Reassessing the Visual Networks of Barlaam and Ioasaph

Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond: Reassessing the Visual Networks of Barlaam and Ioasaph

Cecily J. Hilsdale

The Medieval Globe, Volume 3, Issue 2, 2017, pp. 57-96 (Article)

Published by Arc Humanities Press

For additional information about this article https://muse.jhu.edu/article/758486

[ Access provided at 27 Sep 2021 07:49 GMT with no institutional affiliation ] 57

WORLDLINESS IN BYZANTIUM AND BEYOND: REASSESSING THE VISUAL NETWORKS OF BARLAAM AND IOASAPH

CECILY J. HILSDALE

of the global turn in art history, scholars redirect attention from If, as part 1 “roots” to “routes,” then manuscript studies—as traditionally defined—might be in trouble. Conventional approaches have focused on the former, tracing recension schemas in an attempt to recreate the pictorial programs of lost archetypes from

later copies, charting lines of pictorial “influence.” Individual manuscripts, accord-

ing to this line of thought, are valued primarily2 as “witnesses” to lost originals as

part of an always-elusive recuperative agenda. 3 While many scholars have offered cogent critiques of this genealogical method, the quest for origins still looms large, especially for manuscript traditions that span multiple cultural contexts. The shortcomings of this method are thrown into especially sharp contrast by Barlaam and Ioasaph the corpus of manuscripts that form the core of this essay: the illustrated Greek copies of , a high-drama edifying tale based loosely on the life of the Buddha and translated into a staggering number of languages from

around the medieval and early modern world. Specialized studies have attended

to individual recension programs and modes4 of translation, while cross-cultural overviews showcase the tale’s wide currency. Alongside this wide terrain of textual diffusion is a significant, and somewhat unwieldy, body of visual material. Of the roughly 160 surviving Greek manuscripts of the text, a dozen were conceived

In addition to an anonymous reader, I would like to thank the following colleagues for con- versations about the topic or feedback on the piece, whose shortcomings remain my own: Barbara Crostini, Shannon Gayk, Aden Kumler, Amanda Luyster, Peggy McCracken, Christina Normore, Jonathan Sachs, and especially Carol Symes. While Brooke Andrade and Sarah Harris of the National Humanities Center offered bibliographic assistance at the early stages of this project, Alexandra Kelebay, Catherine Becker, and Columba Stewart were instrumen- tal in sourcing the final images. This research was funded by a grant from the Social Sciences

and1 Humanities Research Council of Canada. Routes Objects See Clifford, “Traveling Cultures” and “Diasporas” in . This paradigm is taken up

productively2 by Flood, Illustrations..

3 For example, Weitzmann, For example, Dolezal, “Elusive Quest” and “Manuscript Studies.” See also Lowden,

“Transmission.”4 In Search Lopez and McCracken, .

The Medieval Globe 3.2 (2017) 10.17302/TMG.3- 2.4 pp. 57–96 58

58 Cecily J. Hilsdale

as illustrated copies; their pictorial programs first5 received systematic attention from Sirapie Der Nersessian, whose study of 1937 is complemented by the recent critical edition of the Greek text by Robert Volk. Both are firmly anchored in a roots-origins approach: Der Nersessian imagined a singular (lost) iconographic prototype of ca. 1000, whereas Volk posited five versions of the text and three distinct pictorial cycles. In addition to the illuminated manuscripts themselves, imagery drawn from the legend has found its way into a variety of other artistic contexts around the globe. Despite much rigorous scholarship, however, our understanding of this diffuse visual corpus is still somewhat fragmentary, and issues of transmission overshadow virtually all other potential research questions. This essay synthesizes some of this material in order to reflect on the creative adaptation, particularization, and local inflection of a medieval cultural kosmos

phenomenon so widespread as to be truly global—in a very medieval6 sense. The “world” as figured in the Greek encompasses a range of concepts from adornment and aesthetics to world order and the universe itself. Drawing on such expansive associations, worldliness will serve as this essay’s key heuristic Barlaam and Ioasaph and Byzantium—the Greek-speaking eastern Roman Empire—as the epicentre of cultural encounter from which the story of acquired a worldwide appeal. Moreover, the diffusion of its iconography, which has generally been understood as a one-way migration from the east to the west, is more accurately captured through a study of multiple routes, rather than through a teleology that reduces Byzantium to a mere storehouse for rich source material on its predetermined journey towards western Europe. This, of course, is part of a much larger effort to address the problematic narrative of Byzantium’s “influence” on European art, in which Byzantine material is viewed as conservative and static, in contrast to innovative and dynamic Western adaptations of it. On the contrary, my study’s emphasis on mondialisation worldliness reveals the nuance, mutability, and political repurposing of such

materials, and their role in acts of7 , a term that stresses ongo- ing processes of world formation. To this end, Sharon Kinoshita has adopted “worlding” as a critical and destabilizing interpretive stance, one that stresses

5 L’Illustration Die Schriften VI/1 Die Schriften VI/2 Barlaam and Ioasaph Der Nersessian, (hereafter Der Nersessian); Volk, (hereaf-

ter6 Volk) and (hereafter ). Epigram Finkelberg, “On the History,” treats the ancient philological context of the word; Drpić, kosmesis , discusses its meanings in Byzantium, especially regarding epigrams as adornment

(7 ). Creation Key here is Nancy, . See also Flood et al., “Roundtable.” 59

59 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

8 contingency rather than the inevitability of (modern) globalization. In the context of the present study, this worlding is ironically carried out through the changing forms of a tale that purportedly advocates the renunciation of the worldly. In what follows, my analysis moves from the textual peregrinations of the story itself to the permutations of the related visual material in multiple contexts within and beyond Byzantium, to see what kinds of worlds they create and navigate. From Enlightenment to Edification

Kitāb Bilawhar wa Būḏāsf Balavariani Barlaam and Ioasaph Barlaam and Josaphat Known in Arabic as the , in Georgian as the , in Greek as , and in Latin as , the different versions of the story share the same basic premise and plot structure in order to promote a message of worldly renunciation and conversion. Echoing the narrative of the Buddha’s enlightenment, it tells how a prediction of the young prince’s destiny prompts his father, the king of India, to shield him from all signs of pain and mortality: an endeavour that proves futile when the prince ultimately chooses the spiritual over the material. Despite many other points of convergence with the Buddhist story, the Christian and Muslim versions fundamentally alter the narra-

tive by introducing the figure of an ascetic teacher who plays a pivotal role in the

prince’s 9spiritual journey, in contradistinction to the solidary enlightenment of the Buddha. The privileging of this spiritual advisor, Bilawhar or Barlaam, in the titles of all versions of the tale underscores this profound shift in focus from enlightenment to edification—not only of the prince but also the reader, for whom the text becomes the teacher. The legend of the Buddha’s life is thought to have traveled from India as part of the cultural traffic along the Silk Roads, where it might have been translated

from Sanskrit (or another Indian language) into Pahlavi (Middle Persian) and Kitāb Bilawhar wa Būḏāsf then combined with a variety of Arabic literary sources and sermons to become10 the compiled in ninth-century Abbasid Baghdad. The 8

9 Kinoshita, “Worlding” and “Painter, Warrior,” on the connected historiespaideia of Marco Polo. See e.g. de Blois, “On the Sources.” The importance of Christian is stressed by Crostini, “Spiritual ‘Encyclopedias’,” 213–29, esp. 227; as well as Crostini, “Eleventh-Century Monasticism,” 216–30. I would like to thank the author for sharing this essay with me in

advance10 of itsLe publication. Livre Gimaret, , offers an extensive study of this Arabic narrative, its diverse source materials, and variations. My account of the story’s transmission is simplified for clarity: for example, I do not discuss the Manichean fragments of the text nor do I elaborate the stemmas of the different versions. 60

60 Cecily J. Hilsdale

first extant written version of the story was thus part of the Abbasid translation movement, the significance of which cannot be overemphasized: in the famed

“House of Wisdom,” scholars in Baghdad collaborated on translations, interpret-

ations, and scientific writings that fueled profound developments in all areas of Kalila wa Dimna 11 Pañcatantra knowledge both within and beyond Islamic lands. (This route parallels that of

, another collection of moral tales, the , which was

translated into Arabic from the Sanskrit through a no-longer extant Pahlavi inter- Kitāb Bilawhar12 wa Būḏāsf mediary. ) While the tale’s moral import is clear, the religious orthodoxy of the

is ambiguous. There is only one brief mention of Islam

in the text; no reference to Muhammad; and the ascetic tenets13 that form the basis of the prince’s instruction are called merely “the Religion.” In the later Greek and Latin Christian versions, as in the Arabic, the plot is more of a pretext for Bilawhar’s teachings, which are elaborated as a series of parables. Balavariani The first extant Christian iteration of the tale, indeed, was adapted into an emphatic account of monastic triumphalism. This was composed by Georgian monks in Jerusalem, probably at Mar Saba, in the tenth century: a time and place when the story’s celebration of asceticism would have resonated strongly. Here, “the

Religion” is identified explicitly as Christianity, with the royal father, King Abenes,

cast as “a man of strong pagan14 beliefs” persecuting the “hated servants of Christ” in an effort to protect his son. Similarly, the rather generic ascetic parables of the ear- lier story in Arabic are transformed into parables that serve to illuminate Christian truths. To accomplish this, the Georgian version selectively reduces the number of parables to those that can best illuminate Christian ascetic practice, specifically.

