GIAKOUMIS (2)

The Perception of the Crusader in Late Byzantine and Early Post-Byzantine Ecclesiastical Painting in Epiros*

By

Konstantinos GIAKOUMIS University of New York / Tirana

CBOMGS, The University of Birmingham

“What Jeremiah will lament our woes, or what is the time that will draw away through oblivion’s current all what we were destined to live and suffer? Captures of cities, desertions of churches, sacrilege of most-holy utensils, men’s wails, women’s ululations, lootings, migrations…”

1

When Niketas Choniates, an eye-witness to the tragic events that followed the fall of Constantinople into the hands of the Crusaders of the Fourth Crusade in April 1204, wrote this statement of lamentation, very little had he witnessed of the sufferings that the former subjects of the Byzantine Empire would experience thereafter, as a consequence of the effected political, administrative and religious changes.2 Yet, the disintegration of agrarian and urban economic structures from the eleventh c. thereafter,3 which resulted in an increasingly revolutionary attitude of the Byzantine subjects, especially during the two decades of the rule of the Angeli (1185-1204),4 eventually paved the way to the

* This paper was presented in the Tenth International Congress of Greek-Oriental and African Studies held

in Kryoneri, Attica in 25-28 August 2005. I thank Dr. Angeliki Lymberopoulou, Lecturer of Byzantine Studies at the Open University, UK, for reviewing my article and her valuable comments and suggestions, as well as Mr. Peter Panchy for his thoughtful observations.

1 K. Sathas, Μεσαιωνική Βιβλιοθήκη (New York, 1972, rep.), I, p. 104. Cf. A. Papadopoulos-Kerameus, ‘Περὶ συνοικισμοῦ τῶν Ἰωαννίνων μετὰ τὴν Φραγκικὴν κατάκτησιν τῆς

Κωνσταντινουπόλεως’, Δελτίον Ἱστορικῆς καὶ Ἐθνολογικῆς Ἑταιρείας, III, p. 454, cited in N.G.

Ziangos, Φεουδαρχική Ήπειρος και Δεσποτάτο της Ελλάδας. Συμβολή στο Νέο Ελληνισμό

(Athens, 1974), p. 49 and note 5 on pp. 49-50. 2 For these issues, see E. Zachariadou, ∆έκα Τουρκικά Έγγραφα για τη Μεγάλη Εκκλησία (1483-1567)

(Athens, 1996), pp. 28-61, where references to further relevant literature. 3 For the decline of economic and agrarian forces from the eleventh century thereafter, see roughly K.M.

Setton “On the Importance of Land Tenure and Agrarian Taxation in the Byzantine Empire, from the Eleventh Century to the Fourth Crusade”, The American Journal of Philology 74:3 (1953), pp. 225-259 (253-259); and P Charanis, “Economic Factors in the Decline of the Byzantine Empire”, The Journal of Economic History 13:4 (1953), pp. 412-424 (418-424).

4 In Niketas Choniates’ words “ἄλλοι ἄλλοτε καὶ πάλιν, καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ὁσάκις εἰπεῖν,

ἐπανέστησαν” (there were those who revolted in one place or another, again and again, and it is not

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Fourth Crusaders, who found the Byzantine subjects “almost as well prepared for the implantation of their feudal institutions as its mountainous terrain proved to be suited to the construction of their feudal castles”.5 However, both, the events of April 12-15, 1204,6 as well as those after 1204, including heavier taxation for the peasantry, augmented forced labour (angary), distribution of lands as feuds to Crusaders, strict limitations of trade favouring Latin states and, last but foremost, the onerous and detestable slave trade of Orthodox war captives by western traders,7 were so crucial as to form, in the words of Bishop Kallistos of Diokleia, the “deep disgust” and “lasting horror with which Orthodox regard the sack of Constantinople by the Crusaders”, so difficult to be realized by “Christians in the west”.8

Psychologically, the issue of slave trade poisoned irremediably the relations between the eastern and western worlds. After 1204, Byzantium’s enemies, including Christians like Catalans, Venetians and Genoese, seized increasingly Orthodox Christians for the slave market to the extent that Emperor Andronikos II (1282-1328) formally protested the Genoese practice of capturing Byzantine subjects for sale in Italy and Spain.9 Furthermore, in 1339, when the Byzantine emperor sent monk Varlaam as an ambassador to the papacy in order to negotiate possibilities of common action against the Turkish threat and of a possible union of the two Churches, he set forth a number of conditions, one of which was the liberation of all of the Orthodox slaves kept by Latins

possible to say how many times this happened) [Nicetas Choniates, De Isaacio Angelo, v. III/2, Bonn, p. 553; cited and translated in K.M. Setton “On the Importance…”, The American Journal of Philology 74:3 (1953), p. 254 and note 51].

