The Monasteries of Jorgucat and Vanishtë in Dropull and of Spelaio in Lunxhëri as Monuments and Institutions During the Ottoman Period in Albania (16th-19th Centuries), Doctoral thesis submitted at the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies,
- Title
- The Monasteries of Jorgucat and Vanishtë in Dropull and of Spelaio in Lunxhëri as Monuments and Institutions During the Ottoman Period in Albania (16th-19th Centuries), Doctoral thesis submitted at the Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies,
- Creator(s)
- Giakoumis, Kosta
- Date
- 2002
- Language
- eng
- Publisher
- University of Birmingham
- Place Published
- Birmingham
- Abstract
- The present doctoral thesis is the outcome of a ten-year-long research project on churches and monasteries in the dioceses of the Orthodox Church of Albania. I first visited the district of Dropull in Southern Albania in 1992 and at once I was aston-ished to discover a large number of monasteries. Their presence in so tiny a district has prompted scholars to characterise Dropull as ‘Little Mount Athos’. In due course, I learned that other districts in Epiros and parts of Thessaly were also hosts to numerous monastic dwellings. The variety of roles played by the monasteries in Dropull was one of the incen-tives for my research. Until today, churches or monasteries of the post-Byzantine pe-riod have been the focus of specialists who have examined them either as monuments, from an architectural or an art historical point of view, or from a purely historical per-spective, as institutions. Attempts at cross-disciplinary approaches, however, have not hitherto been made. Neither were historians able to analyse or use architectural and art historical data, nor could architects or art historians interpret the primary historical sources in order to set in critical fashion the subject of their research in its historical context. Other studies that were confined to local phenomena but devoid of contextu-alization within general developments of Ottoman history, proved to be of limited im-portance to specialists dealing with other provinces of the empire. There remained a distinct vacuum in scholarship concerned with Church institutions. This work aspires to fill a part of the vacuum and three major issues are ad-dressed. First, the possibility of challenging the commonly-held view that the Ottoman state of the 15th and 16th century, with its centralised structures, constituted the ancestor of modern centralised democracies is investigated. In the light of the unique as I demonstrate findings in remote Albania, full centralisation was clearly neither desirable nor implemented. Secondly, a reconsideration of the various ‘catastrophe’ theories which classify the Ottoman period as ‘dark’ is undertaken. Thirdly, a macroscopic approach to the social, intellectual, religious and political roles of post-Byzantine monasteries is pursued. To respond to these issues I had to select carefully a sample region for research. Epiros and Albania were remote provinces of marginal though strategic importance for the Ottoman Empire; their histories are also an unexploited field for scholarly in-vestigation. Far from the Empire’s major centres of administration, they offered op-portunities for evaluating the power of the central government over them and for de-termining the degree of control exercised by the Ottoman state. Within these territo-ries, three monasteries, of the Prophet Elias in Jorgucat, the Annunciation in Vanishtë and the Nativity of the Virgin or Spelaio, Lunxhëri, provide quite representative yet preliminary points for research. For a start, all of them are located in the district of Gjirokastër and, comparatively speaking, relatively easy of access. Secondly, each monastery represents a different category of religious house. Jorgucat and Vanishtë were diocesan monasteries and of them the former became very wealthy in landed as-sets, while the latter remained relatively poor. Meanwhile, the Monastery of Spelaio was granted patriarchal and stavropegic status soon after its founding, a privilege that played an important part in the monastery’s life. Most of the post-Byzantine monaster-ies situated in remote districts of the empire could be classified into similar groupings. The gathering of my research material proved not to be an easy task. As peasant societies, such as Jorgucat, Vanishtë and Saraqinishtë, are bearers of a mostly oral cul-ture, they did not feel the urge to leave written records of their daily lives or activities. Furthermore, owing to the turbulent history of the regions of Southern Albania, the few related records were scattered in various places. Accordingly, in order to imple-ment the targets of this thesis, I was compelled to