The subsequent Greek edition produced by Euthymios (d. 1028), in the Iviron Balavariani monastery on Mount15 Athos, added an even more elaborate exegetical gloss to the narrative frame. Whereas the opens with the pagan king persecuting 11 Greek Thought

12 Gutas, Kalila, esp. wa Dimna175–86. On the routes of , see Kinoshita, “Translatio/n, Empire,” and also below. D’Orient en Occident On the confluence of these frame-tales and their trajectories, see Uhlig and Foehr-Janssens,

13eds., . In Search, Building on Gimaret’s work, Lopez and McCracken ( 54–89) contextualize the Arabic version within the framework of Muslim understandings of Buddhism. On the sectarian issues raised by the two Arabic recensions, see de Blois, “On the Sources.” See D’Orient en Occident also Gimaret, “Traces”; and, more recently, Genequand’s contribution to Uhlig and Foehr-

Janssens,14 Balavarianieds., , 67–77. In Search of the Christian Buddha

15 Lang, ; Lopez and McCracken, , 90–121.

The earliest Greek copy was produced ca. 1021, thus putting the preparations of the Greek text between 963 and 1021, according to Volk. On its immediate audience, see Pérez Martín, “Apuntes.” 61

61 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Barlaam and Ioasaph Christians in his land of India—plunging the reader straight into the narrative— begins with a lengthy prelude on the edifying purpose of the book and a prefatory digression on India’s evangelization by the apostle Thomas. It also describes monastic foundations in Egypt, devoting far more attention to the “glorious band of Christians and the companies of monks” than to the pagan king’s worldly majesty. While maintaining the basic narrative structure, the Greek version further elaborates points of Orthodox Christian dogma and monastic virtue. The number of parables are even more reduced than in the Georgian version, and the resulting space is filled by additional exegetical material, including many scrip-

tural passages, citations from the Church Fathers, and other sources. As Lopez and McCracken aptly put it, “If the anonymous Georgian monk Christianized the Arabic Barlaam and Ioasaph 16 tale, the Greek monk theologized it.” Barlaam and The Greek served as the basis for subsequent Armenian, Josaphat Slavic, Ethiopian, and Christian Arabic versions, as well as the Latin , later rendered into an extremely diverse range of European vernacu- 17 Speculum historiae lars. In addition to the versions by Gui de Cambrai and Rudolf von Ems, an abbre- Golden Legend viation is included in the popular of Vincent18 of Beauvais and the even more popular of Jacques de Voragine. The European versions Golden Legend differ markedly both from each other and from the Byzantine “source.” For exam-

ple, the reduces the narrative to the most essential elements and

eliminates the didacticism of the Greek version, in19 order to humanize and drama-

tize “the lived experience of Christian doctrine.” By contrast, Gui de Cambrai’s

French version transforms this humanized piety20 into a feudal tale with Josaphat serving as the “bellicose crusader for Christ.” The many versions of the story thus represent a series of creative adaptations to serve local or confessional needs. Narrative details, contexts, and purposes were malleable, but the core element was

16 In Search of the Christian Buddha

Lopez and McCracken, , 133. The textual sources are

thoroughly17 discussed by Volk. The tale was translated into Latin in Amalfi in 1047/8, but a second twelfth-century Le Roman translation was the main catalyst for the European dissemination of the story. On the French and Latin manuscripts, see Sonet, . In addition, another entirely independent

Greek-to-French vernacular translation was made in Constantinople in the thirteenth century, in the margins of Iviron 463 (see below). A critical edition of this French text is under-

way;18 for now, seeBarlaam Egedi-Kovács, und Josaphat “La Traduction française.” Barlaam und Josaphat

19 See Cordoni, In Search ; and Cordoni and Meyer, eds., . Lopez and McCracken, , 143. For the most part, the parables are merely refer-

enced20 rather than elaborated.Barlaam and Josaphat Ibid.; Gui de Cambrai, , trans. McCracken. 62

62 Cecily J. Hilsdale

the heroic investment in ascetic life. In its myriad iterations across cultures and languages, this most worldly of medieval stories stressed worldly renunciation. Visual Edification in Byzantium and Beyond

Unlike surviving Arabic and Georgian versions of the tale, which preserve nei- ther manuscript illuminations nor any indications of lost illustration cycles, the Barlaam and Ioasaph Byzantine adaptors of the tale developed a full iconographic program. Of the entire corpus of manuscripts, Volk has shown that at least twelve

were meant to be illuminated, since they either preserve visual programs or traces

of illustrations that were21 never executed or are no longer extant (namely, captions

alluding to miniatures). The most elaborate pictorial cycle, consisting of over

two hundred individual scenes, is represented by Paris, Bibliothèque nationale22 de France MS gr. 1128, which is dated to the early fourteenth century. The earli-

est and best preserved is Mount Athos, Holy Monastery of Iviron Codex 463, with

eighty especially23 well-executed miniatures dating from the latter half of the eleventh century. Both of these manuscripts begin with the apostle Thomas preach- 24 Plate 4.1 ing the gospel in India. The Iviron manuscript (fol. 4r) depicts the saint arriving by boat on the left, preaching in the centre, and baptizing on the right ( ). Beyond indicating the setting of the story, this visual sequence foregrounds edification as its primary purpose and a concern with the world as its core theme. The program unfolds with the persecution of Christians, and of monks in particular: they are shown expelled, tortured, beheaded, and set aflame. The narrative then turns to the prince, Ioasaph, his birth, and his many exchanges with his father and later with the wise monk Barlaam, interspersed with visualizations of Barlaam’s teachings, many in the form of parables. One particularly evocative parable, involving a man and unicorn, crystallizes the tale’s central concerns while serving as a microcosm of visual edification in Byzantium and beyond. Not only is this the only parable with a clear textual and

22 Volk, 525–81. Byzance Byzantium Der Nersessian, 26–27; Louvre, , 458 (no. 352); Evans, , 61 (no. 31); Volk, 408–9 (no. 105). The manuscript can be viewed online at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/

12148/23 btv1b8452659r . Treasures Glory Der Nersessian, 23–25; Pelekanides, II, 307–24 (figs. 53–132); Evans and

Wixom,24 , 242 (no. 164); Volk, 269–72 (no. 20); and note 61 below. That is, following full-page author portraits: the Paris manuscript portrays Barlaam standing, dressed in monastic garb (fol. 1v); while the Iviron copy shows its author seated at a lectern, in accordance with conventions for evangelist portraits (fol. 1v). 63

63 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

visual genealogy in ancient sources, its wide-ranging travels allow us to consider its reconfiguration across a vast terrain over a long period of time. While a “roots” approach to its iconography would entail a recuperative search for lost originals, a more fruitful “routes” approach enables us to focus on the different articulations of the story: that is, its mobility and mutability. The parable occurs in the context of a lecture on the dangers of corporeal pleas-

ure. Barlaam tells Ioasaph how a man, being chased by a unicorn, tumbled into a

fearsome abyss25 and managed to grab two branches as he fell, which helped him to gain a foothold. Looking up, he saw above him two mice, one black and one white, gnawing at the roots of the tree whose branches he held. Looking down, he saw a dragon with open jaws and four deadly asps, awaiting his fall. But honey dripped from the branches of the tree and, as he tasted its sweetness, he forgot the perils that surrounded him. The parable teaches that these few drops of honey—pleas-

ure—are the transient delights that distract us from the precarious realities of mor-

tality. Complicating traditional Christian allegorical associations of the unicorn with26

Christ, the Greek text of Barlaam’s explanation equates the unicorn with death.

Illustrations of 27this parable vary across the corpus of extant Byzantine illuminated manuscripts. Two early copies preserve traces of the imagery, and although their states of preservation make any definitive reading of them problematic, Der Figures 4.1–2 Nersessian’s line drawings show the man situated below the unicorn and above

the dragon; other details remain elusive ( ). Other extant miniatures

convey the pursuit by showing the man running up to a tree, rather than falling and28 grabbing branches. In the simple marginal sketch of the Cambridge manuscript and the more elaborately painted Paris miniature, the story unfolds sequentially through abbreviated continuous narration, with the unicorn on the left chasing the Figure 4.3 man, who runs and clings to the branches of the tree on the right. In the Cambridge scene ( ), the unicorn leaps towards the man, who is shown in flight with arms outstretched; then, on the right, the man is pictured again in the branches of a tree with mice gnawing its base above an open-jawed dragon as four snakes jut 25 Barlaam and Ioasaph

26 Barlaam and Ioasaph, 12:215–56.

, 12:243–44: Ὁ μὲν μονόκερως τύπος ἄν εἴν τοῦ θανάτου, τοῦ

διώκοντος27 ἀεὶ καὶ καταλαβεῖν ἐπειγομένου τὸ Ἀδαμιαῖον γένος. Of the six manuscripts studied by Der Nersessian, four include an illumination of this scene: see her chart on p. 36, plus discussion, with line drawings, on 63–68. In the Iviron codex, there is a lacuna between folios 38v and 39r, where the miniature presumably would Barlaam and Ioasaph have been: see Volk, 271; Toumpouri, “L’Illustration,” 12. Note that this parable and other portions of also found expression in later monumental programs in

Romania,28 Serbia, Greece, and elsewhere. Cambridge, King’s College MS gr. 45 (olim 338): see Volk, 294–95 (no. 36). 64

64 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Barlaam and Ioasaph L’Illustration Figure 4.1. Fourth Apologue (Man and Unicorn) from : Ioannina, Zosimaia Schole MS 1, fol. 54r. Line drawing after Der Nersessian, , fig. 24.