5 K.M. Setton “On the Importance…”, The American Journal of Philology 74:3 (1953), p. 259. 6 On the history of the Fourth Crusade I am hereby citing a selection of comprehensive secondary sources

which use extensively both Byzantine as well as western primary sources on the issue: E. Bradford, The Story of the Fourth Crusade (New Jersey: Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1967), reviewed by E. Velde in The History Teacher 2:2 (1969), pp. 61-62; D.E. Queller, The Fourth Crusade: The Conquest of Constantinople, 1201-1204 (Philadelphia, 1977), reviewed by J. Folda in Speculum 54:3 (1979), pp. 620-622 and by J. Riley-Smith in The English Historical Review 94/372 (1979), pp. 624-625; and W.B. Bartlett, An Ungodly War: The Sack of Constantinople and the Fourth Crusade (New York, 2000), reviewed by R.A: Sauers in The Journal of Military History 65:1 (2001), pp. 169-170. For a selection of primary sources, see E. Hallam (ed.), Chronicles of the Crusades: Eye-Witness Accounts of the Wars Between Christianity and Islam (London, 1989), pp. 198-245.

7 E. Zachariadou, ∆έκα Τουρκικά Έγγραφα, pp. 28-61. 8 T. Ware, The Orthodox Church (Baltimore, 1964), p. 69. For Byzantine negative literary reactions to the

second crusade, see E: Jeffreys – M. Jeffreys, “The “Wild Beast from the West”: Immediate Literary Reactions in Byzantium to the Second Crusade”, in A.E. Laiou – R.P. Mottahedeh (eds.), The Crusades from the Perspective of Byzantium and the Muslim World (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2001), pp. 101-116; cf. p. 117.

9 The issue of slaves and slave trade after 1204 was treated in D.J. Constantelos, Poverty, Society and Philanthropy in the Late Medieval Greek World, (New Rochelle, NY, 1992), pp. 103-114, reviewed by T.S. Miller in Speculum 69:4 (1994) pp. 1143-1145 (1144).

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and the virtual abolition of slave trade.10 In the eyes of the Orthodox, the issue of trading slaves captured by Catholic Christians and sold to Catholic Christians must have been felt at least as onerous as the trade of slaves captured by Turks and sold to Cretan Orthodox Greeks.11

The Orthodox Church, who retained her authority and influence over the Byzantine people, was another principal factor determining the relations between the Orthodox and the Roman-Catholic worlds. Beyond dogmatic and liturgical disagreements,12 there further were deep contradictions related to the daily role of the clergy. While clerical participation in military campaigns was forbidden by the Orthodox Church, the existence of Latin priest-soldiers in the ranks of the Crusader armies,13 who could hold lances and shields and also prepare the Holy Communion, shocked the Orthodox Christians.14 In addition, since 1204 the Latins, after abolishing the Patriarchate of Constantinople, continued to displace the Orthodox ecclesiastical administration from the lands they conquered. Metropolitans and bishops were not accepted in those regions and only lower members of the clergy could remain. Yet, their ordination was impossible within the occupied territories and candidates for priesthood had to travel to the zones of an Orthodox prelate where they were ordained and sent back to their parishes, such as priests from Venetian-occupied Crete, who were obliged to travel as far as Methoni to get ordained. Last, but not least, a considerable part of the church properties was confiscated,15 while the economic decline of the Byzantine Empire from the 11th to the 13th c.16 and, after 1204, “the decrease in population, economic indigence, and lack of new endowments contributed to the decline of monasticism’s social functions”17 to the extent that organized charitable activities became almost impossible.

10 E. Zachariadou, ∆έκα Τουρκικά Έγγραφα, pp. 28-61. For the treatment of slaves in 14th and 15th century

Europe, see the useful case-study of I. Origo, “The Domestic Enemy: The Eastern Slaves in Tuscany in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries”, Speculum 30:3 (1995), pp. 321-366.

