Pages 1--28 from Byzantine Monastic Foundation Documents

1 When this project was first conceived, in 1980, I planned to contribute a running commentary from
the point of view of a historian of western monasticism, but this proved impossible owing to the size of the
undertaking and the inevitable repetitions, given the number of topics that are treated in more than one
typikon. I therefore decided to write a preface comparing some of the more salient characteristics of eastern
monasticism as reflected in the typika with monasticism in the West, leaving the examination of more de-tailed
questions for further study. 2
According to Alice-Mary Talbot and Mark Johnson, "Monastery," ODB, p. 1391, "The organization
of each monastery varied and was prescribed by its typikon."

Preface
I
Among the many types of sources for the history of Byzantine monasticism, none are more impor-tant
than the typika, or foundation documents, collected and translated in these volumes, which
will make possible for the first time a comprehensive study of religious life and institutions in the
Greek East and a comparison between Greek and Latin monasticism. 1 Together, the typika throw
light on almost every aspect of Byzantine monastic life and its development from the eighth to the
fifteenth century. Their nature is discussed by John Thomas in the introduction. They were flex-ible
and personal documents, which differed considerably in form, length, and content. Not all of
them were foundation documents in the strict sense, since they could be issued at any time in the
history of an institution. Some were wills; others were reform decrees and rules; yet others were
primarily liturgical in character.
Each typikon was normally written for a specific monastery and its dependencies and re-flected
the ideas and wishes of the writer. A few were designed for several monasteries, such as
the houses on Mt. Athos or in Sicily. The typikon issued by Patriarch Athanasios I in 1303Ð 5, (55)
Athanasios I, was exceptional, since it applied in theory to all the monasteries in the empire and
calls to mind the claims of papal monarchy in the West. There are many resemblances among the
typika, and large parts of some were virtually copied from others. The typikon of the Stoudios
monastery in Constantinople, (4) Stoudios, influenced the typika of many other houses, including
(22) Evergetis, which in turn formed the basis of (29) Kosmosoteira, (32) Mamas, (33) Heliou
Bomon, and others. The differences between these successive variations show not only the indi-viduality
of each monastery but also the changes in Byzantine monasticism over the centuries.
Each typikon needs to be studied in terms of the history and circumstances of the monastery for
which it was written. 2
A typikon thus combined the features that in the West were found on the one hand in founda-tion
charters, which established the legal and economic status of a monastery and were often 1.
1 Page 2 3
PREFACE
[ xii ]
formulaic in character, 3 and on the other hand in the rules, customs, and statutes that applied to
several houses and from which the personal elements found in the typika were excluded. 4 There
were no general monastic rules in the East, and no monastic orders in the western sense of the
term. 5 Honor was paid to the early monastic legislators, especially to Basil, but his so-called rules
were not normative, and they differed from the typika in many respects, which are described in
John Thomas's introduction, such as with regard to manual labor, intermonastic relations, and
attitudes toward women. The Apophthegmata patrum, Precepts of Pachomios, and Book of
Horsiesios were also known in the Middle Ages, but they never exercised the influence of the
western rules and customs. There was also considerable variety in the West, particularly during
the so-called period of the Mixed Rule, from the sixth to the eighth century, when no single rule
predominated and some monasteries had their own rules, but the Carolingian reform in the early
ninth century in principle imposed the Rule of Benedict on all monasteries. Many houses had their
own customaries, which have been collected in the Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum, 6 but
they were within the framework of the Rule of Benedict, and most customaries were designed to
promote a uniform liturgy and observance in groups of monastic houses, which were later referred
to as orders. The customs of independent religious houses, including some of the greatest, such as
Monte Cassino, were primarily enshrined in the memories and practices of their members. The
customaries were supplemented in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, as the orders developed, by
the statutes issued by the superiors of the mother house, as at Cluny, or by the decrees of general
chapters, which included representatives from all the member houses, as in the orders of Cîteaux
and Prémontré. 7
It is possible that most Byzantine monasteries originally had their own typika, of which the
surviving examples (except for a few liturgical typika) are collected here. They were sometimes
confirmed by a public authority, preferably the emperor, and served as the legal basis and protec-tion
for the communities to which they were granted. In this they resembled foundation charters in
the West but were more comprehensive in their scope and content. The typikon of the monastery of
the archangel Michael, (37) Auxentios, was called a constitution [1], and that of the monastery of
St. John the Forerunner, (58) Menoikeion, "this very monastic constitution" [22]. Previously, it

3 On the contrast between Byzantine typika and western monastic foundation charters, see the com-ments
of Georg Schreiber, "Anselm von Havelberg und die Ostkirche," ZKG 60 (1941), 384Ð 410, esp. 387Ð
90, and "Byzantinisches und abendländisches Hospital," in his Gemeinschaften des Mittelalters (Münster,
1948), p. 9. 4
Adalbert de Vogüé, Les règles monastiques anciennes (400Ð 700) ( = Typologie des sources du moyen
âge occidental 46) (Turnhout, 1985), pp. 22Ð 23, stressed the parallel between eastern typika and early Latin,
Irish, and Syrian monastic rules. 5
See Schreiber, "Anselm," pp. 397 and 403Ð 4, who also stressed (pp. 394Ð 95 and 407) that there was
no Cluny and no St. Bernard nor St. Norbert in the East, and Alice-Mary Talbot, "Monasticism," ODB, p.
1393. 6
Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum, ed. Kassius Hallinger (Siegburg, 1963Ð ), 12 vols in 16 to
date. 7
Jacques Hourlier, Le chapitre général jusqu'au moment du Grande Schisme (Paris, 1936). Collec-tions
of the statutes and decrees of the general chapters of the orders of Cluny and Cîteaux have been
published, respectively, by Georges Charvin and Joseph-Marie Canivez. 2.
2 Page 3 4
PREFACE
[ xiii ]
appears, this latter house had neither "a typikon which could be produced at any time before an
official or magistrate or in any kind of court where legal arguments regarding matters of the law
and lawsuits take place" nor "an authoritative document in which all sorts of sacred matters are
written down as well as other things such as the immovable property belonging to the monastery
and the rights pertaining to these properties so that these remain stable and safeguarded against
seizures" [2]. Some monasteries also had other types of governing documents. There is a refer-ence
in (54) Neilos Damilas for the convent of the Mother of God Pantanassa in Crete, which
dates from about 1400, to a tabularion written not in Greek, the language of the nuns, but in Latin
so that it could be understood by the Venetians who controlled Crete at that time [18].
Owing to their legal and practical importance, the typika were preserved with special care, to
which there are many references. This unique character may also explain the prescriptions requir-ing
that they be read aloud, sometimes as often as three, seven, or twelve times a year. Given the
length and complexity of some of the typika, this must have been a time-consuming business, and
if the members of the community paid attention, they would have known their typikon almost by
heart. There are comparable provisions in the West for reading the Rule of the Master, Rule of
Benedict, the Regula IV Patrum, and other early monastic rules. 8 Writing was also of importance
as the monastic orders spread in the high Middle Ages. 9 Their rules and customs had a common
character and were designed for many houses, however, in spite of particular observances, whereas
monks and nuns in the East had a sense of their typikon as the embodiment and protection of their
own special rights and way of life.
The difference between the typika in the East and the rules in the West affected the nature of
the movements of monastic reform in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Both reforms were di-rected
against the abuses of the previous period, especially lay control over monasteries, and were
designed to restrict the powers of founders and patrons and to assert institutional independence.
Reformers in both the East and West, in spite of their admiration for individual hermits, preferred
community life and cenobitical forms of monasticism to solitude or eremitism, which they associ-ated
with self-will, disobedience, and private property. The so-called eremitical movement was
less concerned with promoting solitary forms of religious life than with founding monastic com-munities
in isolated places, cut off from secular society. The western reformers often worked
through public authorities, such as popes, kings, and bishops, and through councils that sought to
establish the literal observance of the Rule of Benedict or the life of the primitive church.
The reform movement in Byzantium was primarily the work of individuals concerned with
specific monasteries. Their typika frequently include details of their own lives both in the world
and in religious institutions. The concepts of reform, renewal, and rebirth figured less prominently
than in the western reform documents, and it may be significant that the term reformation (diorthosis)
was used only in a typikon from Sicily, (26) Luke of Messina [5], where western influence was
stronger than in the East. There was a great stress on tradition, and any innovation or change in a
typikon was regarded with suspicion. The modalities of reform therefore differed from house to

8 Regula Magistri, ed. Adalbert de Vogüé ao, SC 105Ð 7, vol. 2 (1964), p. 126, n. 15.
9 On the importance of writing for religious groups, see Gert Melville, "Zur Funktion der Schriftlichkeit

im institutionellen Gefüge mittelalterlicher Orden," Frühmittelalterliche Studien 25 (1991), 392Ð 93. 3.
3 Page 4 5
PREFACE
[ xiv ]
house, and there was no movement of reform that applied to all monasteries. The typika differ
widely, for instance, in their provisions concerning the selection and installation of the superior
and the admission and treatment of members of the community. From a modern point of view,
they often seem to be repetitive, confused, and occasionally self-contradictory. Yet many of them
were written by men and women of affairs and by experienced administrators, who were ready to
make accommodations for the times and the circumstances of the institutions for which they were
legislating rather than to lay down abstract principles that in practice they knew would be disre-garded. 10

Behind these differences lay important common principles, however, and the parallels and
resemblances among monastic institutions all over the Christian world were the result less of
specific influences or traditions than of the distinctive way of life led by men and women who had
left secular society to serve God and were dedicated to prayer, virginity, and unworldliness. Since
at least the time of Cassian and Basil, the religious life was compared to that of angels. The monks
of Mt. Athos were described in (44) Karyes as "angels here on earth" [2], and in (57) Bebaia Elpis
the nuns in Constantinople followed an "ascetic or angelic way of life" [37] and imitated Christ,
the apostles, and the martyrs [41Ð 42]. In (24) Christodoulos, the monks of Patmos, like the angels,
were occupied in praising God [A17], and Isaac Komnenos established the monastery at Bera,
according to (29) Kosmosoteira, "for the propitiation of God and of his mother" [70]. Similar
sentiments were expressed in the West, as by Alcuin in a letter to the abbot and monks of an
unknown monastery in which he said that the life of the saints consisted in praising and loving the
goodness of Christ and that the followers of this life in the present world resembled the angels
who eternally praised God: "He who strives to be watchful for the prayers of God leads the angelic
life on earth. "11
These quotations emphasize the positive aspects of the monastic ideal, but there was also a
strong negative element of self-abnegation and of practical, if not theoretical, dualism. (55)
Athanasios I took from John Klimakos's Ladder of Heaven the definition of a monk as

the order and rule of the incorporeal carried out in the filthy and material body. A monk is
one who is attached only to the things of God every day, everywhere, and in everything. A
monk is a continual forcing of nature and a constant guarding of the senses. A monk is a
sanctified body, a purified mouth, and an enlightened mind. A monk is a grieving soul,
meditating in the continual awareness of death, meditating both while asleep and while
awake and all the rest. [3]

According to the typikon of Nikon, (20) Black Mountain, which dates from 1055Ð 60, "the monas-tic
life professes to a greater degree what the world professes. The worldly life professes the
commands of the Lord, but the monastic life both professes death from the world and pledges to
God life crucified in its submission and tonsuring. This is the comprehensive command and tradi-tion
of the monks" [84].