Figure 4.4 out from a wall. The Paris manuscript represents the parable in two stages ( ): on the left, the unicorn bears its teeth ferociously as the man looks over his shoulder; on the right, he scrambles up a tree. Only upon close inspection can one make out the dragon below the tree; the other narrative elements remain indistinct. The Cambridge miniature’s diagrammatic presentation stresses legibility above all else; the Paris scene lacks iconographic clarity but compensates by emphasizing the emotional charge of the fleeing man’s urgency and his furrowed brow of fear. Indeed, this moment of high drama gains additional poignancy by its juxtaposition with a sumptuous banquet, depicted directly above it on the same page: a reference to the pleasures of the world with which Barlaam introduces the parable. In the text of the parable, Barlaam likens the man running from the unicorn to those indulgent men who, with no thought for the future, cling to the 65

65 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Barlaam and Ioasaph

Figure 4.2. Fourth Apologue (ManL’Illustration and Unicorn) from : Jerusalem, Orthodox Patriarchate, Stavrou MS 42, 75r. Line drawing after Der Nersessian,

, fig. 25.

29 pleasures of the flesh, leaving the soul to be afflicted by evil. By including the

parable’s set-up or premise, the Paris manuscript offers a moral gloss in visual

terms, drawing a clear analogy between30 the folly of fleeting corporeal pleasures and the folly of fleeing from death. This more expansive treatment of the parable is consistent with the Paris manuscript’s general tendency to attenuate visual nar- ratives: this copy includes the most substantial illustration cycle, often stretching single episodes into two miniatures. Here, by elaborating the connection between worldly danger and pleasure, it focuses less on the parable itself and more on the larger narrative framework: Barlaam’s teaching of worldly renunciation. 29 Barlaam and Ioasaph

30 Barlaam and Ioasaph, 12:215–21. , 12:243–44. 66

66 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Barlaam and Ioasaph

Figure 4.3. Fourth Apologue (Man and Unicorn) from : Cambridge, King’s College MS Gr 45 (olim 338), fol. 41v. Reproduced by permission.

As stories travel, narrative details and their meanings shift—both in texts and images. In the case of this particular parable, some of these shifts run counter to well-established traditions. As noted above, the unicorn is an allegory for Christ in medieval Christian exegesis (Roman and Orthodox). This association was codi- fied in the Physiologos, the late antique bestiary that was becoming increasingly 67

67 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Barlaam and Ioasaph

Figure 4.4. Man Fleeing the Unicorn, from : Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS gr. 1128, fol. 68r. Photo courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

influential in the eleventh century. Citing Psalm 91:11 (“But my horn shall be exalted as the horn of a unicorn”), the Physiologos describes how only a virgin is able to capture the beast and deliver it to the king’s palace, just as only a Virgin could bear Christ and deliver him up for kingly glory. In photographs of the no 68

68 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Physiologos Der Bilderkreis Figure 4.5. Virgin and Unicorn from the Smyrna : Smyrna, Evangelical School B8, fol. 74. After Strzygowski, , plate 12.

Figure 4.5 longer extant Smyrna Physiologos, the unicorn places31 its hoof on the knee of a

seated young woman in courtly32 dress ( ), imagery also adopted by Byzantine marginal Psalters. The Theodore Psalter’s Psalm 91:11, for exam- Figure 4.6 ple, similarly depicts a unicorn resting its hoof on the knee of a seated woman

( ). It further reinforces the typological significance by including the fig-

ure of Saint John Chrysostom, who interprets the scene for the reader33 by gesturing up to the image of the Virgin positioned above the seated woman.

31 Il fisiologo

This manuscript (Smyrna Library, Evangelical School B8) was destroyed in 1922: Demus, “Physiologus”; Bernabò et al., ; Corrigan, “Smyrna Physiologos.” For a recent study

of32 its scribe, see Hutter, “Τheodoros βιβλιογράφος.” Visual Polemics. Walter, “Christological Themes,” 276–77. On marginal Psalters, see Corrigan, 33 Theodore Psalter.

London, British Library MS Add. 19352, dated to 1066: see Barber, 69

69 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Figure 4.6. Saint John Chrysostom interprets the Unicorn (Psalm 91:11), from the Theodore Psalter: London, British Library, MS Add. 19352, fol. 124v. By permission of the British Library. Barlaam and Ioasaph

But under the influence of , this gentle allegory became

entangled with the parable’s figuration of the unicorn as the relentless pursuit of

death. Two Psalters produced in Constantinople’s Studios 34 monastery during the mid-eleventh century—the Theodore and Barberini Psalters —reveal a confluence 34 Barberini Psalter The former is Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Barb. Gr 372, dated to before 1092. For the latter, see Anderson et al. . 70

70 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Figure 4.7. “Man in the Well”: relief from Site 9, Nāgārjunikonda Museum. Photo courtesy of Catherine Becker.

of these associations. Both Psalters illustrate Psalm 91.11 with scenes similar to

the Phsyiologos configuration, but they also use the unicorn as a symbol 35of death to accompany Psalm 143:4 (“Man is like to vanity, his days are as a shadow”). Although Barlaam and Ioasaph Plate 4.2 much of the pigment has flaked from the Theodore Psalter miniature, the iconography remains legible and is clearly taken from ( ): the man fleeing the rampant unicorn on the left finds refuge in a tree on the right whose roots are gnawed by the white and black mice, above a pit with Hades and a dragon. The parable’s impact on these two Psalters speaks to the popularity of the tale and also to the adaptability of specific elements across multiple narrative contexts. Barlaam and Ioasaph Indeed, of the many parables included and illustrated in the Greek version

of this36 one derives from ancient traditions that reach well beyond the Mediterranean; in early versions, however, the aggressive animal is an elephant. For example, a number of reliefs from the third-century Buddhist stupas 35

In the Theodore Psalter, this scene appears on fol. 182v, with the caption μονοκέρωτος ἡ θάνατο(ς); in the Barberini Psalter it appears on fol. 237v, with the caption μονοκέροτο(ς)—

θάνατο(ς).36 Such imagery occurs in select later Psalters, as well. While it is, according to François de Blois, “the only shared story that is definitely of

Indian origin,” its source is mediated: it “is manifestly taken from a literary source in Arabic and not directly from some Indian or Buddhist work” (“On the Sources,” 17). Cf. Gimaret, “Traces.” 71

71 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

37 of Andhra Pradesh depict a scene known as the “man in the well.” One relief, now Figure 4.7 housed in the Nāgārjunikonda Museum, compresses this scene into a vertical strip on the far left, separate from the main figures in the frieze ( ). Here, we see an elephant diving headfirst into a well, inside which a man grasps branches that are being gnawed by a mouse as serpents prevent his escape and a coiled beast sits below with open jaws. The scene is rendered more schematically and in reduced scale to set it apart from the main pictorial space; the result, accord-

ing to Catherine Becker, is a sort of “cartoon bubble” that separates the “narrative

realm” of the visualized story from38 the space of its narration by the monk seated at the centre of the composition. The transformative potential of the tale is then stressed through a before-and- after formula: at the far right of the relief a king is depicted as visibly aggressive, sword in hand, as he is restrained. Then, at the centre, he is shown kneeling with arms raised respectfully as he listens to the monk. The cause of his transformation is the story depicted on the far left. In this and the

other reliefs of the “man in the well” at Andra Pradesh, storytelling is the point of

the narrative: “a story elucidating the folly39 of clinging to a life of suffering brings about a transformation in its audience.” Underscoring this reading, we note that the man in the well does not visually engage his surrounding perils but stares fix- edly at the monk in the main space of the frieze, while his predicament’s narrator directs his gaze at the viewer, thus linking the parable and its oral performance to maximize its poignancy. Two points deserve emphasis here. First, specific narrative elements of this edifying story seem less important than its overall potential for effectively illus- trating the “intractability of the human condition.” Second, while the parable Mahabarata in the Andra Pradesh relief has a wide set of textual attestations, from ancient

Jain sources to the , the source40 of the frame narrative, the monk and the transformed king, remains unclear. This strongly suggests that the narrative frame and the parable may have circulated independently before coming together in this configuration. This mutability is, moreover, carried forward in medieval iterations, whose key narrative elements can be interchangeable (elephant can become unicorn) and in which the parable often breaks free from its