11 For this issue, see A.M. Stahl (ed.), The Documents of Angelo de Cartura and Donato Fontanella. Venetian Notaries in Fourteenth Century Crete, (Washington D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 2000), passim; this phenomenon was kindly brought to my attention by Dr. A. Lymberopoulou.

12 For these differences set in their historical context, I cite two basic sources: A. Papadakis, The Christian East and the Rise of the Papacy. The Church (1071-1453 A.D.) (Crestwood-New York: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1994); T. Ware, Eustratios Argenti: A study of the Greek Church under Turkish Rule (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1964); and T.M. Kolbaba, “Byzantine Perceptions of Latin Religious “Errors”: Themes and Changes from 850 to 1350”, in A.E. Laiou – R.P. Mottahedeh (eds.), The Crusades, pp. 117-143.

13 See, for example, the scene from the Bayeux Tapestry interpretation of the Battle of Hastings (1066). On the extreme left is Bishop Odo, wearing what may be a hauberk of scale armour and carrying a mace of cudgel form, while on the extreme right, William of Normandy raises his helmet by its nasal (D. Edge D. – J.M. Paddock, Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight, [London, 1988], p. 31).

14 E. Zachariadou, ∆έκα Τουρκικά Έγγραφα, pp. 31-32. 15 E. Zachariadou, ∆έκα Τουρκικά Έγγραφα, pp. 28-61. 16 See note 3. 17 D. Constantelos, Poverty, pp. 88-89.


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Sensibly, the inhabitants of several non-Venetian-dominated cities and villages under the guidance of Orthodox prelates or monks gradually adopted an intense hostile attitude towards the Roman-Catholic world, which, later, paved the way to the Ottoman occupation of the Balkans.18 Yet, we are still unaware of the popular feelings of Orthodox Christians towards western Christianity in Venetian-dominated territories.19

Lying between East and West [fig. 1], Epiros20 were among the remotest provinces of the Balkans. Their limited natural resources, inaccessible shores, swampy plains and compact mountain-chains cut them off from most of the arterial roads of the Balkan Peninsula and made them a province of secondary importance. It was only the Ionian Islands, the Epirotic ports and the Otranto straits that were Epiros’ constant bridgehead towards the Apennine peninsula. For, when a Balkan state assumed power, it attempted unceasingly to control the Epirotic coasts in order to keep an eye on the opposite shore. Correspondingly, whenever a great power rose in the Italian peninsula, it felt the urge to take control of the passages and the opposite coasts. Access to the Balkan centres was chiefly made possible by the Via Egnatia,21 whose major ports in the Adriatic, Durrës and Vlorë, were among the most important cities of Epiros. Thus, the provinces of Epiros were before all a border district of great strategic importance, whose population’s favour must have been a distinct policy of both eastern and western powers.

This paper aims at penetrating into the nebulous relations of Epiros with the Latin West after 1204. In so doing, I shall take into consideration representations of Latin soldiers, in general, and Crusaders, in particular, in ecclesiastical paintings of two late Byzantine churches and several early post-Byzantine churches and catholica. In late Byzantine paintings, Crusaders are identified in the soldiers from the scene of the Marys at the Tomb in the frescoes of the Church of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë (S. Albania, last quarter of the 13th c.), in the scene of Christ’s Betrayal by Judas in the church of the

18 See note 12. 19 Dr. A. Lymberopoulou informed me that in an upcoming article of hers at The Warburg Journal she takes

a different line of arguing on this issue using cases from Crete. Sharon Gerstel has attributed certain distinctive elements of Frankish influence in the monumental decoration of medieval Morea to an ‘artistic symbiosis’ which ‘places Morea in the midst of a number of Mediterranean locations where indigenous populations were confronted by Crusader overlords and where hybrid art forms arose from the interaction of two, and perhaps more, cultures’ (S.E.J. Gerstel, “Art and Identity in the Medieval Morea”, in A.E. Laiou – R.P. Mottahedeh (eds.), The Crusades, pp. 263-285 [264, 280]).