10 Schreiber, "Anselm," p. 401, stressed the personal role of the emperor in establishing the Pantokrator
in Constantinople, whether or not he himself wrote the typikon. 11
Alcuin, ep. 278, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Epistolae, vol. 4, p. 435. 4.
4 Page 5 6
PREFACE
[ xv ]
Entry into monastic life was a second baptism, which involved at the same time death to life
in this world and rebirth into a life cleansed of sin. 12 In (22) Evergetis, which was written in the
eleventh century and influenced many later typika, monks and nuns were committed to a life of
effort, endurance, and perseverance [42]. 13 They should grieve for their sins rather than teach,
contemplate, or perform miracles, according to (54) Neilos Damilas, citing the Ladder of Heaven
of John Klimakos and echoing the dictum of St. Jerome that "A monk has the office not of a
teacher but of a mourner " [12]. 14 They were required to confess their sins regularly and frequently,
sometimes as often as once a day. This stress on conscience (syneidesis) in the sense of self-examination
and self-awareness is found in many of the typika, especially in the twelfth century
and later, when there was a growing concern with conscience in western monastic and theological
writings.
Monastic communities were often called living organisms, as in (29) Kosmosoteira, where
the monastery had "one body and one breath" [57], (57) Bebaia Elpis, where the nuns were said to
have "many separate bodies, but . . . one, indivisible soul" [46], and (58) Menoikeion, in which the
body was "governed by the five senses" [22] and needed the care of a doctor to remain in good
health. Members who were ill had to be either cured or cut off and expelled, like a diseased limb
or cancer of the body. In (32) Mamas, concealed faults were described as wounds that harmed the
whole body [29]. In (33) Heliou Bomon [prol.] and (37) Auxentios [1], the monasteries when they
were in difficulties were compared to fallen runners. Similar terms were applied to monasteries in
the West, and the number of medical images in the Rule of Benedict has led some scholars to
conjecture that the author may have had medical training. 15
The typika are filled with agricultural, military, architectural, and naval metaphors. Some
monasteries were compared to gardens, as in (26) Luke of Messina [7] and (31) Areia [M2], to
houses, with walls and gates, and to vineyards, beehives, and flocks of sheep in a sheepfold. In
(30) Phoberos, the monks were urged to "resist and wage the war" [53], like soldiers in an army;
the hermitage at Ktima in Cyprus, in (45) Neophytos, was called "a godly watchtower" [pref.] by
its founder; and other houses were safe harbors or ships steered by a helmsman, as in (58)
Menoikeion [22]. The members of religious communities were like the members of a family living
in a single house or the inhabitants of a town or like fish swimming in a river or pond. The descrip-tions
of the physical beauty of their locations and the wildness and isolation of their surroundings
derived from the Bible and served, like similar topoi in the foundation documents and histories of

12 See, on baptism, Peter Cramer, Baptism and Change in the Early Middle Ages, c. 200Ð c. 1150
(Cambridge, 1993), and, on entry into monastic life as a second baptism, the references in my article, "The
Ceremonies and Symbolism of Entering Religious Life and Taking the Monastic Habit, From the Fourth to
the Twelfth Century," in Segni e riti nella Chiesa altomedievale occidentale, 11Ð 17 aprile 1985 ( = Settimane
di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull'alto medioevo 33) (Spoleto, 1987), pp. 799Ð 802. 13
See Appendix C on the reform elements in (22) Evergetis and its influence on other typika. 14
Jerome, Contra Vigilantium 15, in Patrologia latina 23, col. 367A, and the references in Pierre
Mandonnet, Saint Dominique, vol. 2 (Paris, 1937), p. 25. 15
Einar Molland, "Ut sapiens medicus: Medical Vocabulary in St. Benedict's Regula monachorum,"
Studia monastica 6 (1964), 293Ð 98, and The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry (Collegeville, 1981), pp.
222Ð 23, 352, and 430, n. 57 (hereafter Regula Benedicti). 5.
5 Page 6 7
PREFACE
[ xvi ]
western monasteries, 16 to underline the paradisiacal character of religious houses and their con-trast
with the world of secular society.
In spite of this rich figurative language, the typika were not spiritual treatises, and they touch
only incidentally on the inner lives of the men and women who left their homes in order to serve
God in monasteries. They lend little support to the view favored by some scholars that religious
life in the East, unlike the West, was aimed primarily at deification and that monks and nuns, like
the saints, were more inspired by the divine and impassible Christ than by the human Jesus and
that they sought to rise above the body and earthly things to disincarnated incorruptibility. 17 This
view stresses the difference between the image of the austere Pantokrator who looked down from
the apses and domes of so many monastic churches in the East and the tender and suffering Man
who, from at least the eleventh century, was seen on the altars of western churches. Other scholars
have argued that devotion to the humanity of Jesus and imitation of Christ the man were not
unknown in medieval Greek spirituality. 18
Though the typika contribute little to this dispute, they do not entirely neglect the human side
of religious life in their emphasis on asceticism, self-denial, and service to God. Love was greater
than prayer, in (22) Evergetis [33], which was copied in (27) Kecharitomene [25], (32) Mamas
[23], and elsewhere, and the author of (30) Phoberos spoke of the personal sadness and discour-agement
associated with the term acedia [6], which was often used in the West. "[ C] ontemplation
profits by works rather than by words," according to (42) Sabas [7], of which the author was
presumably opposed to the chattering of the hesychastai. For (45) Neophytos, however, "Talk is
better than silence. For silence only benefits its own laborer, while the word also benefits many
others" [14]. These are surprising words for an austere hermit, and they show that at least some
writers of typika were aware of the needs of others as well as of the requirements of personal
salvation.

II
The communities for which these typika were written ranged in size from three or four monksÑ
as at the kellion of St. Sabbas on Mt. Athos (( 44) Karyes) and the dependency of St. Euthymios at
Jerusalem (( 50) Gerasimos)Ñ up to eightyÑ as at the Great Lavra on Mt. Athos in the tenth cen-tury
(and later a hundred twenty) (( 13) Ath. Typikon [36]) and at the Pantokrator in Constantinople
(( 28) Pantokrator [19]). (15) Constantine IX said in 1045 that the total number of monks on Mt.
Athos had grown from one hundred to seven hundred [4], which by the end of the fifteenth century

16 Dieter von der Nahmer, "Die Klostergründung 'in solitudine'Ñ ein unbrauchbarer hagiographischer
Topos?" Hessisches Jahrbuch für Landesgeschichte 22 (1972), 90Ð 111. 17
Myrrha Lot-Borodine, "La doctrine de la 'déification' dans l'Eglise grecque jusqu'au XI e siècle,"
RHR 105Ð 6 (1932), 5Ð 43 and 525Ð 74, and 107 (1933), 8Ð 55. 18
Sévérin Salaville, "Christus in orientalium pietate: De pietate erga Christi humanitatem apud orientales
liturgias et liturgicos commentatores," EL 53 (1939), 13Ð 59 and 350Ð 85, and "Un office grec du 'Très doux
Jésus' antérieur au 'Jubilus' dit de saint Bernard," RAM 25.2Ð 4 (1949 = Mélanges Marcel Viller), 246Ð 59,
and Irénée Hausherr, "L'imitation de Jésus-Christ dans la spiritualité byzantine," Mélanges offerts au R. P.
Ferdinand Cavallera (Toulouse, 1948), pp. 231Ð 59. 6.
6 Page 7 8
PREFACE
[ xvii ]
had increased to more than two thousand. 19 Most of the typika written in the twelfth century and
later were for communities of between twenty and fifty members, but some authors expressed a
preference for relatively small houses and were concerned that the size of the community should
not outstrip its resources. The number of monks was limited to seven in (19) Attaleiates [27] and
to twelve in (16) Mt. Tmolos [1] and in (30) Phoberos [42], where the community was allowed to
increase if resources permitted. (45) Neophytos, which dates from 1214, set the number of monks
at between fifteen and eighteen, saying that "God does not want a multitude of monks, crawling in
sin" [C16].
These figures agree approximately with those proposed by Charanis, who said that the major-ity
of Byzantine monasteries had between ten and twenty members, though some had as many as
eighty. 20 Mango and Sevcenko, in their study of monasteries on the southern shore of the Sea of
Marmara, found two houses of roughly one hundred and another of more than seventy in about
800, and others of eighty, sixty-four, and forty-two members. 21 Monasteries tended to be smaller
in the central and late Middle Ages than they were earlier, in both East and West, where Lérins, St.
Riquier, Jumièges, and Fulda all had several hundred monks in the eighth and ninth centuries. The
average Benedictine monastery in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries had between twelve and
twenty members. Communities of more than sixty were exceptional, and only a few, such as
Cluny, had more than a hundred. 22
Very little is known about who entered monasteries, aside from the fact that they included
highly placed and wealthy people. The abolition of the payment for entry, which is mentioned in
several typika and was considered a reform measure, may have made it easier for poor people to
enter religious life, but it is hard to be sure on this point. It is clear that a number of both monks
and nuns received their monastic formation in one house and later transferred to another, in spite
of ecclesiastical legislation requiring them to stay in their monastery unless the bishop or the
superior gave them permission to leave. In his study of stabilitas loci in Byzantine monasticism,
Emil Herman concluded, largely on the basis of hagiographical sources, that transfers were not
unusual, 23 and there are a few references in the typika to monks who left their monasteries on