37 Shifting Stones

Vogel, “Man in the Well,” Zin, “Parable,” Becker, , and Toumpouri, “L’Homme

chassé.”38 Shifting Stones

39 Becker, , 113–26.

40 Ibid., 115.

Both Becker (ibid., 134) and Zin (“Parable,” 81) observe that none of the corresponding texts include the frame story of the transformed king—that is, the parable alone finds textual corroboration. See also Vogel, “Man in the Well”; Toumpouri, “L’Homme chassé,” 9–11. 72

72 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Kitāb Bilawhar wa Būḏāsf frame and, in the process, gains global traction. Hence its essential elements fea- Kalila wa Dimna ture in both the Arabic as well as the collection of fables

known as , which (as noted above) followed a similar transmis- Balavariani sion route.41 Notably, both texts describe a man who finds refuge from a rampant elephant. The Georgian also features an elephant in its telling of Barlaam and Ioasaph this parable. But in the Greek versions of the parable, the elephant becomes a uni- Stephanites and Ichnelates Kalila wa Dimna corn: not only in and the Psalters influenced by it, but in the

text of , a translation of 42 made for the

Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1127). The introduction of the

unicorn can43 be seen as a strategic attempt to preserve the distant, exotic setting of the story. The elephant was a familiar animal for the Byzantines, who were cap-

able of differentiating between Asian and African breeds; elephants were housed

in the imperial44 menagerie and their depictions graced public and private monu- ments. By contrast, the unicorn was a mythical beast thought to be native to Barlaam and India, the elusive land in which the story was set. This substitution, and the ensu- Ioasaph ing complication of its Christian symbolism, provides an analogue to ’s opening scene, in which the apostle Thomas preaches in the land of India. Even as the unicorn’s new association with death went against established allegorical interpretation, it lent vibrancy to the tale of worldly renunciation, giv- ing the scene a compelling dynamism that an elephant simply could not. The handful of extant illuminated copies of the story’s Christian Arabic ver-

sion show us how artists navigated these contemporary, and competing, narra-

tive traditions. The earliest representative of this corpus45 is a thirteenth-century manuscript in the Balamand monastery in Lebanon. Of its nine miniatures, seven depict the prince with his teacher and his father and the remaining two represent parables, including the man pursued by the unicorn, the format of which differs

41 Burzōy’s Voyage

De Blois ( , 74–80) has demonstrated that the text of the parable is essen-

tially42 the same inStephanites both Arabic und tales. Ichnelates Stéphanitès kai Ichnélatès See Sjöberg, (an edition is based on the oldest, twelfth-cen- Kalila wa-Dimna tury manuscript); and Condylis-Bassoukos, (an edition that pairs the text with that of ). However, no known manuscripts of this text include

miniatures.43

44 Toumpouri, “L’homme chassé,” 17; Zin, “Parable,” 64–67.

45 Toumpouri, “L’homme chassé,” 15–16. Manuscrits chrétiens Our Lady of Balamand Monastery MS 141 (formerly number 147): Sminé, “Miniatures”; Briquel-Chatonnet et al., , 34–35. No comprehensive study of the Christian Arabic corpus exists, although Toumpouri-Alexopoulou (“Byzantium and the Arab World”) provides some preliminary remarks. 73

73 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Barlaam and Ioasaph

Figure 4.8. Scene from : Balamand, MS 147, fol. 129r. Photo courtesy of the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library with the permission of St. Joseph of Damascus Manuscript Conservation Center.

Figure 4.8

considerably from that of the rest of the miniatures of the codex ( ). Nearly half a page in height, this unframed scene is centrally anchored by the body of the man who grasps the tree branches with both hands, while the trunks are gnawed by black and white mice as asps and a ferocious dragon await below. While the unicorn itself is not depicted here, it is clearly identified in the accompanying Kalila wa Dimna inscription. This miniature bears a striking similarity to the oldest extant Arabic copy of , dating from the first quarter of the thirteenth century, which also depicts that parable but omits the animal pursuing the man, which in 74

74 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Kalila wa Dimna

Figure 4.9. Scene from : Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS ar.

3465, fol. 43v. Photo courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France. Figure 4.9 Kalila wa Dimna 46 this case (according to the text) is an elephant ( ). In a further permuta- tion, the Persian versions of transform the beast into a camel, who 46

Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS ar. 4365, fol. 43v: http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/ 12148/btv1b84229611/ f100.item . Grube (“Prolegomena,” 320) includes a checklist of the 75

75 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Kalila wa Dimna

Figure 4.10. Scene from : Istanbul, Topkapi Saray Library, MS H. 363, fol. 35. Photo courtesy of the Topkapi Palace Museum.

Figure 4.10 appears in the upper47 right corner of the miniature of a later thirteenth-century copy ( ). All of these miniatures demonstrate the blending of local and trans-local visual and narrative traditions. The unicorn parable also circulated independently, in portable and monumental scales, across a range of funerary, didactic, and civic Kalilah wa Dimna A Mirror nineteen manuscripts that include this iconography of the “Perils of Life.”

See47 also Grube, ed., , esp. figs. 59–65; Zin, “Parable,” 46–54. Topkapi Saray Museum Istanbul, Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, MS H. 363. See Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi et al., , 50–51 and fig. 28. 76

76 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Barlaam and Ioasaph48 contexts beyond Byzantium. The illustrated Latin and European vernacular ver-

sions of , for the most part, prioritize the narrative portions of

the story rather than the parables, as is consistent with49 these translations’ reduc- tion of the story’s exegetical and didactic features. However, the parable of the Liber Barlaam et Josaphat servorum Dei man and the unicorn continued to receive special attention. In a miniature from the early fourteenth-century , now in the

Vatican, the unicorn perches on a rock to the left, surveying the man who has fallen

into the 50abyss below—mice, dragon, and asps are all present and identified by a caption. Other depictions situate the man as the focal point, hanging in suspen- sion and surrounded by a panoply of clearly legible perils. Still others privilege the tree and, in so doing, evoke a powerful allegory of the Tree of Life. For example, one of the most densely and exquisitely illustrated books of its era, the Psalter-Hours of Yolande de Soissons, made in Amiens in the late thirteenth century, depicts the parable in conjunction with the Office of the Dead. The miniature contrasts good and evil along the central axis of the page, which is

formed by the tree, into which the man is nestled, framed by the unicorn with a Figure 4.11 white mouse on the left,51 and a black mouse with the open jaws of the dragon on the right ( ). No longer associated with the story of the Indian prince and

his ascetic teacher, here it offers a self-sufficient meditation on mortality. In other

contexts, it could be combined52 with didactic material in exempla for sermons and devotional compilations. In a fifteenth-century Carthusian miscellany the tree is captioned “mans lyf” and its branches hold a beehive with the “hony drope” which 48

In western Europe it appears in an impressive array of genres and materials, on por-

tals, frescos, stained glass, and tombs. The bibliography is vast and includes Muñoz, Spiritualis unicornis Imagining

“Rappresentazioni allegoriche”; Der Nersessian, 63–67; Einhorn, “Das Einhorn”; Einhorn, ; Toumpouri, “L’Homme chassé”; Aavitsland, , 108–28; and

Tagliatesta,49 “Les Représentations.” Le Roman There is no systematic study of this material to parallel Der Nersessian’s study of the Byzantine corpus. Some of the illuminated manuscripts are listed in Sonet, , but without detailed descriptions. Overviews of the wider iconography include: Stammler,

“Barlaam50 und Josaphat”; Wessel, “Barlaam und Josaphat”; Donato, “Barlaam e Iosafat.” Storia Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana (BAV), MS Ottob. lat. 269, fol. 35v. See Frosini and Monciatti, , 86–87 and 191–94, with excellent commentary and a plethora of compara-

tive51 images. Psalter and Hours New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS 729, fol. 354v. See Gould, , 77. The use of the parable to highlight the immediacy of death was rare, if not unique. Similar imagery

appears on the tomb of Adelaide of Champagne, countess of Joigny, from the mid-thirteenth century. However, there is no visual reference to the parable’s unicorn and dragon or hell mouth;

just52 the two smallReading animals biting the roots of the tree: see Pillion, “Un Tombeau français.” Brantley ( , 127) points out that the parable of the unicorn found its way into “collections from which real sermons, not just reported ones, were to be fashioned.” 77

77 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Barlaam and Josaphat

Figure 4.11. Scene from in the Psalter and Book of Hours of Yolande de Soissons: New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.729, fol. 354v. Photo Credit: The Morgan Library & Museum/Art Resource, NY. 78

78 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Barlaam and Josaphat

Figure 4.12. Verse allegory of a man pursued by a unicorn from incipit: London, British Library, MS Additional 37049, fol. 19v. By permission of the British Library. 79

79 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Barlaam and Josaphat

Figure 4.13. Scene from : relief in the tympanum of the cathedral at Parma. Photo Credit: Scala/Art Resource, NY.