20 With respect to the geography and climate of Epiros, aside from personal observations, I have also referred to: M. Arapoglou, “Ο συµβολισµός του χώρου”, Ηπειρωτικό Ηµερολόγιο 15-16 (1993-94), pp. 44-52; P. Halstead, “Μεσογειακή ορεινή οικονοµία στην Πίνδο· µετακινήσεις ανάµεσα στο παρόν και το παρελθόν”, in Η επαρχία Κόνιτσας στο χώρο και το χρόνο (Κόνιτσα, 1996), pp. 63-64; M. Kiel, Ottoman Architecture in Albania 1385 - 1912 (Istanbul, 1990), p. 14 and V. Psimouli, Σούλι και Σουλιώτες (Athens, 1998), pp. 19-21, where additional literature. The term in its use in this article is irrelevant to the political connotations given to it at the end of the 19th century and most parts of the 20th century. In our times, the regions of Epiros are situated in both Greece and Albania.

21 For the most recent study with respect to the via Egnatia in Ottoman times see: E. Zachariadou (ed.), The Via Egnatia under Ottoman Rule, 1380-1699 (Rethymnon, 1996).


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Nativity of the Virgin on the island of Maligrad (W. Albania, 1369), as well as in scenes related to Christ’s Passion and to several martyrdoms of saints in the narthex of the catholicon of Philanthropenon Monastery (1560), the naos of the Diliou Monastery (1542/3), the naos of Eleousa Monastery (third quarter of 16th c.) , on the Isle of Ioannina, as well as several other 16th and 17th c. monuments in modern day Albania. Pursuing iconological and perceptive methods of art historical inquiry in one particular case-study, the Marys at the Tomb in the church of St. George at Dhivër and correlating seeming similarities of late-Byzantine and early post-Byzantine examples from Epiros and beyond, I shall attempt to unveil the dark and base memories left over by Crusaders and other Latin armies and to weave the historical stage that shaped collective memory in peripheral regions, like Epiros. Last but not least, I will endeavour to trace the beginning and the gradual fading of “hostile” and anti-western visual statements in Epiros.

The cave-church of St. George at Dhivër [fig. 2] is situated on the foot of a limestone cliff, in which some extensive caverns have been formed partly naturally, partly artificially [fig. 3]. During the Byzantine period, the most inaccessible among them, placed to a higher plane, were transmuted to hermitages of anchorite monks. Considering that in some of these caves were found traces of fresco paintings, it is sensible to suggest that these caves once constituted a wider monastic cell.

One of these caves, twenty feet above the base of the cliff, has been fitted up as a chapel built on a protrusion of the rock, approachable only by a narrow path carved on the stone [fig. 4]. The walls of the hermitage are based on a rocky platform, on which a slanting, supportive wall ascends [fig. 3]. The walls cover mostly the western part of the chapel and to a lesser extent its narrow northern and southern sides [fig. 4]. To the East no walls were built and the altar was carved in the rocky front of the cavern [fig. 5].

Three inscriptions were located in the church. Two of them are displayed in the narthex and are written the one on the top of the other and divided by a red line on the lintel of the entrance to the naos. The upper one reads: «…[Ἀ]ΝΟΙΚΟΔΟ[ΜΗΣΕΝ]

…» [‘…rebuilt…’], while the lower one: «…ΝΟΣ …Ν ΑΓΙΑΝ …» [‘……saint……’]. Finally, the third inscription is placed below the scene of Christ the Saviour: «∆ΕΗΣΙΣ ΤΟΥ ∆ΟΥΛΟΥ ΣΟΥ ΙΣΙ∆ΟΡΟΥ ΙΕΡΕΩΣ ΣΥµΒΙΟΥ Κ(ΑΙ) ΠΑΙ∆ΩΝ ΑΥΤΟΥ» [‘Prayer of your servant, Isidore priest, along with his wife and children’] [fig. 6]. The last inscription refers to the patron of the frescoes, a certain priest named Isidore, who appears to have had the means to sponsor such an undertaking.

The internal space of the chapel is articulated in three distinct, built parts [fig. 7]: the narthex to the North, the naos in the middle and a cramped shrine to the South. The middle part bears a carved altar in the eastern side, where an altar base of rock decorated with overlaid 13th c. marble entablature spolia [fig. 8].