19 Heath Lowry, Jr., "A Note on the Population and Status of the Athonite Monasteries under Ottoman
Rule (ca. 1520)," in his Studies in "Defterology": Ottoman Society in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries
( = Analecta Isisiana 4) (Istanbul, 1992), p. 238. 20
Peter Charanis, "The Monk as an Element in Byzantine Society," DOP 25 (1971), 69Ð 72. Raymond
Janin, "Le monachisme byzantin au moyen âge: Commende et typica (X e Ð XIV e siècle)," REB 22 (1964),
29Ð 31, cited fourteen communities ranging in size between five to seven and eighty to one hundred twenty,
and Anthony Bryer, "The Late Byzantine Monastery in Town and Countryside," in The Church in Town and
Countryside, ed. Derek Baker ( = Studies in Church History 16) (Oxford, 1979), p. 225, accepted Charanis's
estimate. 21
Cyril Mango and Ihor Sevcenko, "Some Churches and Monasteries on the Southern Shore of the
Sea of Marmara," DOP 27 (1973), 270. 22
See Ursmer Berlière, "Le nombre des moines dans les anciens monastères," Revue bénédictine 41
(1929), 231Ð 61, and 42 (1930), 19Ð 42, and Jacques Dubois, "Du nombre des moines dans les monastères,"
Lettre de Ligugé 134 (1969.2), 24Ð 36. 23
Emile Herman, "La 'stabilitas loci' nel monachesimo byzantino," OCP 21 (1955), 115Ð 42. 7.
7 Page 8 9
PREFACE
[ xviii ]
pilgrimages or special missions or, most frequently, in search of a more austere life. Monks were
allowed to leave the monastery voluntarily at Bera, according to (29) Kosmosoteira [55], and in
some houses members who misbehaved or did not fit into the community were expelled. Whether
such former monks and nuns reentered secular society, transferred to other monasteries, or be-came
vagrants and beggars is not known. Although in some houses the reception of monks from
other houses (xenokouritai) was prohibited, in others they were admitted but not allowed to be-come
superior.
The issue of transitus, or transfer from one monastery to another, was much discussed in the
West. 24 The Rule of Benedict laid great emphasis on stabilitas loci, which was (together with
obedience and conversatio morum) one of the three promises made by a new monk, but the possi-bility
of movement was foreseen. In chapter 61 the abbot was warned not to receive a monk "from
another known monastery . . . without the consent of his abbot or commendatory letters," and in
the final chapter, monks who wanted to achieve perfection were advised to follow the teachings of
the holy fathers, which were interpreted as living in solitude. During the monastic reforms of the
eleventh and twelfth centuries, when many monks sought a more austere life, stability was in-creasingly
seen in terms of profession rather than of place, and transfers were not only permitted
but in some cases encouraged, especially from a lower to a higher, or stricter, monastery.
Six out of the sixty-one typika translated here were written for houses of women, who played
an important part in Byzantine monasticism. None of them were written for double houses, where
men and women lived in a single community under one superior, occasionally a woman, 25 but
several of them envisaged a close relationship between male and female houses, as in (34) Machairas
[169], (47) Philanthropos [intro.], and (54) Neilos Damilas [8], [14], which cited the decree of the
Second Council of Nicaea forbidding double monasteries and established that work both within
and outside the nunnery should be done by pious laymen rather than monks, who were forbidden
even to conduct services for the nuns. (31) Areia [M5Ð 6] shows that some relationship existed
between the two houses near Nauplia after the nuns moved and their former house was occupied
by monks. Close relations between male and female monasteries were also found in the West,
where many of the communities established by the reformers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries
welcomed both men and women. As time passed, the women lived an increasingly segregated life
but were still associated with houses of monks.
Both monks and nuns were deeply concerned with sexual purity. The monks' fear of sexuality
extended to contacts not only with women, boys, and beardless youths, but also with female ani-mals.
(30) Phoberos, which dates from 1113/ 40, includes a striking passage on the fears of homo-sexuality
and bestiality written by Paul Helladikos in the sixth century [58]. In (53) Meteora, the
monks were forbidden to give food to women even if they were dying of hunger [7]. On a visit to
Mt. Athos in the 1930s, Kurt Weitzmann met a hermit who, having come there as a child, had

24 Philipp Hofmeister, "Der Übertritt in eine andere religiöse Genossenschaft," AKKR 108 (1928),
419Ð 81. 25
On double monasteries in the East, see Jules Pargoire, "Les monastères doubles chez les Byzantins,"
EO 9 (1906), 21Ð 25; Janin, "Monachisme," pp. 42Ð 44; and Georges-Joseph Mahfoud, L'organisation
monastique dans l'Eglise maronite ( = Bibliothèque de l'Université Saint-Esprit, Kaslik-Jounieh-Liban 1)
(Beirut, 1967), pp. 289Ð 315. 8.
8 Page 9 10
PREFACE
[ xix ]
never seen a woman, and whose opinion that "the woman is a devil" was derived, he said, from
reading Klimakos's Ladder of Heaven. 26 These regulations were not inspired by misogyny or
dislike of women as such, according to Nikon's (20) Black Mountain [86] and (22) Evergetis [39],
which was copied in (29) Kosmosoteira and other typika. Nuns inevitably had some contact with
men, since they were dependent upon priests to celebrate the sacraments and upon male laborers
to perform hard physical work, but it was kept to a minimum in order to avoid temptation, and (57)
Bebaia Elpis specified that the priest who served in the church should be married [79]. In (28)
Pantokrator, provision for women was made in the hospital associated with the monastery, though
the male doctors were paid more than the female doctors [38], [52]. 27
A special problem was posed in eastern monasteries by eunuchs, who were almost unknown
in the West, but who played a prominent role in Byzantine society and with regard to whom policy
seems to have varied. They were forbidden in some monasteries, including nunneries. The refer-ence
to the admission of a wealthy eunuch in (29) Kosmosoteira [55] suggests that it was regarded
as exceptional. In (19) Attaleiates, on the other hand, the monks had to be eunuchs and "men free
from passions," and bearded monks were forbidden [30]. In (27) Kecharitomene, the priests, the
spiritual father of the nuns, the steward, and the attendant physician were all required to be eu-nuchs
[14Ð 16], [57] The fact that one of the three monasteries at Mt. Galesios was reserved for
twelve eunuchs shows that there was no objection in principle to eunuch monks. 28
The communities therefore differed in character, and some were less cut off from the outside
world than others. There were important distinctions even among the regular members of the
community, in spite of the emphasis found in several of the typika on equal treatment of all mem-bers.
It was in practice impossible to exclude entirely the social distinctions and attitudes that
permeated secular society, in which most monks and nuns had been raised, and in almost all
religious houses special privileges were given to members of rich and powerful families, espe-cially
if they were related to the emperor or to the founder. There are countless references to
travelers, pilgrims, beggars, strangers, servants, laymen, and all sorts of hangers-on, and, in spite
of efforts to exclude them, to women and boys in male houses and to men and girls in female
houses. In (34) Machairas, pilgrims going to Jerusalem stopped at the monastery in Cyprus [116];
a "sister Melane" is mentioned in the typikon of Nea Mone at Thessalonike, (52) Choumnos,
which was otherwise strict on the subject of women [A18]; and (55) Athanasios I apparently
indicates the acceptance of the presence of laymen in monasteries in the reform program for Mt.
Athos [4]. Monks from distant placesÑ" beyond Cadiz," as they were called in (13) Ath. Typikon
[27]Ñ were welcomed at the Great Lavra, and were not called foreigners. Begging monks appear
in (32) Mamas [13] of 1158. More obscure are the frequent prohibitions against imposed guests
and against internal and external monks, which suggests that monks sometimes lived outside the
community at the expense of the monastery.

26 Kurt Weitzmann, Sailing with Byzantium from Europe to America: The Memoirs of an Art Historian
(Munich, 1994), p. 135. 27
On the parallel expressions of brotherly love in the Pantokrator typikon and western monastic sources,
see Schreiber, "Hospital," p. 30. 28
See Alexander Kazhdan, "Eunuchs," ODB, pp. 746Ð 47, and Alice-Mary Talbot, "Galesios, Mount,"
ODB, p. 817. 9.
9 Page 10 11
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[ xx ]
Prohibitions of this type show something about the nature of monastic communities and the
indifferent success of reformers, in both East and West, in fully cutting off monks and nuns from
secular society, even when they were surrounded by walls and guarded by watchful doorkeepers.
In (60) Charsianeites, for instance, the monks, like the Grandmontines in the West, were forbid-den
to engage in lawsuits, even in a just cause, and were required simply to state their case in court
and leave [C7]. The nuns in (57) Bebaia Elpis were not allowed to educate lay children [148], as
were some western nuns in the twelfth century. The prohibitions against the use of professional
singers, which are found in several typika, were more distinctively eastern, as were the efforts to
prevent the types of personal links that appear to have been a feature of Mediterranean society. 29
Spiritual and adoptive brotherhoods, familiarity, associations, and unions between monks of reli-gious
houses and outside laypeople were forbidden in (3) Theodore Studites [8], in (12) Tzimiskes
[14], (22) Evergetis [46], (26) Luke of Messina [3], (42) Sabas [6], and others, including the
general typikon for Mt. Athos, (59) Manuel II, which prohibited spiritual relationships and adop-tive
brotherhoods between a monk and a layperson [10]. The precise nature of these associations
is uncertain, but they included serving as godparents and sponsors at baptisms. Though they were
regarded as improper for monks and nuns, the number of prohibitions suggests that they were not
uncommon.
The typika throw considerable light on the age of entry, which tended to be higher in eastern
than in western monasteries, where the system of oblation, by which children were given to mon-asteries
by their parents, was common until at least the eleventh and twelfth centuries, when the
age of entry was raised in many houses. 30 Although eastern church law set the age of entry at ten
and of tonsure at sixteen or seventeen, 31 there are no references to child members in the typika
except in (36) Blemmydes, which, written in 1267, allowed ten-year-old boys to be admitted on
condition that they could not become monks before they were twenty and might leave if they
proved unsuited to monastic life [9]. The minimum age of entry was sixteen in (60) Charsianeites
[C2], eighteen in (10) Eleousa [17], and ranged in other places from twenty up to thirty, as in (29)
Kosmosoteira [3]. These figures were considerably higher than for any known monastery in the
West, where the average age of profession was between fifteen and twenty, and where the imposi-tion
of higher age limits was regarded as a reform measure designed to insure a higher level of
commitment and maturity than could be found in children. 32 This, perhaps in addition to a desire
to avoid the sexual temptation presented by boys, may also have inspired the authors of the typika.
The result was that most monks and nuns in the East had considerable experience in the secular
world, and many had been married. According to (35) Skoteine, Maximos, the founder of the
monastery of the Mother of God, was the son and grandson of monks but was himself tonsured
before the age of marriage and perhaps below the established age of entry [2Ð 4], [7]. In (54)

