheiariou Monastery, February 1987
Mount Athos, Docheiariou Monastery, February 1987
Mount Athos, Simonopetra Monastery, September 1994.
Mount Athos, Simonopetra Monastery, September 1994.
Mount Athos, Saint Panteleimon Monastery, February 1987.
Mount Athos, Saint Panteleimon Monastery, February 1987.
Studying the Gospel in Monasteries
CUL MS Nn 2.36, Gospel Book.
As with the monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, not all of the manuscripts found in the monastic libraries on Mount Athos were necessarily copied there.
Now almost 900 years old, this stunning Gospel Book was probably made in the Monastery of the Patir at Rossano in Calabria. The abbot of this monastery, St Bartolomeo da Simeri initiated a manuscript copying programme between 1100 and 1130 CE. Two other manuscripts produced at the Monastery of the Patir produced by the same scribe have been identified. The decorative style has also been linked with other Rossano manuscripts.
This book is not only richly ornamented. More importantly, from a monastic perspective, it is equipped for the study of the text. The canon tables, chapter lists, and a brief catena (connected series) of prefatory hypotheses and excerpts from commentaries preceding each Gospel (except that of Matthew, which as usual appears first in the manuscript) were all added to the Gospels to aid the study of their contents. Clearly, such books would be a key tool in any monastic library.
In the 18th century the manuscript was acquired by the English book collector Anthony Askew from Mount Athos. Which means that at some point between the time when this manuscript was created (c.1130) and then, it moved from Calabria to Mount Athos.
Studying the Gospel in Monasteries
CUL MS Nn 2.36, Gospel Book.
As with the monastery of St Catherine on Mount Sinai, not all of the manuscripts found in the monastic libraries on Mount Athos were necessarily copied there.
Now almost 900 years old, this stunning Gospel Book was probably made in the Monastery of the Patir at Rossano in Calabria. The abbot of this monastery, St Bartolomeo da Simeri initiated a manuscript copying programme between 1100 and 1130 CE. Two other manuscripts produced at the Monastery of the Patir produced by the same scribe have been identified. The decorative style has also been linked with other Rossano manuscripts.
This book is not only richly ornamented. More importantly, from a monastic perspective, it is equipped for the study of the text. The canon tables, chapter lists, and a brief catena (connected series) of prefatory hypotheses and excerpts from commentaries preceding each Gospel (except that of Matthew, which as usual appears first in the manuscript) were all added to the Gospels to aid the study of their contents. Clearly, such books would be a key tool in any monastic library.
In the 18th century the manuscript was acquired by the English book collector Anthony Askew from Mount Athos. Which means that at some point between the time when this manuscript was created (c.1130) and then, it moved from Calabria to Mount Athos.
The Byzantine Triad
CUL MS Nn.3.17 Aeschylus
This is a composite manuscript made up of two originally separate parts, and contains two copies of the text of three tragedies by Aeschylus (b. c. 525/524, d. c. 456/455 BC), the first of the three great Greek tragedians (Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides). It used to reside in the monastery of Dionysiou on Mount Athos.
MS Nn.3.17.11 Prometheus Bound. Extensive scholia can be seen in the margins.
MS Nn.3.17.11 Prometheus Bound. Extensive scholia can be seen in the margins.
Thanks to the name Zeianos, which appears on f.60v, and scribal characteristics connected with Thessaloniki, it is possible to assume that it arrived at the monastery from Thessaloniki. It was possibly made in the scriptorium (writing workshop) of an influential Byzantine scholar, Demetrius Triclinius, or in a scriptorium connected with him.
MS Nn.3.17.71 The beginning of The Seven Against Thebes. Extensive scholia and interlinear glosses in red and brown ink accompany the text.
MS Nn.3.17.71 The beginning of The Seven Against Thebes. Extensive scholia and interlinear glosses in red and brown ink accompany the text.
The three tragedies in this manuscript: Prometheus Bound, The Seven Against Thebes and The Persians constitute the 'Byzantine triad' of Aeschylus, that is, the three plays of his that were regularly copied in Byzantium and studied in schools.
MS Nn.3.17.131 First page of The Persians. Rough sketch in the margin.
MS Nn.3.17.131 First page of The Persians. Rough sketch in the margin.
These sketches of Orestes might indicate that this manuscript was used by a student.
ὁ ορεςτες (Orestes) is written next to a few of the drawings.
The words next to the sketches are written in the same ink as the figures and are in a different script from the main text. In addition, the manuscript has been carefully copied and the drawings are poor and repeated somewhat at random.
These are common scribbles, which it is not possible to date. Were the sketches there before the book arrived in the monastery? Or were they added by one of the monks?
The characteristics of the script and the watermarks suggest that the manuscript was produced during the early 14th century, probably before 1325.
Ancient Greek Comedies in a Medieval Monastery
CUL MS Nn.3.15, MS Nn.3.16 and MS Nn.3.3
Sometimes a monastery library contained multiple copies or versions of one text. Such is the case with these manuscripts of Aristophanes’ comedies.
Like the Aeschylus manuscript, these three Aristophanes manuscripts contain three plays known as the ‘Byzantine triad’, that is plays selected for study in the Byzantine period and thus often copied together. The three comedies are Plutus (known also as Wealth), Clouds and Frogs.