Figure 4.12

fall to the man’s lips ( ). Also present are the mice, the open mouth of

the beast, and the “unycorne” in the lower left, whose53 allegorical significance is

made clear by the caption “ded pursues to sla man.” A relief in Ferrara, once part

of a pulpit or ambo, also preserves this imagery, testifying54 to its use in the monu-

mental and performative contexts55 of preaching as well. Monumental representations of the parable in western Europe are especially well documented in Italy. The tympanum of the southern door of the baptis-

tery in Parma, from around 1200, is anchored compositionally by a man in a tree Figure 4.13 56 with a fire-breathing dragon at its base, which is being gnawed by two quadru- peds ( ). For Arthur Kingsley Porter, this works in concert with the

53 Reading

54 London, BL Additional 37049, fol. 19v. See Brantley, , 128–29.

55 Tagliatesta, “Les Représentations,” 12–13. Ibid. Extant or attested programs north of the Alps are found in Austria (Krems), Germany

(Bischoffingen56 and Lorsch), and Denmark (Vester Broby). Dietl, “La decorazione”; Siclari, “L’apologo.” 80

80 Cecily J. Hilsdale

imagery on the west portal, dedicated to the Six Ages of the World57 and the Six Ages of Man, and to the parable of the vineyard (Matthew 20:1–16). Similar imagery also appears in fresco at the Cistercian abbey of Tre Fontane, painted at the turn

of the thirteenth century as part of the so-called Vita Humana cycle, and may be

a formal forerunner of the58 lost fresco in Torre Colonna (Tivoli) and at the Casa Corboli of Asciano (Siena). The civic contexts for these latter programs testify to the political deployment of the imagery as commentary on the transitory nature of terrestrial power. At Asicano, for example, the apologue is framed by roundels

of rulers from antiquity meeting their tragic and violent ends (Absalom, Priam,

Scipio, Nero)59 as well as the Judgement of Solomon and Aristotle surrounded by virtues. In these varied contexts, the narrative setting of the parable ceases to matter. Ironically, its global dissemination and adaptation has made its intimate connection with global processes largely illegible. A Worldly Mirror

Barlaam and Ioasaph Turning from the story’s worldwide peregrinations to its critique of worldliness, the remainder of this essay considers how helped to forge

links between the monastic and imperial worlds of Byzantium by serving as a mir-

ror for monks and rulers. Throughout the tale, the world60 looms large as the enemy of those attempting to live in emulation of holy men. However, this message of asceticism is complicated, if not undermined, by the deluxe pictorial programs through which the narrative is conveyed and by the increased production of sump-

tuous illuminated manuscripts with monastic associations. The Iviron illustrated

copy has been linked to a number of luxurious books61 produced in eleventh-century Constantinople for elite, even imperial, circles. These books therefore witness a new overlapping of monastic and aristocratic spheres in the eleventh century, a phenomenon that has generated a substantial body of scholarship. Rosemary Morris has argued that the boom in monasticism, which manifested itself in the

58 Porter, “Development,”Imagining 137–54.

59 Aavitsland, , 115.

60 Tagliatesta, “Les Représentations,” 110–11. Much of Barlaam’s speech delivered in the chapter that culminates in the parable of Barlaam and Ioasaph the man and the unicorn celebrates those who deny themselves the comforts of the flesh:

61 , 12:103–4 and 12:183–215.

This filiation is based on palaeography and shared iconographic sources. See Pérez Martín, “Apuntes”; D’Aiuto, “Su alcuni copisti”; and Toumpouri, “L’Illustration.” 81

81 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

growth of religious institutions, increasingly expansive land acquisition, and forms 62 autakreia of lay patronage, entailed a certain degree of spiritual compromise. By the end of the eleventh century, the traditional values of monastic self-sufficiency ( ) became imbricated in a dense network of lay aristocratic and imperial influence. Because they were not subjected to the demands of inheritance or political con-

fiscation, certain monastic estates evolved into highly profitable and powerful

establishments, often on par with those of the lay aristocracy, and thus63 played a significant role in the economic life of their regions and of the capital. Influence was also political, and extended beyond economics to the judicial and bureaucratic spheres as well. For example, certain favoured communities could leverage their kosmika well-developed ties to elicit the assistance of the emperor or patriarch rather than kriteria kosmikoi turning to local secular or ecclesiastical structures, or “worldly courts” (

)64 because “the [men of the world] do not understand spiritual affairs.” For Orthodox monks, the challenge of “being in the world but not of it” did not entail a full retreat from worldly social networks, but a recasting of those networks: despite the timeless ideal of asceticism that permeates monastic texts, the monastery itself was an ever-contingent social space. Without flattening the multi-faceted dimensions of Byzantine monasticism—

which comprised a vast range of practices corresponding65 to the diversity of the wider Byzantine world—historians generally concur that a process of “seculariza-

tion” is evident over 66the course of the eleventh century. Inmaculada Pérez Martín has examined the role of notary-monks in monastic book production as evidence

of this phenomenon, and Barbara Crostini has investigated how monasteries and Barlaam and Ioasaph their communities engaged in forms of political action67 and even subversion, using as one of her primary examples. Throughout the Byzantine copies of this story, monks serve as advisors to princes and thus act as agitators for change; they constitute radicals who pose, in her words, “a powerful and dis- ruptive social force that undermines the seeming happiness of a prosperous secular state.” In this way, the story is “disquieting as well as exhilarating” from the monastic

62 Monks and Laymen

Morris ( , 200) sees a fundamental tension between “the spiritual ten- Monks and Monasteries Byzantine ets of monasticism and the practical realities of survival.” For the period preceding that cov- Monastic Foundation Documents ered by Morris, see Hatlie, . See also Thomas and Hero, eds.,

63 Monks and Laymen .

64 Morris, , 241.

65 Ibid., 262 (Protaton no. 7).

66 Pérez Martín, “La Sécularisation,” 565.

67 Ibid. Crostini, “Eleventh-Century Monasticism.” 82

82 Cecily J. Hilsdale

68 perspective. For despite Barlaam’s ascetic lifestyle, his teachings effected the conversion not only of Prince Ioasaph, but his father and, in turn, the entire kingdom. Edification, in this narrative, makes eventual impact across a diverse monastic and political public. In other words, monasticism meant spiritual edification in the service of wider social change. The proactive agenda of the narrative is signposted from its very outset with the evangelization of faraway India by St. Thomas: the entire tale is prefaced by his apostolic mission, represented in the opening of the Iviron manuscript as the sequential unfolding of distant travel, preaching, and conversion. A central framework for understanding the story’s illumination and dissemination is thus the monastic revival of the eleventh century and, more specifically, Barlaam the rich pictorial programs developed in the monasteries of Constantinople at and Ioasaph Heavenly Ladder that time. As part of this new and distinctive “monastic iconography,”

sits alongside the of John Klimakos and the tenth-

century69 metaphrastic lives, all of which received their first pictorial cycles at this time. Kathleen Corrigan has argued that the Physiologos too falls into a similar pattern: although it had been illustrated previously—as noted above, marginal imagery for Psalm 91:11 was based on the Physiologos—it was only in the elev-

enth century that the basic animal illustrations were augmented with moral inter-

pretations that dealt specifically with monastic concerns, such as temptations70 of the flesh and the challenge of “rejecting the world outside the monastery.” The Christian Topography Smyrna copy of the Physiologos, with its amplified moral message, also contained excerpts from Cosmas Indicopleustes’ , a treatise on miner-

als, geography, and cosmology by a sixth-century Alexandrian merchant, who dis-

cusses India at length and even mentions71 the unicorns to be found there; they are

duly depicted in the illustrated copies. In addition, two of the three extant cop-

ies of Cosmas’s treatise date to the eleventh century, and one of these72 is closely related, thematically and technically, to the lost Smyrna manuscript. Taken col- lectively, these works speak to a particular monastic context in which sumptuous Barlaam and Ioasaph illuminations offered a key framework for interpreting the world. On the one hand, then, was the ideal evocation of the inter- twined spiritual and political dimensions of Byzantine monasticism. On the other, it offered spiritual authorization for the exercise of terrestrial authority. It is in this

69 Ibid., 218–Church19. and Society Illustration

Angold, , 271. For the Ladder of John Klimakos, see Martin, , Illustrated Manuscripts and the discussion below. On the saints’ lives associated with Symeon Metaphrastes, see

Ševčenko,70 .

71 Corrigan, “Smyrna Physiologos,”Topographie chrétienne209. World of Kosmas

72 See Wolska-Conus, ; Kominko, . Crostini, “Spiritual ‘Encyclopedias,’” 218. 83

83 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

context that we can place later uses of the story and its imagery at the Byzantine court. For example, a number of poems by Manuel Philes, court poet of Emperor Andronikos II (r. 1282–1328), reference that imagery in the imperial palace in Constantinople:

On a picture of Life which represents a tree, in which a man is gaping upwards and quaffing honey from above, while below, the roots [of the tree] are being devoured by mice: On seeing this symbol of the shadow of [earthly] things, bear in mind, O man, the end that is hidden from you.