29 John Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe (New York, 1994), pp. 240Ð 42, and Claudia
Rapp, "Ritual Brotherhood in Byzantium," Traditio 58 (1997), 285Ð 326. 30
See Regula Benedicti, 59, ed. Fry, pp. 270Ð 72, and the references in my Medieval Monasticism: A
Select Bibliography ( = Toronto Medieval Bibliographies 6) (Toronto-Buffalo, 1976), pp. 123Ð 24. 31
Janin, "Monachisme," pp. 21Ð 22. 32
See Peter the Venerable, Stat. 36, in Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum, vol. 6, p. 70. 10.
10 Page 11 12
PREFACE
[ xxi ]
Pantanassa, a married woman could not be admitted without her husband's permission and with a
girl who was more than ten years old [5]. These girls, like the boys of the monastery of the Lord
Christ-Who-Is at Ematha, were presumably educated in the monastery, as were many children in
the West. They may have resembled the "insiders" who were admitted at the age of sixteen to the
nunnery of Lips, where, according to (39) Lips [17Ð 18], twenty was the age of entry for outsiders.
The length of the novitiate varied with the age and experience of the candidate but tended to
be longer in the East than in the West, where it was set at two months in the Rule of the Master and
at a year in the Rule of Benedict, which prescribed three successive probationary periods of two,
six, and four months, each concluding with a reading of the rule. 33 In (22) Evergetis, the novitiate
lasted six months [37], which was increased to two years in (32) Mamas, though known people
were admitted after six months and monks from other monasteries after eight days [22]; in (34)
Machairas from Cyprus, the novitiate was three years but was reduced to six months for known
people and transfers [55], [60]; and in (39) Lips the novitiate at the nunnery was three years for
outsiders, a year for unspecified others (perhaps nuns from other houses), and six months for
mature women [17Ð 18]. In (13) Ath. Typikon, an abbreviated novitiate was allowed in the Great
Lavra on Mt. Athos for "some who are pious and well known and whose religious way of life is
well attested" [50], in (24) Christodoulos at Patmos for "a pious man who led a monastic life in
the world" [A26], and in (27) Kecharitomene in Constantinople for devout women "practicing the
monastic life in secular clothing" [30]. 34 Provisions were made for shortened periods of proba-tion,
and even for immediate tonsure, especially for candidates who were sick or dying, as in (12)
Tzimiskes [3], in (36) Blemmydes [9], and probably also in other monasteries. The practice of
speedily admitting the elderly and ailing, to enable them to enter the next world clad in the monas-tic
habit, was common in western monasteries, where it was known as ad succurrendum. 35 Excep-tions
were also made in the West for important people and monks from other houses, and the
reformers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries tried to establish the regular novitiate, as it was
called, of a year. The longer novitiate in the typika may have been associated with the higher ages
of admission and with the perceived need to test thoroughly the vocations of men and women who
had lived in the world and had to learn the ways of monastic life, unlike monks and nuns who had
been raised in monasteries or came from other houses.
The typika say comparatively little about the formal ceremonies of admission, which were
spelled out in detail in the Rule of Benedict and many western customaries, and they do not sup-port
the view that entering religious life in the East was a consecration rather than a personal
promise or commitment. 36 The blessing of monks is occasionally mentioned, mostly in connec-33

Regula Magistri, 88.3, vol. 2, p. 369, and Regula Benedicti, 58, ed. Fry, pp. 266Ð 68. 34
These passages are interesting evidence of the existence in secular society of men and women who
lived a quasi-monastic life. See John Nesbitt and J. Wiito, "A Confraternity of the Comnenian Era," BZ 68
(1975), 300Ð 384. 35
Nikephoros Chartophylax was the first Byzantine layman known to Karl Holl to take the monastic
habit on his deathbed. See his Enthusiasmus und Bussgewalt beim griechischen Mönchtum: Eine Studie zu
Symeon dem Neuen Theologen (Leipzig, 1898), p. 321. 36
See, for instance, Olivier Rousseau, "Le rôle important du monachisme dans l'Eglise d'Orient," Il
monachesimo orientale ( = OCA 153) (Rome, 1958), pp. 38Ð 40. 11.
11 Page 12 13
PREFACE
[ xxii ]
tion with the authority of the bishop, but the primary emphasis was on the promise, tonsure, and
habit. According to (10) Eleousa, which dates from 1085Ð 1106, the monks made "our promise on
the things that we were proclaiming, frequently repeating our consent with both a subdued posture
and a calm voice" [9], and in (30) Phoberos new monks read and promised to obey "this rule"
[51]. There are many references, in part owing to the influence of (22) Evergetis, to "the hair of
this world" and to "worldly locks," which were cut when someone entered religious life. Facial
hair was a mark of maturity in men, and of suitability to be a monk or priest, since clerics in the
East, unlike the West, were bearded. The beardlessness of eunuchs showed their anomalous status,
even if it did not exclude them from becoming monks or priests.
The monastic habit was of symbolic as well as practical significance in distinguishing men
and women in religion from those living in the world. (55) Athanasios I called it "the robe of
unchanging glory" [1] , and in (45) Neophytos, the founder of the hermitage at Ktima in Cyprus
kissed the cuffs of his habit [4]. The scapular was compared to the cross in (10) Eleousa [9], as in
many western monastic texts, and Nikon in (20) Black Mountain stressed the importance of the
distinctive cap worn by eastern monks [75]. In (45) Neophytos [15] and (34) Machairas, different
ranks of monks apparently wore different habits, and according to the latter the great habit was
apparently worn by the monks known as apostolikoi but not by others [102], [148]. (45) Neophytos
expressed a preference for inexpensive grey rather than black cloaks [C15]. The western reform-ers
in the twelfth century, and later the mendicants, also favored undyed and cheap materials for
their habits. It was a mark of visible humility and unworldliness, like the use of a donkey rather
than a horse when traveling, to which there are references in both eastern and western saints' lives
and, among others, in (48) Prodromos [7], whose monastery was a dependency of Docheiariou on
Mt. Athos.
Great importance was attached in the typika to the behavior of monks and nuns and their
proper deportment toward each other and, especially, toward the superior and monastic officials.
There are references in several typika to disciplinary officers, as in (11) Ath. Rule [17] of the Great
Lavra, but comparatively few to punishments, aside from the long list, which derived from the
pseudo-Basilian Poenae and resembled a western penitential, incorporated into (34) Machairas
[121Ð 34]. (4) Stoudios [25] and (11) Ath. Rule [19] for the Great Lavra noted the presence of
prisons for recalcitrant monks at their respective monasteries, and some, such as (28) Pantokrator
and (29) Kosmosoteira, said theirs were used for political prisoners, who may have been the im-posed
guests mentioned above. Whipping was explicitly forbidden in (4) Stoudios, and the most
serious punishment for monks who refused to obey the rule or to fit into the community seems to
have been expulsion.
All distinctions within monastic communities were potential sources of disputes and tension,
and the authors of many typika attempted to head off the problems created by differences in rank,
social status, wealth, and culture. Among the most interesting of these was the presence in a single
community of various linguistic and ethnic groups. In (23) Pakourianos, only Georgians, for in-stance,
were admitted to the monastery at Backovo in Bulgaria [prol.], [24]. The community of St.
Sabas at Jerusalem included both Greeks (or Romans, as they are called) and Syrians, and the
typikon, (42) Sabas, specified that the superior should be Greek but that the steward and treasurer
should be Syrians, who were "more efficient and practical in their native country" [9]. There is an 12.
12 Page 13 14
PREFACE
[ xxiii ]
37 There is no evidence in these typika of the type of continuous prayer by shifts of monks that was
found in early monasteries in the East but more or less died out by the twelfth century. See Michael Marx,
Incessant Prayer in Ancient Monastic Literature (Rome, 1946).

interesting account of the difficulty of introducing Vlachs into a Greek house in (51) Koutloumousi
[B6] of Mt. Athos. Similar problems must have arisen in western monasteries, especially with the
decline of Latin and the spread of vernacular languages, but they are not discussed with equal
frankness in any known rule or customary.

III
Members of religious communities, both monks and nuns, divided their time between reli-gious
services, private devotions, and various types of work, of which the proportions varied from
monastery to monastery. Their activities were regulated, in Byzantine monasteries, by the sound
of the semantronÑ" the holy bell," as it was called in (46) Akropolites [6]Ñ which was a flat piece
of wood or metal and performed the same function as the bell in western monasteries. Some
monasteries had several semantrons, as in (22) Evergetis [6] and (32) Mamas [47], where there
were small, great, and bronze semantrons, and in (34) Machairas [45], [47], [61], where there was
a refectory semantron and at least one large semantron. According to their differing sounds, the
monks and nuns knew what they should do. Less is said in the typika about the system of keeping
time, but there are a few references to clocks, which were presumably water clocks, or clepsydra,
which were also known in western monasteries. The primary indicators of time, in both East and
West, were the sun and stars and, in the morning, the cock.
The most important occupation of monks and nuns was the celebration of the liturgy, with
which a few typika (which are not translated here) were exclusively concerned. 37 In (32) Mamas,
the members were required to attend the services [21], but in other communities a distinction was
drawn between the members who primarily served in church and those who performed other
functions, who would today be called the support staff and usually included the monastic officials,
as in (38) Kellibara I [17] and (57) Bebaia Elpis [23], [146Ð 47]. (23) Pakourianos, for instance,
shows that of the fifty monks at the monastery in Backovo in 1083 ten were in holy orders and
twenty-six were officials, including the superior, who was not required to be a priest, leaving four
unaccounted for. The typikon also distinguished three types of monks who received different sti-pends
[6], [9], [22]. In (28) Pantokrator, there were four servants and eighty monks, of whom
thirty were occupied in what were called menial duties and fifty with the praise of God, and they
received, respectively, the biblical rewards of thirty-, sixty-, and a hundred-fold [19]. In (37)
Auxentios, of the forty monks in the monastery of the archangel Michael, sixteen served in the
church and twenty-four in the monastery and fields [6Ð 7]; of the fifty nuns in (39) Lips [4] and
thirty in (40) Anargyroi [6] at Sts. Kosmas and Damian, thirty and eighteen, respectively, per-formed
liturgical duties, and twenty and twelve were occupied with housekeeping; and so on in
other monasteries, though the division may have been less strict in smaller houses. The two cat-egories
were called fathers and brothers, ekklesiastikoi and diakonetai, and (in other sources)
psalmodists and attendants, and they were described as literate and illiterate, though it is not 13.
13 Page 14 15
PREFACE
[ xxiv ]
certain that those who served in the church were all literate and the others, especially the officials,
were illiterate.
The typika throw comparatively little light on the number of monks who were in holy orders
or on whether the proportion increased, as it did in the West, where by the thirteenth century
almost all monks were ordained. Likewise, there is little said on the related question of the perfor-mance
of pastoral work by monks, both within their communities and in parish churches. 38 What
evidence there is suggests that the proportion of ordained monks was lower in Byzantine monas-teries
than in the West and that they did not regularly serve as parish priests, though other sources
might lead to a different conclusion. 39 (23) Pakourianos shows that at Backovo in the late elev-enth
century ten monks, or a fifth of the community, were ordained, of whom six were priests and
two each were deacons and sub-deacons [6]. In (32) Mamas, which dates from 1158, there were
twenty monks, of whom two or three were priests and two were deacons [5].
At first sight, the distinction between the liturgical and non-liturgical members seems to re-semble
that in western monasteries between western monks who were raised in a monastery (oblati
or nutriti) and those who entered as adults (conversi) and, even more, that between the so-called
choir monks and lay brothers (fratres laici or conversi), who were found in many reformed houses
in the West, especially those affiliated with Hirsau, Cîteaux, and Prémontré, in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries. 40 The comparisons do not hold up on close inspection, however. The conversi of
the old type were characteristically illiterate at their time of entry and able to participate in the
services only in limited ways, but they often learned to read and write, were ordained, and served
as priors and abbots. The lay brothers and sisters, or conversi of the new type, on the other hand,
constituted a closed category, from which there was no promotion, and they were mostly occupied
with agricultural labor. The typika show that, in Byzantine monasteries, unordained, non-liturgi-cal
monks were not a closed group and frequently occupied responsible positions, and that unlet-tered
monks sometimes participated in the offices, as seen in (22) Evergetis [33] and (33) Heliou
Bomon [23]. (39) Lips suggests that the contemplative nuns were subordinate to the preeminent
active nuns [27], and Neophytos, the founder of the hermitage at Ktima, worked in the vineyards
for five years before he learned to read and write and became assistant ecclesiarch, a position he
later gave up in order to devote himself to the contemplative life (( 45) Neophytos [4]).
The welfare of specific individuals as well of society in general was thought to depend upon
the prayers of monks, 41 the "faithful oratores" as Charlemagne called them in his capitulary De