They are accompanied here by scholia (commentaries) by the Byzantine grammarians Thomas Magistros and Demetrius Triclinius (13th - 14th century). We know MS Nn.3.15 belonged to the monastery of Dionysiou on Mt Athos as there is an ownership note on one of the pages. Thered seal proves this further.
An ownership note of the Monastery was added at the bottom of folio 4r: "κτῆμα μονῆς τοῦ κυρίου Διονυσίου". This can be translated as: "permanent possession of Dionysiou monastery".
Spine of MS Nn.3.15, titles of Aristophanes' plays.
Spine of MS Nn.3.15, titles of Aristophanes' plays.
CUL MS Nn.3.15.116 First page of the Frogs.
CUL MS Nn.3.15.116 First page of the Frogs.
MS Nn.3.15, Monastery note at the bottom.
MS Nn.3.15, Monastery note at the bottom.
The Cambridge University Library holds two other manuscripts of Aristophanes’ Clouds and Plutus (Nn.3.16 and Nn.3.3).
MS Nn.3.16.13, Plutus (Wealth) by Aristophanes
MS Nn.3.16.13, Plutus (Wealth) by Aristophanes
These also bear marks indicating they were owned by the Monastery of Dionysiou, and probably came to Cambridge through the same two collectors: Richard Mead and Anthony Askew.
MS Nn.3.3.87 Nubes (Clouds) by Aristophanes
MS Nn.3.3.87 Nubes (Clouds) by Aristophanes
Summary Lectionary.
Summary Lectionary.
Note of Silvestros.
Note of Silvestros.
Everyday Monastic Life
Trinity College MS B.10.17
In this manuscript the four gospels are followed by a summary lectionary. The lectionary references portions of the text to be read at each particular service in the liturgical cycle, highlighting the function of this object in everyday monastic life. A synaxarion and menologion (day to day readings for the liturgical year) were added to the manuscript at a later date.
In the early modern period the manuscript was lent to a priest, named Silvestros, by the Monastery of the Pantokrator on Mount Athos. The Monastery left a note in which it carefully stipulated its right to reclaim the manuscript:
“Book of the Four Gospels. We send out the Gospel book with Father Silvestros to read, to be the monastery’s again when we wish to take it, and whoever deprives the Monastery of the Pantokrator or the Holy Apostles of it without the…”
The note is unfinished, and its last sentence is covered with red paint, probably a deliberate attempt to erase it.
It passed from the Pantokrator, directly or indirectly, into the hands of the philologist and Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, Richard Bentley, who left it to the college.
Essential Monastic Reading
Menologion for January,
Trinity MS B.8.1
The book was probably produced during the 12th century, and we know it was owned by the Monastery of the Pantokrator on Mount Athos in the early modern period.
A Menologion is a liturgical book containing texts to be read in church arranged by month, including Lives of Saints, martyrdom narratives and accounts regarding relics and posthumous miracles.
Texts such as these would be used by monks in their daily life and worship.
At a later date, probably in the 13th century, the book was expanded with two passages added to the end, containing prayers dedicated to the Church Fathers Basil the Great, Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrysostom. This suggests that the book was a functional object in regular use in the monastery.
The note on this page (f. 221v.) indicates that the Monastery of Pantokrator once owned the book.
The note reads: Ἰαννουάριος μετάφρασις μονῆς τοῦ Παντοκράτορος καὶ Σωτῆρος Χριστοῦ τὴν ἐν τῶ ὄρει τοῦ Ἄθωνος.
This can be translated as: 'January Menologion of the Monastery of the Pantokrator and Saviour Christ on Mount Athos.'
Conclusion
A vast network of monasteries across the Greek speaking world from southern Italy to Egypt to Constantinople to Greece itself produced and preserved manuscripts. The Monastery of St Catherine and the Monasteries on Mount Athos are just two examples.
The monks were copyists, collectors, avid readers and religious thinkers. They helped to transmit classical Greek culture while producing books for their own use. These beautiful functional and devotional manuscripts demonstrate the vibrancy of Byzantine culture.
Explore more of these connections by visiting the Cambridge Digital Library.
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List of Images
Birds Eye view of Constantinople: the Historic Peninsula. Engraving by J. Isac.. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark
Garden Scene, BnF Greek 74, f.39v, New Testament, source: gallica.bnf.fr / Bibliothèque nationale de France
Panoramic view of St Catherine's monastery, Sinai, Egypt Egghead06, via Wikimedia Commons, CC0.
Monastery of St. Catherine beneath Mount Sinai. Coloured lithograph by Louis Haghe after David Roberts, 1849..Credit: Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark
The Ladder of Divine Ascent or The Ladder of Paradise. A 12th-century icon described by John Climacus. Monastery of St Catherine, Mount Sinai, via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.
Saint Anthony the Abbot in the Wilderness, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (CC0 1.0)
Photography of Mt Athos, Fowden Box 7 & 8, © Cambridge University Library. Professor Garth Fowden, (CC BY-NC 3.0)
All other images: © Cambridge University Library/Licensed under CC-BY-NC 3.0.
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