Standing upright, you are enjoying the honey of pleasure,73 while a dragon with gaping mouth awaits your fall to destroy you. Barlaam and Ioasaph Even without explicit mention of a unicorn, the story is unmistakably the parable from , with which the poem’s audience is expected to be familiar. Philes moves from describing the imagery itself to addressing that audience, equating the reader or listener with the man in the tree while, at the same time, making the reader the spectator. The image—both the actual picture refer- enced by Philes and the poet’s mental picture—constitute a mirror into which the audience looks to see its own image reflected in the man’s perilous predicament. Meanwhile, the story’s protagonists came to be understood as mirrors of holi- ness, since both Barlaam and Ioasaph were venerated as saints and frequently included in the pictorial cycles of later Byzantine churches. The earliest monumental depiction of Saints Barlaam and Ioasaph is at the Church of the Virgin at Studenica (1208/9, now in central Serbia), where they are situated on the southwest pilaster. Figure 4.14 Ioasaph is pictured on the left face of the pilaster with a scroll in one hand, while his other gestures toward the Virgin and Child at the right ( ). Although Figure 4.15 bearded, he still appears youthful; sanctified by a halo, he also wears his royal crown ( ). The depiction of Barlaam, on the face farther to the left, follows con- Figure 4.16 ventions for representing ascetics: an unruly beard, wild hair, and more gaunt physi-

ognomy ( ). Saints Barlaam and Ioasaph appear in those churches under

the influence of Athonite monasticism, as Sharon Gerstel has 74shown, highlighting the regional influence of Mount Athos in popularizing the tale. For, as we recall, it was there that it was first translated into Greek by the monk Euthymios, and where the luxurious Iviron copy resides to this day. The story’s celebration of a royal prince turned monk and his ascetic mentor would resonate especially strongly in a monastic community that included many former aristocrats. Moreover, Gerstel argues that a related iconographic program also begins to appear in the fourteenth-century churches of Thessaloniki and its hinterland, precisely because both concern monastic life and the rite of the Holy Mountain: 73 Manuelis Philae Art

74 Miller, ed., , 1:126–29 at 127 (no. 248); see Mango, , 247. Gerstel, “Civic and Monastic,” 225–39. 84

84 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Figure 4.14. St. Ioasaph (left) with the Virgin and Child (right): Studenica, Church of the

Virgin, southwest pilaster. Photo courtesy of the Svetlana Tomeković database. Heavenly Ladder Ladder of Divine Ascent 75 John Klimakos’s or . In one particularly striking and unusual fresco in the exonarthex of the Vatopedi monastery on Mount

75 Heavenly Ladder Ibid. A third related program was that of Pachomios and the Angel. It should be noted Barlaam and Ioasaph that Klimakos’s was one of the “monastic classics” whose manuscript copies received a pictorial cycle in the eleventh century like . 85

85 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Figure 4.15. St. Ioasaph (detail): Studenica, Church of the Virgin, southwest pilaster. Photo courtesy of the Svetlana Tomeković database.

Athos, dated to 1312, monks are depicted striving, eagerly and earnestly, to ascend the ladder despite taunting demons; Christ awaits at the ladder’s summit and a dragon lies below to catch those who fall. A lavish banquet is shown immedi-

ately adjacent on the left, and its detailed attention to sumptuous cosmopolitan

dress and rich feasting has been described as reflecting the “the 76attachment of Late Byzantine officials to material wealth and worldly pleasures.” The image’s pointed juxtaposition of sacred and secular spheres has also been read in light of

76 Reconstructing the Reality

Parani, , 91. 86

86 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Figure 4.16. St. Barlaam (detail): Studenica, Church of the Virgin, southwest pilaster. Photo courtesy of the Svetlana Tomeković database.

works by contemporary theologians and intellectuals, who “stressed the impor-

tance of obtaining spiritual perfection within the existing visible world” and, more specifically, as reflecting the concerns of the noble-born inhabitants of the Vatopedi 77 Barlaam and Ioasaph monastery. Spiritual striving and corporeal indulgence are also deliberately jux- taposed in the fourteenth-century Paris copy of , where the man’s flight from the unicorn is positioned directly below the sumptuous banquet 77

Schroeder, “Salvation of the Soul,” 221; Oikonomides, “Byzantine Vatopaidi.” 87

87 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

scene. This pairing serves to tie the parable to its frame, as noted above, but it also

sets up a contrast between indulgence and striving.

Veneration of Saints Barlaam and Ioasaph was also cultivated in the service

of dynastic78 affiliation, especially within Serbian territories, as Vojislav Đurić has shown. The foundation narrative of the powerful Namanjid dynasty was celebrated as a parallel to the story of Ioasaph and his royal father: when Grand Prince Stefan Nemanja (ca. 1113–1199) abdicated in 1196, he joined his youngest son

who had already committed to the monastic life at Vatopedi on Mount Athos. This

dynastic history was then aligned79 allegorically with King Abener and Ioasaph in a variety of rhetorical works. The churches founded by Serbian rulers, in turn— including Studenica (above)—featured images of Saints Baarlam and Ioasaph in

close proximity to founding portraits, thus interweaving monastic cult and royal

dynasty through this forged analogy.80 Later Serbian rulers would style themselves, explicitly, as “new Ioasaphs.” In many other contexts, however, the saints offered a clear manifestation of monastic power as distinct from that of the ruling elite. Efthalia Constantinides has

differentiated between the Serbian dynastic messages of the story and church programs in Greece, where the saints embody the renewed spiritual authority of the

monks vis-à- vis the emperor. These express the monastic challenge to imperium,

an especially pointed81 message in light of the Hesychast controversy of the fourteenth century. This helps to explain the resonance of the most celebrated ruler to adopt Ioasaph as a monastic name, Byzantine emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (ca. 1292–1383), a fervent support of hesychasts and close friend of the movement’s founder, who abdicated the throne in 1347 and lived out the last thirty years of his life in the monastery of St. George of the Mangana in Constantinople.

A luxurious edition of his many polemical, historical, and theological writings Figure 4.17 includes a unique double82 portrait showing him as both Emperor John and monk Ioasaph ( ). Conclusion

Barlaam and Ioasaph Rather than serving as a mere witness to purportedly lost roots or a waystation along a one-way trajectory of transmission, the global tale of 78

79 Đurić, “Le Nouveau Joasaph.” See also Guran, “L’Auréole de l’empereur.”

80 Ibid., 100.

81 Ibid., 102. Wall Paintings

82 Constantinides, .Byzantium Paris, BnF Gr. 1242: see Evans, , 286–87 (no. 171); Drpić, “Art, Hesychasm.” 88

88 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Theological Works

Figure 4.17. John VI Kantakouzenos as emperor and monk, from the : Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS gr. 1242, fol. 123v. Photo courtesy of the Bibliothèque nationale de France.

became a mirror for both monks and princes, reflecting the Byzantine world and its concerns with worldliness. The wealth and complexity of its translations, adaptations, manuscript copies, and monumental representations speak to the ubiquitous appeal of the story. Furthermore, some manuscripts are so luxuriously

illuminated as to complicate or comment on the narrative’s themes of restraint

and renunciation, making their “strict83 ascetic message … almost an oxymoron,” in the words of Barbara Crostini. On another level, the tale participated in a 83

Crostini, “Eleventh-Century Monasticism,” 226. 89

89 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

process of worlding or world-making, as a story set in distant India is reframed as a Christian apostolic project, prompting a reassessment of the worldly roles of monastic communities as agents of artistic production and political power. In both the tale and its transmission, we see monks forging and shaping a world from which they would also attempt to set themselves apart. As stories travelled throughout the medieval world “with merchants and cara-

vans, monks and scribes, envoys and artisans, soldiers and slaves, the retinues of avant la lettre exogamous brides”—as84 Geraldine Heng has put it—mutability went hand in hand with mobility. In her primary illustration of global literatures , she offers a brief but brilliant sketch of the Buddha’s travelling life over two thousand years, attributing its global diffusion more to its subversive potential than to its edifying qualities:

While scholars commonly focus on the pull of moral-metaphysical instruction the story enacts, key elements of the story also dramatize resistance to power and authority, stage critiques of corruption, and

offer celebrations of evasion and concealment of embedded sociopoliti85- cal attractions that no doubt helped to drive the story’s global motility.

The story’s “motility” is an allegory for medieval globalism: in biology, the capac- ity to be self-generative, to move spontaneously and independently. This motility lends itself not to a grand plan of transmission, where roots and routes dictate the parameters of the conversation; instead, it draws attention to the seemingly myriad possibilities of random encounter and ensuing recalibration. In motility, then, we have an apt term for the cultural work done by what I have called the worldliness of Barlaam of Ioasaph in its myriad manifestations, travelling across boundaries and borders, changing shapes and shaping change.

85 Heng, “Reinventing Race,” 364. Ibid. 90

90 Cecily J. Hilsdale Bibliography

Imagining the Human Condition in Medieval Rome: The Cistercian Fresco Cycle at Abbazia Delle Tre Fontane

Aavitsland, Kristin B. The Barberini Psalter: . Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. Codex Vaticanus Barberinianus Graecus 372

Anderson, Jeffrey, Paul Canart, and Christopher Walter. Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081–1261 . Zurich: Besler, 1989.