38 A related issue, which requires further study, is the number of churches within monastic enclosures
in both East and West and their use. See Schreiber, "Anselm," p. 385. 39
See Irénée-Henri Dalmais, "Sacerdoce et monachisme dans l'Orient chrétien," La vie spirituelle 80
(1949), 37Ð 49, and the references in my Medieval Monasticism, pp. 135Ð 37. Clément Lialine, "Monachisme
oriental et monachisme occidental," Irénikon 33 (1960), 444Ð 45, argued that the "pneumatico-psychologi-cal
preference" of Byzantine monks led to a distrust of clericalization, institutionalization, and the ministry. 40
On conversion and lay brothers see the references in my Medieval Monasticism, pp. 124Ð 25. 41
On intercessionary prayer in the East, see Schreiber, "Anselm," pp. 408Ð 9, and Paul Lemerle "Un
aspect du rôle des monastères à Byzance: les monastères donnés à des laics, les Charisticaires," Académie
des inscriptions et belles-lettres. Comptes rendus (1967), p. 13. 14.
14 Page 15 16
PREFACE
[ xxv ]
literis colendis. 42 There are innumerable references in the typika to liturgical commemoration for
founders, protectors, and benefactors, especially the emperor and members of the ruling family,
both male and female, 43 for members of the community and, more rarely, for all Christians, as in
(48) Prodromos [5], or for specific groups in society, as in (33) Heliou Bomon [47] and (34)
Machairas [44]. The steadily growing number of commemorations created a problem at Evergetis,
as it did at Cluny and other western monasteries, where efforts were made to limit the amount of
time spent in commemorations. 44 The manner of chanting was also mentioned in several typika,
of which the authors stressed the need for moderation, slowness, clarity, and attention to the words
of the texts (( 20) Black Mountain [16], (23) Pakourianos [12], (36) Blemmydes [13], and (37)
Auxentios [7]). (54) Neilos Damilas mentioned the "excessive variety of hymns" and warned against
"undignified tunes" [12]. 45
Policy with regard to celebration of the Eucharist varied from monastery to monastery, but
frequent communion, especially for monks, was common in Byzantium in the early Middle Ages. 46
At Evergetis, mass was celebrated every day, though not all the monks communicated; at Machairas,
mass was daily and communion weekly, or at least twice a month; and in other monasteries mass
was celebrated between once and five times a week, and the frequency of communion was not
always specified. "Daily communion was a rarity in Byzantine monasteries," according to Robert
Taft, "but weekly communion, though not universal, remained common." 47
The importance of confession has already been mentioned in connection with the emphasis
on conscience. 48 In some monasteries, daily confession was required, and a parallel between con-fession
and bodily health was drawn in (22) Evergetis and the typika that derive from it. It was
considered as important as the Eucharist at Nea Mone in Thessalonike, of which the typikon, (52)
Choumnos, dates from before 1374 [B10]. The reformers preferred that confession be made to the
superior or spiritual father rather than to other monks or to outsiders, presumably in order to
ensure a consistent spiritual direction, but (22) Evergetis [7] and (30) Phoberos [14] allowed con-fession
to be made to priests, deacons, or "more reverent brothers," probably owing to the diffi-42

Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Capitularia, vol. 1, p. 79. 43
(27) Kecharitomene specified that male and female members of the ruling family should be com-memorated
equally [79]. 44
See Peter the Venerable, Stat. 32, in Corpus consuetudinum monasticarum, vol. 6, pp. 66Ð 67, and
note there. 45
See Margot Fassler, Gothic Song: Victorine Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century
Par i s (Cambridge, 1993), pp. 39Ð 40, on "conventional nonsense syllables" in eastern liturgies and parallel
phenomena in the West. 46
Sévérin Salaville, "Messe et communion d'après les typika monastiques byzantins du X e au XIV e
siècle," OCP 13 (1947), 283Ð 98, and Emil Herman, "Die häufige und tägliche Kommunion in den
byzantinischen Klöstern," Mémorial Louis Petit ( = Archives de l'Orient chrétien 1) (Bucharest, 1948), pp.
203Ð 17. 47
"Communion," ODB, p. 491. 48
On confession in the West, where it was more frequent among monks than the laity and was pre-scribed
in the Rule of Benedict, see Alexander Murray, "Confession before 1215," Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society, ser. 6, 3 (1993), 70Ð 72. 15.
15 Page 16 17
PREFACE
[ xxvi ]
culty in finding time and opportunity for each member of the community to confess to a single
person every day.
Allowance was also made for private prayers and devotions, though they do not figure promi-nently
in the typika. Private psalmody was indeed prohibited in some of the early typika, but
Athanasios the Athonite in his rule for the Great Lavra in 963, (11) Ath. Rule, modified the typikon
of St. John Stoudios and recognized that absolute uniformity was not required and that a monk
might have reason not to attend choir service [17]; the provisions of (22) Evergetis were altered in
(30) Phoberos specifically to allow the midnight office to be sung by monks in their cells [12].
There are several references to penitential devotions, such as weeping, foot washing, and, espe-cially,
genuflections, which were defined as fifteen prostrations in (27) Kecharitomene [32]. In
(54) Neilos Damilas the nuns were expected to perform two hundred prostrations every twenty-four
hours, but those who were unable to do that many were permitted to reduce the number [10].
All members of the community, including those whose primary duties were in the church,
were expected to work, 49 not only as a way to avoid idleness, according to (57) Bebaia Elpis, but
also as a mortification of the flesh and a means to provide the wherewithal for alms [95]. The
monks were allowed to work in their cells, according to (31) Areia [T3], and in (34) Machairas
helped to harvest the grain and grapes [83]. In (54) Neilos Damilas, the nuns of the Pantanassa
nunnery worked to produce goods both for their own use and for sale [6]. (52) Choumnos set no
fixed amount of work for the monks of Nea Mone, because people differed in their capacity for
physical labor, and elsewhere in the typikon it is said that those who wanted should spend ten years
working and then devote themselves to spiritual labor [B18], [B21]. A similar attitude is found in
the book of proverbs by the twelfth-century Cistercian Galland of Rigny, who wrote that monks
who were unable to work in the sun should choose an occupation in the shade and that those who
could not observe all the feast days at least should celebrate All Saints, which covers the other
feasts in the same way that charity includes the other virtues. 50 Passages like these suggest that
there was a growing recognition in both East and West of the physical needs and capacities of
monks and nuns, in spite of the general emphasis on asceticism and self-denial. 51 The spiritual
well-being of monks was associated with their physical health in a remarkable chapter in (60)
Charsianeites, which dates from 1407:

When everyone is healthy, you should be grateful to the Provider of health, each one on
behalf of the others rather than on his own behalf, but if one of you is ill, then you should
all be sympathetically disposed to his illness and share in his suffering, just as the other

49 Tudor Teoteoi, "Le travail manuel dans les typika des XI e -XIII e siècles," RESE 17 (1979), 455Ð 62,
and in Actes du XV e Congrès international d'études byzantines. Athènes-Septembre 1976, vol. 4 (Athens,
1980), 340Ð 49, and Maria Dembinska, "Diet: A Comparison of Food Consumption between some Eastern
and Western Monasteries in the 4thÐ 12th Centuries," Byzantion 55 (1985), 44Ð 45. According to Schreiber,
"Anselm," pp. 404Ð 6, there was a greater emphasis on manual labor in the West, especially among reform-ers,
than in the East. 50
Galland of Rigny, "Libellus proverbiorum," Revue du moyen âge latin 9 (1953), 47 and 105, no. 13. 51
Gerd Zimmermann, Ordensleben und Lebensstandard: Die Cura Corporis in den Ordensvorschriften
des abendländischen Hochmittelalters ( = Beiträge zur Geschichte des alten Mönchtums und des
Benediktinerordens 32) (Münster, 1971). 16.
16 Page 17 18
PREFACE
[ xxvii ]
limbs of the body suffer, if one is in pain. You should do everything and exert yourselves to
see the brother cured of illness. [B4]

The most remarkable evidence of concern for physical health is in the typikon of the Pantokrator
monastery in Constantinople, which made elaborate provision for five ordinoi, each with appro-priate
staff and equipment, to care for various diseases, wounds, and disorders of both men and
women. 52 Several typika mention springs and aqueducts, and the provision of an adequate supply
of water was considered a notable benefaction to a monastery. Water was needed not only for
drinking and cooking but also for bathing, which is the subject of various provisions in the typika. 53
In (30) Phoberos, for instance, bathing was allowed only for the sick [46], and in (45) Neophytos
for the sick and aged [C9], whereas in (31) Areia it was allowed once a week [T3], and in other
monasteries between three and twelve times a year, sometimes in bathing establishments outside
the monastery, for which the monks were given special allowances. Careful control was exercised
over other aspects of bodily care, such as bleeding and hair cutting, which in (34) Machairas
could be done only with permission and a blessing [133]. Shaving, on the other hand, was of less
concern to the bearded monks in the East than to western monks, who were expected to cut their
beards, though not too closely or too often, and whose shaving was the subject of legislation in
many monasteries. 54
Greater attention was paid to diet in the typika than in comparable western documents, and
especially to the precise amounts and types of food to be eaten at different times during the litur-gical
year. 55 Some of the dietary restrictions were very strict and included prohibitions against
eating even eggs and cheese, but small additional allowances, resembling pittances in western
monasteries, were often given in memory of a benefactor. Dembinska in her article on food con-sumption
in eastern and western monasteries concluded, "The basic foodstuffs mentioned in the
rules of the period under research were almost identical in Byzantium and in Western Europe," but
the daily per capita ration was at least a third greater in caloric weight and value in western mon-asteries
in the ninth century than in eastern monasteries in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. This
was the result not only of the more severe regime in the East but also, she proposed, of climatic
differences and perhaps of a decrease in agricultural production in Byzantium. 56 In (32) Mamas,
dietary concessions were made for those who participated in the liturgy [18], and a concern for
physical health was shown in (22) Evergetis, which remarked on the ill-effects of drinking [App.],
and (30) Phoberos, which said that moderate eating showed a care for bodily health [5].