All three parts of the monument are painted [fig. 9] with frescoes made in three pictorial phases dated to the 11th (Sts. Kosmas and Damian in the Parabema), the last


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quarter of the 13th c. (remaining scenes from shrine/parabema, the Dodekaorton cycle, Sts. Nikolaos, George and Demetrius),22 and the last quarter of the 14th c. (narthex) respectively23. The iconographic programme follows the established patterns of fresco decoration in cave-churches.24

Studying the iconographic programmes of ecclesiastical monuments provides several hints to understand a past, whose creators were mostly bearers of a rich oral culture who however left only few written records. Every image in ecclesiastical paintings is an exegesis, literally meaning ‘leading out’, an interpretation of a religious event. Even though images shape visual memory of how the past looked like, the use of image as exegesis changed over time. The Byzantines in their writings show themselves to be fully aware of the power of image to keep memories alive and interpret the past in a way that texts didn’t (i.e. visions of saints, etc.). Sylvester Syropoulos records an objection, raised by the Byzantine emperor's confessor, Gregory Melissenos, to using a Latin-rite church for Orthodox services during the Council of Ferrara (1438) as follows: “When I enter a Latin church, I do not revere any of the saints that are there because I do not

22 Apart from arguments to be developed in dealing with the scene of the Marys at the Tomb, the Dormition

of the Virgin in our chapel bears similarities with the same scene in the church of St. Nikolaos of Kasnitze (1160-1180) in terms of the Virgin’s rightward time on the bier, the scene’s arrangement and the bier’s cover decorated with rhombuses (M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, Βυζαντινές Τοιχογραφίες [Athens, 1994] fig. 43 on p. 71 and p. 220 and S. Pelekanidis – M. Chatzedakis, Καστοριά, fig. 16 on p. 63 and pp. 50-65), while the overall scene’s arrangement resembles with that of the Virgin at Assinou (1105-1106) [M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, op. cit., fig. 27 on pp. 56-57]. The most remarkable resemblance, however, is with the similar scene at the church of the Virgin Mavriotissa in Kastoria dated to the beginning of the 13th century [M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, op. cit., fig. 75-77 on pp. 102-103, 230 and S. Pelekanidis – M. Chatzidakis, op. cit., pp. 63-83]. Archaic rendering is also followed in the representation of the conch’s hierarchs, whose linearity is reminiscent of the hierarchs of the apse of the Sts. Anargyroi church, Kastoria, or St. Daniel the stylite, all dating to the first pictorial phase of the church, in the second half of the 10th century [op. cit.], with several saints of the church of St. Nikolaos Diarosite (M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, “Άγιος Γεώργιος ο ∆ιασορίτης”, in M. Chatzidakis, Νάξος (Athens, 1999), pp. 66-79) and in particular with Sts. Vlasios [fig. 13-14 on p. 76] and Nikolaos [fig. 6, on p. 71] dating in the middle of the 11th century, and with saints placed in medallions in the church of the Virgin Arakos, Lagoudera, Cypru dating 1192 (M. Acheimastou-Potamianou, op. cit., fig. 61 on p. 88 and pp. 226-227).

23 For the dating of this third pictorial phase I am based on similarities between the portrait of the female of the donor in our church with that of Kalia in the church of the Nativity of the Virgin on the island of Maligrad, dating 1368/9. Theofan Popa mistakenly dated the chapel in four pictorial phases: I. The narthex’s Dormition of the Virgin [mistaken identification] to the end of the 9th century. II. The naos’ Dormition of the Virgin and Sts. George, Nikolaos and Demetrios to the 15th c. III. The Marys at the Tomb, the Ascension and David to the 17th century. IV. The Archangels Michael, St. George and Christ in the type of the “Eldest of Days” to later than the 17th century (Th. Popa “Piktura e shpellave eremite në Shqipëri [Resumé: La peinture des grottes d’ ermites en Albanie]”, Studime Historike 3 [1965], pp. 88-89, fig. 20).

24 Due to the spatial limitations of cave-churches, the iconographic programme is limited to only a few Christological scenes very basic from a theological viewpoint, such as the Annunciation, the Baptism, and the Transfiguration, from the historical cycle, the Crucifixion and the Descent to Limbo. Similarly limited is the number of full-length saints.


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recognize any of them. At the most, I may recognize Christ, but I do not revere Him either, since I do not know in what terms he is inscribed. So I make the sign of the cross and I revere this sign that I have made myself, and not anything that I see there.”25 Hence, as often images condition the way we hear names (i.e. the Virgin Hodeghetria) and feel, Gregory Melissenos could have no devotional experience without the identification of the depicted figure or its inscription.