spread my research over a number of themes. In its initial stages I undertook lengthy field work, making prolonged visits to relevant sites. These research trips were carried out between July 1991 and October 2001 during which time I gathered data from churches and monasteries in Albania and Epiros and compared them at a later stage with the results of other field work undertaken by me in Aetolia, Thessaly and Southern Italy. To interpret my discoveries, I consulted primary sources and secondary literature in various museums, archives, libraries and research centres (for details, see the Acknowledgements). Initially, I made use of the resources in the Archives and Library of the Ecumen-ical Patriarchate, Istanbul; the General Archives of State in both Athens and Ioannina; the Byzantine Museums of Athens, Ioannina, Thessaloniki and Kastoria; the Demotik-on Museum, Ioannina; The State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg; the Central Archives of State, Tiranë; the British School of Archaeology, Athens; the Archives of the Metropolis of Ioannina; the Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and those of the ÉóôïñéêÞ êáé ÅèíïëoãéêÞ Åôaéñåßá ÅëëÜäáò; the Archives of the Institutes of History and of Monuments, Tiranë; the National Libraries of Athens and Tiranë; the Library of the University of Birmingham; the Bodleian Library, Oxford; the British Library, London; the Archives of the Archdiocese of the Orthodox Church of Albania. Furthermore, I extended my research into private archives, such the archives and library of the late + Alexandros Mammopoulos, Athens; the archives of Philippos Giovannis, Ioannina; the archives of Thomas Pappas, Athens and the archives of G. Baras, Athens. Other bibliographical research was completed in the following specialised li-braries: the library of the Department of Byzantine and post-Byzantine art and archi-tecture, University of Ioannina; the libraries of the Εταιρεία Ηπειρωτικών Μελετών and the Ίδρυμα Βορειοηπειρωτικών Ερευνών and the library of the Ηπειρωτική Εταιρεία, Athens. The material of this thesis is divided into three major sections. The first, Chapter 1, sets out the historical context in which the monasteries under discussion were founded. Emphasis is laid on how the monasteries related to the adjacent villages and their societies and how they were affected by the major developments that occurred in the Ottoman Empire from the 16th to the 19th century. I attempt to demonstrate how the founding of these monasteries coincided with a period of demographic and eco-nomic growth for the various districts of Epiros and Albania. Furthermore, I indicate how church building and decorating activity were made possible only periods of rela-tive peace and stability and reflected the financial potential of the local communities. In the second section (Chapters 2 and 3) I deal with the monasteries as monu-ments, both from the architectural and art historical perspectives. In Chapter 2, the ca-tholica of the monasteries are classified according to architectural typologies. Special attention is paid to the catholicon of the Monastery of Vanishtë, one of the most im-portant post-Byzantine monuments in Epiros. Emphasis is also given to the several companies of masons, whose works can be identified in some of the monastic edifices as well as in other church buildings. I make the suggestion that henceforth scholarship needs to concentrate on the building activity of family groups of masons in a similar way to well-known workshops of painters. Attempt has been made to investigate the legal status of church building in the Ottoman period, as well as to investigate how so many new monasteries were built in spite of the related prohibitions of the Islamic Law and interpret this phenomenon. Chapter 3 surveys the wall paintings of the mon-asteries of Jorgucat, Vanishtë and Spelaio, especially in their early-17th-century phas-es, which were painted by the artist Michael from Linotopi. The artistic activity of the Linotopi artists in several districts of Albania is also explored in this chapter. Moreo-ver, indications of ideological trends in church painting from the region of Gjirokastër during the first half of the 17th century are also provided. Finally, the third section approaches these monasteries as institutions. Stress is laid on their social functions and contribution to education (Chapter 4), fiscal life and economic relations with the local community, state authorities and the local and cen-tral ecclesiastical authorities (Chapter 5). Chapter 4 indicates that the monasteries in Epiros and Albania were closer to the more ‘social’ type of monasticism as introduced by St Basil the Great and reinforced by monasteries in Constantinople. Albeit, the