Angold, Michael. . Theodore Psalter: Electronic Facsimile Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Barber, Charles. . Champaign, IL: University Shifting Stones, Shaping the Past: Sculpture from the Buddhist of Illinois Press in association with the British Library, 2000. Stupas of Andhra Pradesh

Becker, Catherine. Il fisiologo di Smirne: Le miniature del perduto codice B. 8 . New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. della Biblioteca della Scuola Evangelica di Smirne Bernabò, Massimo, et al.

. Firenze: SISMEL edizioni del Reading in the Wilderness: Private Devotion and Public Perfor Galluzzo, 1998. mance in Late Medieval England

Brantley, Jessica. Manuscrits chrétiens du Proche-Orient . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Briquel-Chatonnet, F., et al. . Arles: Centre de Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century conservation du livre, 2003.

Clifford, James. . Stéphanitès kai Ichnélatès, traduction grecque (XIe

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. siècle) du livre (VIIIe siècle): étude lexi-

Condylis-Bassoukos, Hélène. cologique et littéraire

Kalīla wa-Dimna d’Ibn al-Muquffaʻ The Wall Paintings of the Panagia Olympiotissa at Elasson . Leuven: Peeters, 1997. in Northern Thessaly Constantinides, Efthalia C.

. Athens: Canadian Archaeological Institute at Athens, Barlaam und Josaphat in der europäischen Literatur des 1992. Mittelalters: Darstellung der Stofftraditionen—Bibliographie—Studien Cordoni, Constanza.

. Berlin: Barlaam und Josaphat: Neue Perspektiven auf ein

De Gruyter, 2014. europäisches Phänomen

——, and Matthias Meyer, eds. . Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. Work and Worship at the Theotokos Evergetis, 1050–1200 Corrigan, Kathleen. “The Smyrna Physiologos and Eleventh-Century Monasticism.” In , edited by Margaret

Mullett and Anthony Kirby, 201–12. Belfast: Belfast Byzantine Enterprises, School Visual Polemics in the Ninth-Century Byzantine Psalters of Greek, Roman and Semetic Studies, The Queen’s University of Belfast, 1997.

——. . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Byzantium in the Eleventh Century: Being in Between Crostini, Barbara. “Eleventh-Century Monasticism between Politics and Spirituality.” In , 216–30. London: Routledge, 2017. 91

91 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Encyclopedic Trends in Byzantium?

——. “Spiritual ‘Encyclopedias’ in Eleventh-Century Byzantium? Miscellaneous Evidence for an Encyclopedic Outlook.” In

edited by Peter Van Deun and Caroline Macé, 213–29. Leuven: Peeters in asso- Byzantion ciation with the Departement Oosterse Studies, 2011.

D’Aiuto, Francesco. “Su alcuni copisti di codici miniati mediobizantini, 1.” Bollettino della Badia 67 (1997): 5–59. Greca di Grottaferrata

——. “Su alcuni copisti di codici miniati mediobizantini, 2.” Burzōy’s Voyage to India and the Origin of the Book of Kalilah Wa , n.s. 53 (1999): 119–50. Dimnah

De Blois, François. . London: Routledge, 1990. Literarische Stoffe und ihre Gestaltung in mitteliranischer

——. “On the Sources of the Barlaam Romance, or: How the Buddha Became a Zeit: Kolloquium anlässlich des 70. Geburtstages von Werner Sundermann Christian Saint.” In

, edited Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik by Desmond Durkin Meisterernst et al., 7–25. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2009.

Demus, Otto. “Physiologus von Smyrna.” L’Illustration des Psautiers grecs du Moyen Âge, II: Londres, 25 (1976): 235–57. Add. 19.352

Der Nersessian, Sirarpie. L’Illustration du roman de Barlaam et Joasaph d’après les clichés de la Frick . Paris: Klincksieck, 1970. Art Reference Library et de la Mission Gabriel Millet au Mont-Athos ——.

. Paris: De Boccard, 1937. Benedetto Antelami e il Battistero di Parma Dietl, Albert. “La decorazione plastica del battistero e il suo programma.” In

, ed. Chiara Frugoni and Albert Dietl, 71–108. Torino: Einaudi, 1995. Gesta

Dolezal, Mary-Lyon. “The Elusive Quest for the ‘Real Thing’: The Chicago Lectionary Project Thirty Years On.” 35.2 (1996): 128–41. Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies

——. “Manuscript Studies in the Twentieth Century: Kurt Weitzmann Reconsidered.” Encyclopedia dell’Arte Medievale 22 (1998): 216–63.

Donato, M. M. “Barlaam e Iosafat.” . Rome: Istituto della Enciclopedia italiana, 1991–2002. Dumbarton Oaks Papers

Drpić, Ivan. “Art, Hesychasm, and Visual Exegesis: Parisinus Graecus 1242 Epigram, Art, and Devotion in Later Byzantium Revisited.” 62 (2008): 217–47.

——. . Cambridge: Cambridge Cahiers archéologiques

University Press, 2016.

Đurić, Vojislav J. “Le Nouveau Joasaph.” 33 (1985): 99–109. Barlaam et Joasaph Investigatio Fontium

Egedi-Kovács, Emese. “La Traduction française de la version grecque dite d’Iviron de Griechische und Lateinische Quellen mit Erläuterungen

. À propos de l’édition critique en cours.”

10 (2014): 83–94. Frühmittelalterliche Studien Einhorn, Jürgen Werinhard. “Das Einhorn als Sinnzeichen des Todes: Die Parabel vom Mann im Abgrund.” 6 (1972): 381–417. 92

92 Cecily J. Hilsdale Spiritualis unicornis: Das Einhorn als Bedeutungsträger in Literarur und Kunst des Mittelalters

——. Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261–1557) . Munich: Fink, 1976.

Evans, Helen C., ed. . New York: The Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture of the Middle Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2004. Byzantine Era, A.D. 843–1261

——, and William D. Wixom, eds. Harvard Studies in . New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997. Classical Philology

Finkelberg, Aryeh. “On the History of the Greek ΚΟΣΜΟΣ.” Objects of Translation: Material Culture and Medieval “Hindu- 98 (1998): 103–36. Muslim” Encounter

Flood, Finbarr Barry. October

. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009. Storia di Barlaam e Josaphas secondo il ——, et al. “Roundtable: The Global before Globalization.” 1.133 (2010): 3–19. manoscritto 89 della Biblioteca Trivulziana di Milano Frosini, Giovanna, and Alessio Monciatti.

. Firenze: SISMEL edizioni del Galluzzo, 2009. D’Orient en Occident

Genequand, Charles. “Aux source de la legend de Barlaam: Le Calife et l’ascète.” In , edited by Marion Uhlig and Yasmina Foehr-Janssens, 67–77. Dumbarton Oaks Papers

Gerstel, Sharon. “Civic and Monastic Influences on Church Decoration in Late Le Livre de Bilawhar et Būḏāsf selon la version arabe ismaélienne Byzantine Thessalonike.” 57 (2003): 225–39.

Gimaret, Daniel. . Kitāb Bilawhar wa Būḏāsf

Geneva: Droz, 1971. Bulletin d’études orientales

——. “Traces et parallèles du dans la tradition arabe.” The Psalter and Hours of Yolande of Soissons 24 (1971): 97–133.

Gould, Karen. . Cambridge, MA: A Mirror for Princes from India: Illustrated Versions of the Kalilah Mediaeval Academy of America, 1978. wa Dimnah, Anvar-i Suhayli, Iyar-i Danish, and Humayun Nameh Grube, Ernst J., ed.

. Bombay: Marg Kalīla wa Dimna Publications, 1991. Islamic Art

——. “Prolegomena for a Corpus Publication of Illustrated Barlaam and Josaphat: A Christian Tale of the Buddha Manuscripts.” 4 (1990–91): 301–482.

Gui de Cambrai. , translated by Peggy McCracken. New York: Penguin, 2014. Medioevo greco

Guran, Petre. “L’Auréole de l’empereur: Témoignage iconographique de la légende Greek Thought, Arabic Culture: The Graeco-Arabic Translation de Barlaam et Josaphat.” (2001): 161–86. Movement in Baghdad and Early Abbasid Society (2nd–4th/ 8th–10th Centuries) Gutas, Dimitri.

. The Monks and Monasteries of Constantinople, ca. 350–850 London: Routledge, 1998.

Hatlie, Peter. . Cambridge:

Cambridge University Press, 2007. Publications of the Modern Language Heng, Geraldine. “Reinventing Race, Colonization, and Globalisms across Deep Association Time: Lessons from the Longue Durée.” 130 (2015): 358–66. 93

93 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond

Bollettino della Badia greca di Grottaferrata

Hutter, Irmgard. “Τheodoros βιβλιογράφος und die Buchmalerei in Studiu.” , n.s. 51 (1997): 177–208. The Medieval Globe

Kinoshita, Sharon. “The Painter, the Warrior, and the Sultan: The World of Marco Polo in Three Portraits.” 2.1 (2016): 101–28. Postcolonial Studies

——. “Translatio/n, Empire, and the Worlding of Medieval Literature: The Travels French Global: A New Approach to Literary of Kalila Wa Dimna.” 11.4 (2008): 371–85. History ——. “Worlding Medieval French.” In

, edited by Christie McDonald and Susan Rubin Suleiman, 3–20. New The World of Kosmas: Illustrated Byzantine Codices of the Christian York: Columbia University Press, 2010. Topography

Kominko, Maja. The Balavariani (Barlaam and Josaphat) . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013.

