Papers by Zachary Chitwood
Approaching Social Hierarchies in Byzantium: Dialogues Between Rich and Poor, 2025
Endowment Studies
This short introduction prefaces an ends special issue devoted to the topic of “interreligious fo... more This short introduction prefaces an ends special issue devoted to the topic of “interreligious founding”, whose contributions stem from an online workshop held April 8th–9th, 2021. This workshop was planned as a continuation of the dialogue on charitable foundations held between experts of various academic disciplines in Tokyo (2019) and Singapore (2020). As a result of discussions begun at these venues, it has become apparent that the scholarship on endowments, which has unfolded to the greatest extent within Medieval Studies and therefore with the context of the medieval Latin West foremost in mind, has not adequately addressed the phenomenon of interreligious patronage, that is the participation in foundation activities by persons of different religious traditions.
Endowment Studies
Though the self-presentation of the Holy Mountain as a bastion of Orthodoxy and implacable foe of... more Though the self-presentation of the Holy Mountain as a bastion of Orthodoxy and implacable foe of church union is in some respects justified, popes and western rulers in fact played an important, and not always a hostile, role in the history of Mount Athos. Some of the founding figures of Athonite monasticism had Roman connections, and there were even periods in which the monasteries of Mount Athos sought the protection of popes and potentates from the West. While Athonite archives contain numerous charters stemming from Byzantine and other Orthodox rulers, and the monasteries’ vast Ottoman holdings have received increasing attention in recent years, charters issued by Latin Christian potentates and prelates have largely been overlooked. This contribution adds new information to previous studies of the relationship of Mount Athos with the Medieval West and applies the notion of interreligious founding to the Athonite context, attempting thereby to nuance the notion that Byzantine an...
Studia Universitatis Babeș-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa
Over the second half of the sixteenth century a new form of monasticism, idiorrhythmia (“living a... more Over the second half of the sixteenth century a new form of monasticism, idiorrhythmia (“living according to one’s own devices”), seemed to be spreading across the Orthodox monasteries of the Eastern Mediterranean. The communal regime practiced for centur
Endowment studies, Feb 24, 2023
Endowment Studies , 2023
Though the self-presentation of the Holy Mountain as a bastion of Orthodoxy and implacable foe of... more Though the self-presentation of the Holy Mountain as a bastion of Orthodoxy and implacable foe of church union is in some respects justified, popes and western rulers in fact played an important, and not always a hostile, role in the history of Mount Athos. Some of the founding figures of Athonite monasticism had Roman connections, and there were even periods in which the monasteries of Mount Athos sought the protection of popes and potentates from the West. While Athonite archives contain numerous charters stemming from Byzantine and other Orthodox rulers, and the monasteries' vast Ottoman holdings have received increasing attention in recent years, charters issued by Latin Christian potentates and prelates have largely been overlooked. This contribution adds new information to previous studies of the relationship of Mount Athos with the Medieval West and applies the notion of interreligious founding to the Athonite context, attempting thereby to nuance the notion that Byzantine and Latin religious patronage operated in mutually exclusive spheres, even after the so-called "Great Schism" of 1054.
Studia Universitatis Babes-Bolyai Theologia Orthodoxa Journal 68/1 , 2023
Over the second half of the sixteenth century a new form of
monasticism, idiorrhythmia (“living a... more Over the second half of the sixteenth century a new form of
monasticism, idiorrhythmia (“living according to one’s own devices”), seemed to be spreading across the Orthodox monasteries of the Eastern Mediterranean. The communal regime practiced for centuries in the venerable monasteries of the East was gradually collapsing: first at St. Catherine’s on Sinai around 1557, then at the monasteries of Palestine, including the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. When the patriarchs of Alexandria (Sylvester [1569-1590]) and Constantinople (Jeremiah II [1572-1579; 1580-1584; 1587-1595]) came together to celebrate Christmas at Thessaloniki in 1573, Sylvester was tasked with travelling to Mount Athos to investigate the state of the monastic life there. His
inquest revealed a shocking state of affairs: monks moving without hindrance to and from Athos and engaging in the sale of goods to the outside world, including spirits which they drank themselves. Beardless youths and laypersons lived in monasteries; livestock were allowed to pasture on the Holy Mountain. This contribution will examine Patriarch Sylvester’s inquest and the subsequent effort to restore communal life at the major monasteries on Athos.
Endowment Studies, 2023
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC BY 4.0 license.