52 See Schreiber, "Hospital," pp. 3Ð 80; Timothy Miller, The Birth of the Hospital in the Byzantine
Empire (Baltimore, 1985); and Peregrine Horden, "Text and Context: The Pantokrator Hospital in Its Middle
Byzantine Setting" (paper presented at the Nineteenth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, Princeton, 5
November 1993). 53
Apostolos Karpozilos, "Bath," ODB, pp. 271Ð 72. On monastic bathing in the West and the number
of baths taken by monks, see Zimmermann, Ordensleben, esp. pp. 117Ð 33. 54
See the introduction to Burchard of Bellevaux, Apologia de barbis, ed. R. B. C. Huygens ( = Corpus
Christianorum, Continuatio Mediaeualis 62) (Turnhout, 1985), pp. 114Ð 30. 55
See Appendix B on the dietary prescriptions of the typika. 56
Dembinska, "Diet," p. 453. 17.
17 Page 18 19
PREFACE
[ xxviii ]
The typika were generally less concerned with the intellectual than with the material aspects
of monastic life, though there are some interesting lists of books in the inventories of individual
houses. 57 Relatively little is said about literacy or reading, in contrast to the Rule of Benedict, in
which monks were told to read on Sundays and to take a book from the library at the beginning of
Lent and to read it through "in order in its entirety." 58 Houses that followed the Rule of Benedict
consequently had at least a few books, if not a library, and the monks were expected to be able to
read, even though many of the conversi, who entered as adults, were in fact illiterate. The author
of (30) Phoberos, which was based on (22) Evergetis, added that new monks should read and
promise to obey "this rule" [51], but they may not all have been literate. The most interesting
reference to literacy is in (54) Neilos Damilas of Crete, where reading aloud was said to be more
important than psalmody [13], [20], but it is unknown how this was interpreted in practice.

IV
The typika include much material on the organization and administration of religious com-munities
and reflect the writers' desire for the independence of monasteries and fear of outside
interference in monastic affairs. These concerns need to be seen against the background of the
system of charistike, which was widespread in Byzantium in the tenth and eleventh centuries and
by which monasteries were held in quasi-possession by institutions and private individuals, who
often exploited them for their own advantage. 59 In theory, the grants were conditional, limited in
time, and designed to benefit not only the charistikarios but also the monastery, and to keep its
members from secular involvements. In practice, however, they opened the way to abuses, includ-ing
lay control and loss of revenues. In some respects the charistike resembled the so-called pro-prietary
churches and monasteries in the West, where both churchmen and secular rulers and
nobles controlled religious institutions over which they had no legal rights and, as advocates,
exercised jurisdiction over monastic lands, in principle in the name of the abbot but in fact in their
own name and as a hereditary right. 60 The movements of monastic reform in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries were directed against these types of control over monasteries and tried to define
and limit the powers, respectively, of lay proprietors and advocates in the West and of charistikarioi
in the East. 61

57 Nicolas Oikonomides, "Mount Athos: Levels of Literacy," DOP 42 (1988), 167Ð 78, estimated the
levels of literacy among monks on Mt. Athos on the basis of subscriptions to documents. 58
Regula Benedicti, 48, ed. Fry, p. 251. On this chapter, see Anscari Mundó, "' Bibliotheca': Bible et
lecture du Carème d'après saint Benoît," Revue bénédictine 60 (1950), 65Ð 92. 59
See Peter Charanis, "The Monastic Properties and the State in the Byzantine Empire," DOP 4 (1948),
72Ð 81; Lemerle, "Aspect," who stressed as a general feature of Byzantine monasticism that monasteries
were viewed as a source of private profit; and Hélène Ahrweiler, "Charisticariat et autres formes d'attribution
de fondations pieuses aux X e ÐXI e siècles," Receuil des travaux de l'Institut d'études byzantines 10 (1967),
1Ð 27, and generally Mark Bartusis, "Charistikion," ODB, p. 412. 60
See the work of Felix Senn, L'institution des avoueries ecclésiastiques en France (Paris, 1903), and
other references in my Medieval Monasticism, pp. 105Ð 6. 61
John Thomas, "The Rise of the Independent and Self-Governing Monasteries as Reflected in the
Monastic Typika," GOTR 30 (1985), 21Ð 30. 18.
18 Page 19 20
PREFACE
[ xxix ]
The reformers in the East, some of whom were themselves charistikarioi, sought to promote,
in place of the charistike, the more limited system of ephoreia, which emphasized the protection
and supervision of monasteries rather than their possession. According to (32) Mamas, the patri-archs
had controlled the monastery in the past and had granted it "to various charistikarioi, the
greatest number of whom used to abuse the monastery as landed property and to seek nothing else
but what they were going to gain from it, and there was no concern for the monastery and its
affairs." When the mystikos George the Cappadocian held St. Mamas, however, he realized that it
might again come under the control of a bad charistikarios, and therefore "sought to have the
monastery made independent and released from the patriarchal rights" [First Semeioma]. In 1261Ð
80 the emperor Michael Palaiologos wrote in (37) Auxentios,

one must hold tightly to freedom for the stability of the monastery and for its continued
progress. Monasteries that are self-governing are more flourishing and self-sufficient than
those that are subject to various individuals. For these enjoy what they possess without any
diminution, whereas the others receive little or nothing of their revenues. All or most of
their possessions are appropriated [by their lords] as if they were their own and they dis-tribute
them as their own property. [2]

It was not easy even for an emperor, however, to safeguard a monastery from outside interference,
especially when it took the form of protection. After the flurry of reform in the eleventh and
twelfth centuries, the real independence of monasteries tended to diminish, and the ephoroi, like
the advocates in the West, increasingly exercised a variety of powers in their own names.
One of the most important ways to secure the independence of a monastery was to free it from
obligations and payments to external authorities. 62 These were known as exkousseia; in the West
they were called immunities when they involved the exclusion of royal officials from monastic
lands and called exemptions when they applied to episcopal authority. (19) Attaleiates for the
almshouse at Rhaidestos and the monastery of Panoiktirmon in Constantinople, which dates from
1077, included a privilege of emperor Michael VII exempting the monks from an elaborate list of
obligations, including the billeting of officers and soldiers, various types of provisioning, forced
sales and purchases, compulsory services, and any number of payments, levies, and taxes of which
the precise nature is uncertain [INV10]. It is interesting to compare this list with that in the privi-lege
granted the following year, in 1078, to the monastery of Leno in Lombardy by pope Gregory
VII, who forbade any layperson to control the monastery or to hold a court without the abbot's
permission and who freed the monks from having to provide food, housing, or fodder for animals,
pay moorage dues, or render any "other public obligation." 63
The reformers in both the East and the West particularly wanted to prevent any outside control
over the selection of monastic superiors, especially by a lay charistikarios, and advocated some
type of internal selection. The authors of a few typika allowed the founder to appoint the superior,
occasionally without the participation of the community, as in (60) Charsianeites [A5], [C18], but

62 Charanis, "Monastic Properties," pp. 64Ð 65.
63 Leo Santifaller, Quellen und Forschungen zum Urkunden-und Kanzleiwesen Papst Gregors VII.:

QuellenÑ Urkunden, Regesta, Facsimilia ( = ST 190) (Vatican City, 1957), pp. 167Ð 70, no. 150. 19.
19 Page 20 21
PREFACE
[ xxx ]
they mostly favored election either by lot or by the community. In some houses, the principal role
was played by the elder or more eminent monks, as on Mt. Athos, where Manuel Palaiologos, in
(59) Manuel II, established in 1406 that superiors should be chosen by fifteen counselors and
some monks who lived outside the monastery [3]. In most houses the superiors were elected either
by all or a majority of the members of the community. In the case of disagreement, in (32) Mamas
[1], the superior was chosen by lot, and in (37) Auxentios, the superior of the monastery of the
archangel Michael was appointed by the emperor [3].
How a new superior took office was apparently of less concern to the writers of the typika
than to western monastic reformers, for whom the question of investiture was at the heart of the
eleventh-century reform movement. In the East, practice varied from house to house, and the
terms cheirotonia (ordination), sphragis (blessing), and procheirisis (appointment) were used in-terchangeably
in the typika to describe the installation of the superior and other monastic offi-cials. 64
According to (27) Kecharitomene, the new superior took her pastoral staff from the altar
[11], which corresponded to the procedure known in the West as auto-or self-investiture, 65 and in
(58) Menoikeion, the bishop was explicitly forbidden to install the superior [3]. In (28) Pantokrator
[25] and (29) Kosmosoteira [33], the superiors were installed by the bishop or metropolitan, but
took their staffs respectively from the icon of the Pantokrator and from the altar. In (31) Areia,
though the typikon is not entirely clear, the bishop invested the first superior but was not involved
in the election or investiture of subsequent superiors, who received the staff from the priest [M4],
[M7], [M15], [T10].
The role of the bishop in the installation of the superior does not figure prominently in most
of the typika. The patriarch or bishop was often simply said to bless the superior, and occasionally
to grant the authority to hear confession, though a closer study of the precise wording in these and
other sources might throw further light on the question. A provision for blessing by the patriarch
was added to the section dealing with the selection of the superior in (30) Phoberos [35], which
otherwise derived from (22) Evergetis [35], and the bishop was said to install and bless the supe-rior
after he was chosen by the monks in (34) Machairas [17], [140]. In (57) Bebaia Elpis, the
patriarch both blessed and gave the staff to the superior [26], but there is no reference to either
blessing or investiture in the typikon of a nearby monastery, (60) Charsianeites, though the supe-rior
visited the patriarch twice a year to show his orthodoxy [C12].
The authors of some typika even allowed lay investiture, which was anathema to reformers in
the West. In (37) Auxentios, the superior was invested with rod and staff by the emperor (who also
appointed him if there was disagreement within the community) and was blessed by the bishop,
who was otherwise entitled only to liturgical commemoration and three small honoraria [2Ð 3].