On the northern wall of the naos of St. George at Dhivër, in the second zone of frescoes, there are two scenes [fig. 10], one of which is of great interest for our ends. It concerns the representation of the Marys at the Tomb [fig. 11] in the western part of the wall. The picture’s left part is entirely damaged and only its right is preserved in relatively decent condition. At the top right corner appears an empty cave, below which a sarcophagus with an open top contains Jesus’ cerement. At the left of the sarcophagus, a standing angel points at the sarcophagus with his right index finger. At the bottom right corner [fig. 12] seven custody soldiers in full panoply appear to be petrified out of terror for the angel’s appearance and the removal of the Sepulchre’s stone. At their left, two standing female figures, turning away from the sarcophagus out of fear, can be identified from the lower parts of their mantles. The subject renders visually Mathew’s description of the meeting of the two Marys with the angel at the Sepulchre, alternatively known as ‘Rejoice’ [Mt. 27:59-28:15; cf. Mk. 15:44-16; Lk. 23:53-24:7; John 19:40-20:18].

Any given image not only constructs or reconstructs visually the biblical past, but also envisages links between this past and the period’s present. Since at the time when our frescoes were made (last quarter of the 13th c.) there was no living eye-witness memory of the biblical event, while no written account of the ‘Marys at the Tomb’ records minutiae details, such as the angel’s physiognomy, clothing, and the appearance of the custody, the rendering of such details relies on the initiative of the artist or its patron. As will be shown, in the ‘Marys at the Tomb’, the representation of the soldiers of the Sepulchre’s custody manipulates visual memory of the distant past to condemn a newly-created visual memory of the very recent present.

The panoply of the soldiers presents realistically explicit features of Latin knights’ panoplies that also provide a terminus for the dating of our frescoes. The body armour consists firstly and foremost of a scale hauberk with an integral coif; similar examples can be traced in the first half of the 12th c., such as in a stone relief dated ca. 1128, from Angoulême Cathedral (with an integral coif)26 and in a metal relief of a knight, part of the decoration on the Gross-Comburg chandelier, ca. 1140 (without a coif).27 [fig. 13] A cylindrical helm is worn by five soldiers over the coif, whose sides taper slightly towards

25 C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312-1453: Sources and Documents (Toronto: University of

Toronto Press, 1986), p. 254. 26 D. Edge – J.M. Paddock, Arms and Armour of the Medieval Knight (London, 1988), fig on p. 45. 27 Op. cit., bottom right figure on p. 48.


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the base, as in the helmets of the knights of Macchabees’ Battle in the Bible of Rhodes, dating late 10th or 11th c.,28 [fig. 14] while its top is delicately domed, rather than conical, resembling examples from the late 12th and 13th c., as after the middle of the 12th c. the skull of the helm became rounded rather than pointed,29 while in our case a nasal bar is also fitted. The legs of our soldiers are covered by chausses made of full mail stocking gartered at the knee, similar to some church effigies and sculptural monuments dating from the early part of the 13th c.30 They also bear long sleeves of the scaled hauberk, a phenomenon observed in armours from the last decades of the 12th c.,31 yet not covering the palms and wrists, as this would have impeded one’s grip of a weapon.

The soldiers of the custody are also equipped with shields and lances. The shields are triangular [fig. 15], rather short and decorated with straight or undulating, vertical or horizontal strips coloured alternatively in red and white. These are similar to late 12th c. examples,32 while their upper edge is almost straight. This form pertains to late 12th c. modifications of the shield’s size and form from large with a rounded profile to the upper edge, to straighter and shorter, modifications that took place in the second half of the 12th c.33 According to David Edge and John Miles Paddock, “throughout the 12th c. the knight had used the kite-shaped shield to the virtual exclusion of all other types. However, at the beginning of the 13th c. it was shortened and the top of the shield lost its very prominent curve. In conjunction with this the profile of the shield became less convex and took on a triangular shape. However, until the 1250s the shield was still moderately large” and it was only “within the next 20 years that the shield became smaller and its sides convex”, probably best exemplified in a relief from the tomb of Gulielmo Beradi, in the church of Santa Annunziata, Florence and dated ca. 1289 [fig. 16].34 The lance appears to be the sole weapon of these knights. Their form resembles 13th c. rather than 12th c. lances, since their heads are comparatively smaller as their profile more sharply pointed and consequently more penetrative.35 [fig. 17]

All of the aforementioned elements, in my view, do not point to a singular prototype, but rather to various parts of a knight’s panoply dating from the second half of the 12th c. to 1270s. This is among the reasons why I have suggested the last quarter of the 13th c. as the most likely dating of the frescoes of the second phase.