Mediterranea, Apr 1, 2022
This collection of articles is the culmination of a fruitful two-day workshop on « The Translatio... more This collection of articles is the culmination of a fruitful two-day workshop on « The Translation of Arabic Scientific Texts into Greek between the 9 th and 15 th Centuries » (26-27 February 2021). The conference was organized under the auspices of the Gutenberg International Conference Center at Mainz as part of the Mainz History Talks, with support from Princeton University's Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity and Program in Medieval Studies. We heard not only a number of fascinating papers, but also, especially in the discussions, an emerging consensus regarding the need for hitherto scattered research impulses to coalesce into a more concrete framework for the development of what might be termed Arabo-Greek Studies. We hope to model Arabo-Greek Studies on the established field of Graeco-Arabic, especially in its dual usage of philological and historical approaches in analyzing the Greco-Arabic translations produced in ʿAbbasid Baghdad and elsewhere. Our conception of Arabo-Greek Studies is dedicated to the medieval translations of Arabic works into Greek, a phenomenon that we can begin to trace from the ninth century, and which continued through the fall of the Byzantine Empire. In the contributions in this issue, dedicated to scientific translations from Arabic to Greek, we see that Arabo-Greek translation was built on Graeco-Arabic foundations. Arabo-Greek translation occurred in many of the same subjects in which translations from Graeco-Arabic translations had already occurred and on subjects, like astrology, medicine, and alchemy, where the Greek tradition formed
SESSION 1 BYZANTIUM AND 13TH CENTURY PROSOPOGRAPHY Ekaterini Mitsiou | Austrian Academy of Scienc... more SESSION 1 BYZANTIUM AND 13TH CENTURY PROSOPOGRAPHY Ekaterini Mitsiou | Austrian Academy of Sciences/University of Vienna BRIDGING THE GAP: TOWARDS A PROSOPOGRAPHY OF THE LASCARID PERIOD (PLAS) The first half of the 13th century has attracted much attention as a transformative period for the Eastern Mediterranean. The capture of Constantinople (1204) changed the dynamics of the entire region through the formation of new states and socioeconomic changes within the former Byzantine territories. Three “Byzantine” states “in exile” emerged by members of the aristocracy, the “Empire of Trebizond”, the “State of Epirus” and the most successful among them, the “Empire of Nicaea” (12041261). In the historical discourse, the Nicaean Empire has been analysed in various ways. The most persistent method was the collection of the information given by written and material evidence and its presentation in a narrative. Despite its positive aspects, this traditional methodology does not suffice to an...
Konfliktlösung im Mittelalter, 2021
Die Frage nach der innergemeindlichen Konfliktlosung von Muslimen in Byzanz wird durch die Tatsac... more Die Frage nach der innergemeindlichen Konfliktlosung von Muslimen in Byzanz wird durch die Tatsache kompliziert, dass Muslime den Status einer anerkannten nicht-orthodoxen Minderheit im byzantinischen Recht bzw. politischen Denken nie erreicht haben. Im Gegensatz zu den ubrigen Minderheiten im ostromischen Reich bemuhten sich weder der Staat noch die Kirche um eine Klarung, welchen Platz Muslime im gesellschaftlichen Gefuge einnehmen sollten. Das Rechtssystem reflektierte im Wesentlichen die Sicht der spatromischen Gesellschaft des 6. Jahrhunderts: Es sah fur anerkannte Gruppen von Nichtorthodoxen – d. h. Juden, (christl.) Haretiker und Heiden – eigene Kategorien vor, nicht jedoch fur Muslime. Die „Basiliken“ („kaiserlichen“ [Gesetzbucher]), eine im 9. Jahrhundert angefertigte und hellenisierte Fassung des Corpus Iuris Civilis, sowie deren bis ins 12. Jahrhundert verfassten Scholien, verlieren kein einziges Wort uber Muslime. Aber auch bei spateren Vertretern des weltlichen und kanonischen Rechts blieb der Status der im Reich ansassigen Muslime unklar. Die byzantinischen Theologen hingegen gaben die einflussreichen Ansichten des Johannes von Damaskus und des Niketas von Byzanz uber den Islam wieder und tendierten dazu, Muslime als Anhanger einer haretischen Sekte zu betrachten, die christliche, judische und v. a. heidnische Elemente in sich verband. Erst im 15. Jahrhundert entstanden in Byzanz Texte, die den Islam als eine eigenstandige Religion behandelten.
World History as the History of Foundations, 3000 BCE to 1500 CE, 2019
Brill’s New Pauly Supplements II - Volume 10 : History and Culture of Byzantium
Endowment Studies, 2017
This article serves as an introduction to the new journal Endowment Studies ( ends ). Besides lay... more This article serves as an introduction to the new journal Endowment Studies ( ends ). Besides laying out the scope and goals of the periodical, it also charts the broader arc of historical scholarship on endowments. More specifically, the development of the research on foundations is summarized in four fields, namely Medieval Studies, Byzantine Studies, Islamic Studies and Indology. Furthermore, a general vocabulary for the core features of foundations is also proposed.