64 See J. Darrouzès, Recherches sur les OFFIKIA de l'église byzantine (Paris, 1970), p. 612, s. v.
sphragis. Cheirotonia is used for the self-investiture of the superior in (22) Evergetis [13] and is translated
as "installation" here and as "nomination" by P. Gautier, "Le typikon de la Théotokos Evergétis," REB 40
(1982), 46. Procheirisis is used for the lay investiture in (19) Panoiktirmon [26] and for the installation of
the superior by the bishop in (34) Machairas [17], where it is later described as sphragis [140]. 65
On auto-investiture at Cluny, see Dominique Iogna-Prat, "Coutumes et statuts clunisiens comme
sources historiques (ca. 990Ð ca. 1200)," Revue Mabillon, n. s., 3 (1992), 39Ð 43. 20.
20 Page 21 22
PREFACE
[ xxxi ]
The superior of the nunnery of Lips received the staff from the emperor and a box containing the
typikon, (39) Lips [7], from the priest. According to (51) Koutloumousi, the voivode of Wallachia
confirmed the superior of the monastery on Mt. Athos [A13], and in (58) Menoikeion the superior
of the monastery of St. John the Forerunner received the staff from the emperor himself "if the
chance arises" or by order of the emperor [22].
The superior, once installed, exercised a wide range of responsibilities. According to (37)
Auxentios,

Governance is in fact a single thing but becomes many-sided because of the diversity among
those governed. The person who assumes such office may have to take various titles to fit
each situation. Sometimes he is addressed as father, at other times as superior, at times of
course as shepherd, helmsman, guide, guardian, teacher, salt, lamp, and light. As a father
he ought to suffer along with those who are weak. As a person in authority he ought to be
a shield to those who are under attack. As a helmsman he ought to sail over the dangerous
waves. As a shepherd he ought to settle his flock in verdant pastures and provide them with
the waters of spiritual repose. As a guardian he ought to give timely warning to those he
guards of the approach of something harmful. As a teacher he trains those whose under-standing
is like that of children. As salt he seasons what is lacking in spiritual flavor with
virtues, or he causes what is frivolous and starting to decay to tighten up. As a lamp and a
light he shows his flock the unencumbered path of virtue. [4]

This passage deals primarily with the internal, pastoral duties of superiors, but they also exercised
authority over people and lands outside the monastery. Isaac Komnenos, in (29) Kosmosoteira,
referred to the superior's jurisdiction over arsonists and to his responsibility for the behavior of the
peasants, who were not allowed to eat eggs, cheese, or meat on Wednesdays or Fridays [98],
[104].
The superiors were expected to rule in consultation with the members of the community, as in
the Rule of Benedict, or at least with the officials and seniores, but in practice they often behaved
autocratically. In (57) Bebaia Elpis, the superior of the nunnery was to rule in a manly way [27],
according to the typikon written by Theodora Synadene in 1327Ð 35. As time went on, monastic
administration tended to concentrate increasingly in the hands of the superior, over whom the only
real control seems to have been the threat of deposition, to which there are many references in the
typika.
The superior was assisted in administering the monastery by a variety of officials and by a
group of preeminent, leading, or senior members of the community, who are described in (24)
Christodoulos as "more prominent" [A20] and in (55) Athanasios I as "more pious" [5] and who
presumably corresponded to the somewhat shadowy category of seniores found in western mo-nastic
sources. 66 The officials were sometimes themselves the preeminent members, but the exact
relation between the two groups, and how they were chosen, is unclear. In (57) Bebaia Elpis, the
officials were elected by the nuns, not appointed by the superior, but the ecclesiarchissa was

66 See my "Seniores et pueri à Cluny aux X e , XI e siècles," Histoire et société: Mélanges offerts à
Georges Duby, vol. 3 (Aix-en-Provence, 1992), pp. 17Ð 24. 21.
21 Page 22 23
PREFACE
[ xxxii ]
chosen by the superior and nuns [50], [73Ð 74]. (13) Ath. Typikon [52] for the Great Lavra and (28)
Pantokrator [9] specified that the steward might not be a priest, perhaps because the secular re-sponsibilities
of the steward were considered incompatible with the sacerdotal dignity.
The basic unit of administration was the monastic community, of which the members lived a
common life together, and the authors of the typika for the most part favored cenobitical over
eremitical forms of life. In (32) Mamas, cenobitism was equated with solitude in the sense that it
was cut off from the world, and all forms of non-cenobital monasticism were forbidden [25Ð 26]. 67
Solitude led to disobedience, according to (13) Ath. Typikon [40]; the superiority of common life
to solitude was stressed in (35) Skoteine [13]; and the general typikon for the monasteries on Mt.
Athos, (59) Manuel II, said that monks who wanted to have their own property sometimes used the
desire for solitude as a pretext [1]. Hermits were also accused of disobedience, willfulness, and
acquisitiveness in many western monastic texts of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and most of
the contemporary reformers in the West favored community life for monks and nuns.
The clear preference for cenobitism expressed in the typika is important in view of the em-phasis
put by some scholars on eremitism, and its combination with cenobitism, in Byzantine
monasticism. The opinion of Delehaye that "the mixture of the cenobitic and eremitic lives was
one of the most characteristic particularities of eastern monasteries" was cited with approval by
Papachryssanthou, who argued, largely on the basis of hagiographical sources, that the interpen-etration
of cenobitism and anchoritism was peculiar to Byzantine monasticism and left little room
for the traditional type of lavra, which usually referred in Byzantine texts to a koinobium that had
either anchoritic cells within the community or associated anchorites living in detached cells. 68
These practices were not distinctively eastern, however, and recent research has shown that her-mits
were often associated with cenobitic monasteries in the West. 69 At Cluny, for instance, some
four hundred monks were said to live in the surrounding woods during the first half of the twelfth
century, and they were occasionally joined for temporary retreats not only by members of the
community but also by the abbot himself. 70 Priories often served as permanent or temporary
eremetical retreats for monks who needed a period of solitude and private devotions. 71

67 See also (58) Menoikeion [11].
68 Hippolyte Delehaye, "La vie de saint Paul le Jeune (* 955) et la chronologie de Métaphraste" (1893),

in his Mélanges d'hagiographie grecque et latine ( = Subsidia Hagiographica 42) (Brussels, 1966), p. 97,
and Denise Papachryssanthou, "La vie monastique dans les campagnes byzantines du VIII e au XI e siècle:
Ermitages, groupes, communautés," Byzantion 43 (1973), 169Ð 75; cf. Mahfoud, Organisation, pp. 53Ð 54
and 126 on monasticism in Egypt, Syria, and the Holy Land. 69
See my "Eremitical Forms of Monastic Life," in Istituzioni monastiche e istituzioni canonicali in
Occidente (1123Ð 1215). Atti della settima Settimana internazionale di studio, Mendola, 28 agostoÐ 3 settembre
1977 ( = Pubblicazioni dell'Università cattolica del Sacro Cuore: Miscellanea del Centro di studi medioevali
9) (Milan, 1980), pp. 239Ð 64. 70
See the chronicle of Cluny in Bibliotheca Cluniacensis, ed. Martin Marrier and André Duchesne
(Paris, 1614), col. 600BC, and Jean Leclercq, "Pierre le Vénérable et l'érémitisme clunisien," in Petrus
Venerabilis, 1156Ð 1956: Studies and Texts Commemorating the Eighth Centenary of his Death, ed. Giles
Constable and James Kritzeck ( = Studia Anselmiana 40) (Rome, 1956), pp. 99Ð 120. 71
Jacques Dubois, "La vie des moines dans les prieurés du moyen âge," Lettre de Ligugé 133 (1969.1),
10Ð 33. 22.
22 Page 23 24
PREFACE
[ xxxiii ]
Not all the monks were cenobites, however, either in practice or in principle, and there are
many references in the typika to solitaries, who were called kelliotai or hesychastaiÑ which de-rived
from the term for prayer or contemplationÑ and who lived in cells or caves outside a monas-tery
but remained members of the community and also to monks who owned property and lived by
themselves within a community and whose way of life was known as idiorhythmic, or self-regu-lating.
The solitaries mentioned in the typikon of Christodoulos of Patmos in 1091Ð 3, (24)
Christodoulos [A24], and in (34) Machairas [152] in 1210 returned to the monastery on Saturdays
and Sundays and were given provisions there, and in (42) Sabas [3], [7] the community in the
early twelfth century included both monks who lived together in the lavra and hesychastai, who
apparently participated in the vigils but not in the liturgical commemoration.
In the late Middle Ages the opposition to non-cenobitic forms of life seems to have weakened,
and there was a growing acceptance of the coexistence of community and solitary life, as seen in
(37) Auxentios, where cells were set aside for solitaries [11], and in (45) Neophytos for Ktima,
which started as a hermitage and where the superior was known as "the recluse [enkleistos]"
[14]. 72 In 1407 the patriarch Matthew I, in (60) Charsianeites, compared the different forms of
monasticism to the many mansions in the house of God and said that the life of monks who lived
with others but by themselves was between the cenobitic and communal life, on one hand, and the
solitary and reclusive life, which he called angelic, on the other [B2]. A kelliotes, he said, was "a
monk in his habit, but has chosen an idiorhythmic regime and to live by himself as he wishes"
[B18]. The solitary and idiorhythmic forms of life overlapped, as the passage cited above from the
general typikon of Mt. Athos shows.
Although Byzantine monasteries remained in principle opposed to private property, personal
poverty was not a rule, and exceptions were regularly made, especially for monks and nuns who
came from powerful and wealthy families and who, by the standards of the time, could not be
expected to live a common life with other members of a community. 73 The superiors of monaster-ies
were allowed to have private property by John Tzimiskes in his typikon for Mt. Athos in 971Ð
2, (12) Tzimiskes [6Ð 7]; in (19) Attaleiates, the eunuch monks at the Panoiktirmon monastery in
Constantinople had servants to whom pensions were given after their masters died [42]; and in
(23) Pakourianos [4], for the monastery at Backovo, and in (28) Pantokrator [17], concessions
were made for monks who were accustomed to luxurious ways. In (24) Christodoulos, personal
servants at Patmos were required to be bearded before they could sit at table or drink wine [C4]. In
some houses the members received cash allowances to cover such expenses as clothes, which
might otherwise be a source of dispute, and bathing in establishments located outside the monas-tery,
as in (19) Attaleiates [33], [35] and (32) Mamas [28]. In other houses, however, such as the
monastery of the archangel Michael, (37) Auxentios [7], all food and clothing was distributed by