28 Op. cit., figure on p. 29. 29 Op. cit., p. 44; I did not manage to take into consideration the English ‘Psalter of St. Louis’, ca. 1200. 30 Op. cit., p. 45. 31 Op. cit. 32 See for example an initial from the Winchester Bible, ca. 1170 in op. cit., figure on p. 46. 33 Op. cit. 34 Op. cit., fig. on p. 62. 35 Op. cit., p. 46. For this, compare the lances represented in the initial from the Winchester Bible, ca. 1170

in op. cit., figure on p. 46 with those in a panel from the Silver Shrine of Charlemagne in Aachen Cathedral, ca. 1207, in op. cit., p. 55.


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1. A map of Albania and detail of the Sarandë region


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2. Hermitage of St. george at Dhivër, Sarandë. A view of the limestone cliff with extensive caverns frormed partly naturally and partly artificially.


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3. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. SW and NW views.


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4. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. SW and NW views.


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5. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. Cross-section (1-1)

2. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë , last quarter of the 13th century. The apse of the church with the altar stone and co-celebrating hierarchs


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6. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. The scene of Christ the Saviour and an inscription below it mentioning the patrons of the frescoes, a certain priest named Isidore along with his wife and children. Last quarter of the 13th century


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7. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. A view of the naos from the West. In the far end the entrance to the parabema. At the right the church’s ground plan


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8. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. The apse of the church with the altar stone and co-celebrating hierarchs


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Index of the Iconographic Programme of the Cavern of St. Georgeat Stilo-Dhivër

1. Saint Jacob, 2. Saint Basil or Cyril, 3. Lord Sabaoth, 4. Saint Kosmas, 5. Saint Damian, 6. Prophet Elijah, 7. Unidentified saint, 8. Unidentified saint, 9. Unidentified saint, 10. Unidentified saint, 11. Christ, 12. Saint Daniel the Stylite, 13. Saint Symeon the Stylite, 14. Saint Vlasios, 15. Saint Athanasios, 16. Saint Basil, 17. Saint John Chrysostome, 18. Saint Gregory, 19. Saint Martin, 20. Inscription «…ΦΗ…», 21. Deisis and Annunciation (the Virgin Mary), 22. Lord Sabaoth and Annunciation (Archangel Gabriel), 23. Transfiguration, 24. Unidentified saint, 25. Archangel Michael, 26. Easter Morning, 27. The Descent to Hades, 28. Unidentified saint, 29. Saint Demetrius, 30. Saint George, 31. Saint Nikolaos, 32. The Dormition of the Theotokos, 33. The Saviour, 34. The Ascension, 35. Prophet David, 36. Unidentified saint, 37. Saint George, 38. Christ (Emmanuel), 39. The Theotokos with the portrait of a donor, 40. Portraits of donors, 41. Christ in a mandorla .

9. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. A view from beneath the church which maps the frescoes. Select a number and see the underlying fresco. Refer to the table below for a complete listing of the artwork


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10. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. Naos. Northern wall. Second zone of frescoes. The Descent to Hades. Last quarter of the 13th century


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11. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. Naos. Northern wall. Second zone of frescoes. Easter Morning. Last quarter of the 13th century


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12. Hermitage of St. George at Dhivër, Sarandë. Naos. Northern wall. Easter Morning. Second zone of frescoes. Detail of the sleeping soldiers of the Sepulchre’s custody. Last quarter of the 13th century


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13. A stone relief with two mounted knightsdated ca. 1128, from Angoulême Cathedral (with an integral coif) and a metal relief of a knight, part of the decoration on the Gross-Comburg chaldelier, ca. 1140 (without a coif) compared with our soldiers


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14. Knights of Macchabees’ Battle in the Bible of Rhodes, dating late 10th or 11th century with helmets comparable to those of our soldiers


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15. An initial from the Winchester Bible, ca. 1170. Notice the strips of red and white/pink on the shields, in conjunction to the similar patterns on the shields of our soldiers


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16. A relief from the tomb of Gulielmo Beradi, in the church of Santa Annunziata, Florence, ca. 1289. Notice the triangular form of the shield in comparison with the shields of our soldiers


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17. An initial from the Winchester Bible, ca. 1170, a panel from the Silver Shrine of Charlemagne in Aachen Cathedral, ca. 1207 and our soldiers. Notice how the lances in our scene are closer to the 1207 example