var-ious social and educational roles that the monasteries played, apart from these that they played by their very being (fulfilling the people’s religious needs, offering chanc-es for social events) appeared not to be voluntary or conscious efforts. The few excep-tions pointed out in this chapter indicate either personal initiatives of individual cler-gymen, or conscious but unsystematic efforts of the Ecumenical Patriarchate to exploit monastic wealth for educational activities. Indeed, in spite of the numerous monastic schools that are said to have functioned until the 18th century and, in some instances, up to the 19th century, the monasteries in Epiros and Albania appeared to be more of-ten concerned for financial, than spiritual, social or pedagogical matters. The few, bright exceptions or the indications of paedagogical activity as revealed by indirect in-formation do not suffice to reverse the impression of them being the initiative of indi-vidual, enlightened clergymen. Finally, Chapter 5 explores the financial potential of the peasant Epirote societies in connection with the erection, painting, repairing or ex-panding projects of their monasteries, including their tax obligations to the Ottoman state and the Church. Furthermore, it surveys the background of the monasteries’ pa-trons and correlates it with estimations of the costs of the projects in which they were involved. Moreover, it values the sources of monastic income and expenses, to con-clude that the monasteries were rather rich entireties with vast tracts of lands, but, generally, with properties so dispersed that they were difficult to manage by anyone, not to mention monks, whose vocation is irrelevant to managing properties. The relat-ed research, however, showed that the monasteries were quite keen on exploiting some of their properties. In spite of monastic claims of poverty in the 19th century, there are clear indications that the monasteries retained good parts of their estates until they were confiscated by the Greek and Albanian state. However, more often than not, the increase of the monastic property had a beneficial effect to the local societies in that monastic property was of communal usufruct. The present thesis resolves a number of problems and poses new ones. First, it demonstrates that the monasteries in Epiros and Albania were, above all, integral parts of their peasant communities’ mode of existence. Secondly, it shows that the local, peasant communities in these regions enjoyed a considerable degree of autonomy, a fact which challenges earlier suppositions about the strict centralised operation of the Ottoman administrative machine in the 15th and 16th centuries. Thirdly, judging from the number of church monuments that were built and painted, the 16th and early 17th centuries can no longer be considered a ‘dark’ period. Finally, this thesis demonstrates what was hitherto common, but unsubstantiated, wisdom about monasteries: that the roles they played and the functions they performed were considerable and varied. Taken in isolation, this thesis cannot give answers to general problems; it suffices, however, to point out that there is a need for more specialised studies in this fascinat-ing area of research. Finally, it underscores the need for a global approach to the mon-asteries, both as monuments and as institutions. As a contribution to post-Byzantine monasteriology, this thesis attempts to open horizons in Church history during the Ot-toman period. For the purposes of linguistic transliteration and geographic identity I was guid-ed by practicality and convenience. With place-names, I used ‘Greek’ versions for lo-calities situated in today’s Greece and Albanian for those in modern Albania (as seen in official maps). On occasion, however, when a particular Albanian name has no long-standing tradition, as in the case of ecclesiastical districts, I use historical toponyms. Thus, Gjirokastër becomes Argyrokastron when reference is made to the title of the ecclesiastical authority (e.g. Metropolis of Argyrokastron). Furthermore, with respect to the transliteration of Greek words into English I follow the established rules cited in Konstantopoulos G. P., New English Greek and Greek English Dictionary, Athens, p. 434i-ii. When it comes to people’s names, however, I follow the contemporary, official rules of transliteration appropriate to the language in question. Thus, the letter ‘ç’, which in the case of most common nouns is given as ‘e’, becomes an ‘i’ for names and surnames (e.g. Varsamidis). Owing to technical difficulties with my Word processor (Word 6.0 for Windows 3.1) it was not possible for me to type the differently accented ‘c’ in Serbian words.
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