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Papers by Zachary Chitwood
monasticism, idiorrhythmia (“living according to one’s own devices”), seemed to be spreading across the Orthodox monasteries of the Eastern Mediterranean. The communal regime practiced for centuries in the venerable monasteries of the East was gradually collapsing: first at St. Catherine’s on Sinai around 1557, then at the monasteries of Palestine, including the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. When the patriarchs of Alexandria (Sylvester [1569-1590]) and Constantinople (Jeremiah II [1572-1579; 1580-1584; 1587-1595]) came together to celebrate Christmas at Thessaloniki in 1573, Sylvester was tasked with travelling to Mount Athos to investigate the state of the monastic life there. His
inquest revealed a shocking state of affairs: monks moving without hindrance to and from Athos and engaging in the sale of goods to the outside world, including spirits which they drank themselves. Beardless youths and laypersons lived in monasteries; livestock were allowed to pasture on the Holy Mountain. This contribution will examine Patriarch Sylvester’s inquest and the subsequent effort to restore communal life at the major monasteries on Athos.
monasticism, idiorrhythmia (“living according to one’s own devices”), seemed to be spreading across the Orthodox monasteries of the Eastern Mediterranean. The communal regime practiced for centuries in the venerable monasteries of the East was gradually collapsing: first at St. Catherine’s on Sinai around 1557, then at the monasteries of Palestine, including the Monastery of the Cross in Jerusalem. When the patriarchs of Alexandria (Sylvester [1569-1590]) and Constantinople (Jeremiah II [1572-1579; 1580-1584; 1587-1595]) came together to celebrate Christmas at Thessaloniki in 1573, Sylvester was tasked with travelling to Mount Athos to investigate the state of the monastic life there. His
inquest revealed a shocking state of affairs: monks moving without hindrance to and from Athos and engaging in the sale of goods to the outside world, including spirits which they drank themselves. Beardless youths and laypersons lived in monasteries; livestock were allowed to pasture on the Holy Mountain. This contribution will examine Patriarch Sylvester’s inquest and the subsequent effort to restore communal life at the major monasteries on Athos.
1. Athonite metochia in Constantinople (10th–12th Centuries) (Oltean)
2. Mount Athos and the Wealth of Constantinople (14th–16th Centuries) (Melvani)
Part 2. Problems of Property: Founding and Financing Monasteries on Medieval Mount Athos
3. General Legal Norms for Monastic Property in Byzantium and Their Implementation on Mount Athos: The Case of Hilandar (Maksimovič)
4. Pourquoi fondait-on des monastères sur l’Athos aux xe et XIe siècles? (Kaplan)
5. Annuity Endowments and Sovereign Foundations on Mount Athos (Chitwood)
Part 3. Iberian Efflorescence: Three Case Studies from the Golden Age of Iviron Monastery
6. Liturgical Commemoration and Its Material Value in the Georgian Book of Commemorations (Agapes) of Iviron Monastery (Chronz)
7. In Praise of a Businessman: The Hegumenate Account of Paul of Iviron (1170–1184) (Smyrlis)
8. The Dynamics of Donations to Iviron Monastery on Mount Athos (According to the Book of Commemorations [Agapes]) (Tabuashvili and Kekelia)
Part 4. Consolidating Wealth in a New World: Mount Athos and the Ottomans
9. Endowment, Rule, and Theology: Political Theology in the Endowment Deeds for Mount Athos of 15th- and 16th-century Wallachia (Grigore)
10. Archival Treasures of the Holy Mountain: Interpreting Ottoman and Arabic Documents as Sources of Athonite Wealth (de Obaldía)
Part 5. Material Remains: Athonite Manuscripts, Seals, and Digital Humanities
11. Byzantine Monasteries and Their Wealth as Shown by Lead Seals: The Case of the Imperial Monastery of Lakape (Filosa)
12. Manuscripts as Part of the Wealth of Athonite Monasteries (Melissakis)
13. OpenAtlas: An Open-Source Application to Map Historical Data with CIDOC CRM (Eichert, Richards and Watzinger)
Moving beyond the tradition of histoire événementielle, the contributions collected here highlight the passing of artistic practices, ideas and interlocutors between Byzantium and the Islamicate world. In this way, this volume seeks to nuance and contextualize our understanding of the relationship between these two medieval cultural spheres.