72 A. P. Kazhdan and Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in the Eleventh and Twelfth
Centuries (Berkeley-Los Angeles-London, 1985), p. 87, commented on the growing individualism in late
Byzantine monasticism, which they contrasted with the "coherent communities bound by the strict disci-pline
of the monastic orders" in the West. 73
Emil Herman, "Die Regelung der Armut in den byzantinischen Klöstern," OCP 7 (1941), esp. 419Ð
21. 23.
23 Page 24 25
PREFACE
[ xxxiv ]
the monastic officials. The typikon of Koutloumousi on Mt. Athos, which dates from 1370Ð 78,
illustrates the problems that were created by the presence in a monastery of powerful men who
expected special treatment. (59) Manuel II allowed the Athonite monks to keep a life interest in
personal property [2], and a few monasteries on Mt. Athos have remained idiorhythmic down to
the present time. Such arrangements were never sanctioned in the West, where personal poverty
was always the rule, in spite of abuses, and where the lay servants, or famuli, customarily lived
outside the monastic enclosure and worked for the community, not for individual members. 74
Mention has already been made of the internal and external monks and imposed guests who
appear in the typika and who were clearly regarded as an abuse, though their precise status is
unclear. Internal and external monks were distinguished in (28) Pantokrator [28], and Isaac
Komnenos specified that his secretary should be treated as an internal monk in (29) Kosmosoteira
[107]. Kelliotai and external monks were forbidden in (32) Mamas [26], of which the provisions,
with the addition of imposed guests, were repeated in (58) Menoikeion [11]. These sources sug-gest
that internal monks, who may have been monks assigned from other houses, lived in the
monastery but did not participate in the common life, and that external monks lived outside at the
expense of the monastery. Imposed guests were apparently appointed by the patron, but they may
have included the political prisoners who were sometimes incarcerated in monasteries.
Some monks in the West also lived outside monasteries, either when they served parishes or
administered monastic estates or as independent hermits or wandering monks, who were called
sarabaitae and gyrovagi in the Rule of Benedict. They had no special name or status, however,
when they belonged to a community and obeyed its superior. From the twelfth century on, there
were also lay pensioners or corrodians who received material support from monasteries, and some-times
lived in them, usually in return for some sort of payment. Though disapproved of by reform-ers,
corrodies were a recognized way for poor monasteries to acquire property and to use their
underoccupied facilities. 75
The authors of the typika frequently refer to monastic possessions and finances, which were a
subject of concern in both the East and the West. 76 Neophytos, in the early thirteenth century, was
opposed to the acquisition of property by his hermitage in Cyprus, (45) Neophytos [10], and in
1261Ð 80/ 81 Michael Palaiologos mentioned the resentment at the wealth of monasteries in (37)
Auxentios [9]. The security of monastic institutions was more often threatened by poverty than by
wealth, however, and the authors of most typika sought to secure both an adequate endowment for
their monasteries and, when possible, exemptions from taxes and other fiscal obligations. (60)
Charsianeites, which dates from the early fifteenth century, was exceptional in its requirement
that the monks "must pay the fisc its due . . . from the income of the monastic estates" [C8]. There

74 Ursmer Berlière, La familia dans les monastères bénédictins du moyen âge ( = Académie royale de
Belgique, Classe des lettres et des sciences morales et politiques, Mémoires in-8 o [ser. 2] 29.2) (Brussels,
1931). 75
See Howard M. Stuchert, Corrodies in the English Monasteries: A Study in English Social History
of the Middle Ages (Philadelphia, 1923). 76
Charanis, "Monastic Properties," esp. pp. 56Ð 59 and 82Ð 87. 24.
24 Page 25 26
PREFACE
[ xxxv ]
are some interesting references elsewhere in this typikon to taxes and tithes [A11] and in (34)
Machairas to the tithing of male but not of female animals, "because of the wool and the cheese"
[170]. Monastic estates were mostly run by dependencies and cultivated by dependent workers,
for whose treatment Isaac Komnenos expressed a concern in (29) Kosmosoteira [71], [76]. Two
other important sources of revenue for monasteries were gifts made at the time of entry, which
were prohibited in some houses but welcomed by others, and grants in return for liturgical com-memoration
and burial. A few houses required rich candidates to dispose of their property before
joining the community. Practice with regard to payment for entry into monasteries also varied in
the West, where compulsory payments were considered simoniacal, but voluntary offerings were
commonly accepted. 77
After the expenses of the community itself, philanthropic and elemosynary activities were the
most important drain on monastic revenues, though the typika give no indication of the proportion
of monastic income they absorbed. Almost all houses distributed alms to the poor and to travelers
at the gate (pyle or porta) and provided food and lodging in the xenodocheion, or guesthouse, and
many of them assisted orphans, prisoners, and women who lacked the wherewithal for dowries.
The hospital associated with the Pantokrator in Constantinople was unique, but many houses
supported hospices, old-age homes, and hospitals, and also bridges, which were considered a
worthy object of charity and were mentioned in several typika, including (29) Kosmosoteira [67].
In (23) Pakourianos [29], the monastic hostel at Backovo was cared for by peasants who held
responsible positions and who in some respects resembled the officeholders or ministeriales who
performed comparable duties for monasteries in the West.
The protection of monastic property often presented a greater problem than its acquisition,
and the rising concern in the eleventh and twelfth centuries over the alienation of consecrated
property paralleled the efforts of the reformers in the West to recover ecclesiastical revenues and
possessions from lay owners and to prevent further alienation to either secular or ecclesiastical
authorities. Even the greatest houses, and those with the most comprehensive privileges, were
liable to oppression and invasion by nobles and churchmen, including the emperor and the patri-arch,
and their founders tried to find the proper balance between protection and control. The ideal
was a powerful but distant protectorÑ strong enough to repel invaders but sufficiently removed
not to be an oppressor himselfÑ like the so-called umbrella-advocacy exercised by the western
emperor over Cistercian abbeys in the Holy Roman Empire or the regional protectorates estab-lished
by great prelates such as the archbishops of Mainz and Cologne.
The bishops were more often presented in the typika as a source of difficulty than of protec-tion.
Very few mentioned decrees such as the fourth canon of the Council of Chalcedon, which
granted the bishops authority over the monks in every town and region, and many of them either
failed to refer to the bishop at all or asserted that their monasteries were independent and exempt
from the bishop. In (23) Pakourianos he was excluded from the liturgical services at Backovo [3],
and at the monastery of St. Demetrios-Kellibara at Constantinople, according to the typikon issued

77 Joseph H. Lynch, Simoniacal Entry into Religious Life from 1000 to 1260: A Social, Economic, and
Legal Study (Columbus, Ohio, 1976). 25.
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PREFACE
[ xxxvi ]
by Michael Palaiologos in 1282, (38) Kellibara I, the patriarch himself was entitled only to litur-gical
commemoration [15]. Episcopal rights were explicitly rejected at the monastery at Ematha,
(36) Blemmydes, where no outsider was allowed to investigate or correct any spiritual failings [1].
This is not to say that bishops were systematically excluded from all monasteries. Their role in
confirming and blessing and occasionally in choosing new monastic superiors and in granting the
power to hear confessions has already been discussed, and their supervisory powers were recog-nized
in a few houses, as in (29) Kosmosoteira [41]. In (31) Areia, which bishop Leo of Nauplia
wrote in 1143Ð 49, the bishop had no authority over the monastery but could investigate spiritual
faults [M11], and in (35) Skoteine any misunderstandings were laid first before outside spiritual
fathers, perhaps local superiors, and then before the bishop [16]. The patriarch of Constantinople
was recognized as the protector of the monastery in (37) Auxentios [16] and had the power of
spiritual correction over the nuns in (39) Lips [1].
The authors of the typika were more likely to look for protection to secular than to ecclesias-tical
authorities. Mindful of the dangers of charistikarioi, they turned to the more restricted type
of protector known as an ephoros or prostates, who was often a ruler, a member of the founding
family, or a great noble, as in (49) Geromeri [15]. Local magnates were also sometimes used, and
Isaac Komnenos, in (29) Kosmosoteira, expected the military men in nearby villages and the
vestiaritai, or imperial bodyguards, to defend the monastery [110], [112]. Some ephoroi acted not
only as protectors in external affairs, but also as internal administrators, like commendatory ab-bots
in the West. At the monastery of St. John the Forerunner, (58) Menoikeion stated that the
ephoros worked with the superior and monastic officials on both the spiritual and the material
affairs of the community [21Ð 22]. Such a position resembled that of the western advocates, who
exercised jurisdiction in the name of the monastery and were often chosen from within the family
of the founder. The rewards of the ephoros were in principle spiritual. They were defined in (50)
Gerasimos as the remission of sins, the health of the soul and body, and a good reputation [A4],
[B5]. In practice, however, they often took a more concrete form. There was a balance in medieval
monasteries between the need for protection and the desire for independence. Just as the advo-cates
in the West inherited some aspects of lay proprietorship, the ephoroi exercised some of the
same powers as the charistikaroi, but as time went on, their authority was effectively limited.
When all forms of human protection failed, religious communities sought supernatural assis-tance,
both from God and from the saints, whose role as protectors was less prominent in the
typika than in hagiographical texts, but who are mentioned several times, as in (38) Kellibara I,
where the emperor is called upon to guard the monastery in such a way as to have "the great
athlete of Christ, Demetrios, as his legate and intermediary" [16]. Even when they were not spe-cifically
invoked, the saints were ever present in the monasteries. The images of saints appeared to
be alive at Bera, according to (29) Kosmosoteira [9]; the patron saintÑ" our fervent patron and
helper"Ñ was personally present in (32) Mamas [4], [9], [22], [46]; and in (57) Bebaia Elpis, the
saints were "living images" and "efficacious and inspiring figures" whose lives were models for
the nuns to follow [30]. The close relation between nature and supernature was characteristic of
religious life in both the East and the West and is a reminder that the monks and nuns lived in the
company of supernatural powers and the expectation of eternal salvation. Although the typika 26.
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PREFACE
[ xxxvii ]
published in these volumes are primarily concerned with the outer forms of monastic life, they
were written not only for institutions but also for the men and women who sought to lead a Chris-tian
life in religious communities, and they reflect the changing aspirations and objectives of
monks and nuns and of their patrons throughout the course of the Middle Ages.

Giles Constable 27.
27 Page 28
PREFACE
[ xxxviii ] 28.

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