Lang, David Marshall. . Berkeley: University In Search of the Christian Buddha: How an of California Press, 1966. Asian Sage Became a Medieval Saint Lopez, Donald S., and Peggy McCracken. Byzance: l’art byzantin dans les collections publiques françaises. . New York: W. W. Norton, 2014.

Louvre, Musée de. Paris: Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1992. Literacy, Education Lowden, John. “The Transmission of ‘Visual Knowledge’ in Byzantium through and Manuscript Transmission in Byzantium and Beyond Illuminated Manuscripts: Approaches and Conjectures.” In

, edited by Catherine Art of the Byzantine Empire, A.D. 312–1453: Sources and Documents Holmes and Judith Waring, 59–80. Leiden: Brill, 2002.

Mango, Cyril. . The Illustration of of John Climacus Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1986.

Martin, John Rupert. The Heavenly Ladder . Manuelis Philae Carmina: Ex codicibus Escurialensibus, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1954. Florentinis, Parisinis et Vaticanis

Miller, Emmanuel C. B., ed. Monks and Laymen in Byzantium, 843–1118 . Paris: Excusum in Typographeo imperiali, 1855.

Morris, Rosemary. . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. L’arte: Rivista di storia dell’arte medievale e moderna

Muñoz, Antonio. “Le rappresentazioni allegoriche della ‘vita’ nell’arte bizantina.” The Creation of the World, or, Globalization (1906): 130–45.

Nancy, Jean-Luc. . Albany: State University of New York Press, 2007. The Holy and Great Monastery of Vatopaidi: Tradition, History, Art Oikonomides, N. “Byzantine Vatopaidi: A Monastery of the High Aristocracy.” In

, edited by Reconstructing the Reality of Images: Byzantine Material Culture I. Papaggelos, 44–53. Mount Athos: The Monastery, 1998. and Religious Iconography (11th to 15th Centuries) Parani, Maria.

. Leiden and Boston: Treasures of Mt Athos: Illuminated Manuscripts, Miniatures, Brill, 2003. Headpieces, Initial Letters Pelekanides, S. M. . Athens: Ekdotike Athenon, 1974–75. 94

94 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Erytheia

Pérez Martín, Inmaculada. “Apuntes sobre la historia del texto bizantino de la

Historia edificante de Barlaam y Josafat.” , 17 (1996): 159–77. Le Saint, le moine et le paysan: Mélanges d’histoire

——. “La Sécularisation du monachisme byzantin à l’époque macédonienne: byzantine offerts à Michel Kaplan

L’évidence manuscrite.” In

, edited by Olivier Delouis, Sophie Métivier, and Paule Pagès, 563–88. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne, 2016. La Revue de l’art ancient et modern

Pillion, Louise. “Un Tombeau français du 13e siècle et l’apologue de Barlaam sur la vie humaine.” 28 (1910): 321–34. American Journal of Archaeology

Porter, Arthur Kingsley. “The Development of Sculpture in Lombardy in the Twelfth Century.” 19/2 (1915): 137–54. Schroeder, Rossitza. “The Salvation of the Soul and the Road to Heaven: The Byzantine Images and Their Afterlives: Essays in Honor of Annemarie Weyl Carr Representation of the Ladder of Divine Ascent in the Vatopedi Katholikon.” In

, Illustrated Manuscripts of the Metaphrastian Menologion ed. Lynn Jones, 215–28. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2014.

Ševčenko, Nancy. . Barlaam e Joasaph Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. exempla Il Battistero di Parma: iconografia, iconologia, fonti letterarie Siclari, Alberto. “L’apologo del e la letteratura agiografica degli

.” In , Stephanites und Ichnelates: Überlieferungsgeschichte und Text edited by Giorgio Schianchi, 351–73. Milan: Vita e pensiero, 1999.

Sjöberg, Lars-Olof. . Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell, 1962. Parole de l’Orient

Sminé, Rima E. “The Miniatures of a Christian Arabic Barlaam and Joasaph, Le Roman de Barlaam et Josaphat Balamand 147.” 18 (1993): 171–229.

Sonet, Jean. . Namur: Bibliothèque de la Faculté Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte de Philosophie et Lettres de Namur, 1949.

Stammler, W. “Barlaam und Josaphat.” I Der Bilderkreis des griechischen Physiologus: Des Kosmas (1937): 1452–57. Indikopleustes und Oktateuch, nach Handschriften der Bibliothek zu Smyrna Strzygowski, Josef.

Byzantinisches Archiv, Heft 2. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner, 1899. Arts Asiatiques Tagliatesta, Francesca. “Les Représentations iconographiques du IVe apologue de

la légende de Barlaam et Josaphat dans le Moyen Âge italien.” Byzantine Monastic Foundation 64 (2009): 3–26. Documents: A Complete Translation of the Surviving Founders’ Typika and Thomas, John, and Angela Constantinides Hero, eds. Testaments The Topkapi Saray Museum . Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, 2001.

Topkapı Sarayı Müzesi, J. M. Rogers, and Filiz Çağman. . London: Thames and Hudson, 1986. Barlaam Toumpouri-Alexopoulou, Marina. “Byzantium and the Arab World: Encounter of Civilizations or Parallel Universes? The Case of the Illustration of the 95

95 Worldliness in Byzantium and Beyond and Joasaph Byzantium and the Arab World: Encounter of Civilizations Romance.” In

, edited by Apostolos Kralidēs and Andreas Gkoutzioukostas, 479– Autour de

96. Thessaloniki: University of Thessaloniki, 2013. Bāmiyān: De la Bactriane hellénisée à l’Inde bouddhique ——. “L’Homme chassé par la licorne: de l’Inde au Mont-Athos.” In

, edited by Guillaume Barlaam et Joasaph

Ducoeur, 7–28. Paris: De Boccard, 2012. Barlaam und Josaphat: Neue Perspektiven auf ein

——. “L’Illustration du roman de reconsidérée: le cas du Hagion europäisches Phänomen Oros, Monè Ibèron, 463.” In

, edited by Constanza Cordoni and Matthias Meyer, D’Orient en Occident: Les recue-

389–415. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2015. ils de fables enchâssées avant les “Mille et une Nuits” de Galland (“Barlaam et Uhlig, Marion, and Yasmina Foehr-Janssens, eds. Josaphat,” “Calila et Dimna,” “Disciplina clericalis,” “Roman des Sept Sages”)

Turnhout: Brepols, 2014. Revue des Arts Asiatiques

Vogel, Jean Philippe. “The Man in the Well and Some Other Subjects Illustrated at Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos VI/1: Historia animae utilis Nāgārjunikonda.” 11 (1937): 109–21. de Barlaam et Ioasaph (spuria)

Volk, Robert. Die Schriften des Johannes von Damaskos VI/2: Historia animae utilis de . Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009. Barlaam et Ioasaph (spuria). Text und Zehn Appendices

——.

. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006. Revue des études byzantines Walter, Christopher. “Christological Themes in the Byzantine Marginal Psalters Prayer and Power in Byzantine and Papal Imagery from the Ninth to the Eleventh Century.” 44

(1986): 269–88 [= Walter, Illustrations in Roll and Codex: A Study of the Origin and Method (Aldershot-Brookfield, 1983), IX]. of Text Illustration

Weitzmann, Kurt. Katalog der deutschsprachigen illustrierten . Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970 [1947]. Handschriften des Mittelalters

Wessel, K. “Barlaam und Josaphat.” Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst 2 (1966): 11–20.

——. “Barlaam und Josaphat.” 1 (1966): Topographie chrétienne 496–507.

Wolska-Conus, Wanda, ed. and trans. . Paris, Éditions du Cerf, 1968–73. Art, Myths, and Visual Culture of South Zin, Monika. “The Parable of ‘The Man in the Well’: Its Travels and Its Pictorial Asia Traditions from Amaravati to Today.” In , 33–93. New Delhi: Manohar, 2011. 96

96 Cecily J. Hilsdale

Cecily J. Hilsdale Byzantine Art and ([email protected]) specializes in the arts of Byzantium Diplomacy in an Age of Decline and the wider Mediterranean world. She is the author of (Cambridge University Press, 2014) and numerous articles dealing with cultural exchange: in particular the circulation of Byzantine luxury items such as diplomatic gifts; as well as the related dissemination of Eastern styles, techniques, iconographies, and ideologies of imperium. Abstract Barlaam and This essay analyzes the nunace, mutability, and political purposes of Ioasaph illustrated Greek manuscripts containing a ubiquitous medieval tale: . Exploring the dynamic nature of this Byzantine material and its global peregrinations, it reveals processes of medieval world formation through text and imagery of a story that, paradoxically, advocates the renunciation of the worldly. Ultimately, it argues that the textual transmission of this story and its diverse visual imagery bridged cultures from Asia to Europe, and religions from Buddhism to Christianity. Keywords

Barlaam and Ioasaph, Barlaam and Josaphat, illuminated manuscripts, global, iconography, monasticism, translation, unicorn, Physiologus, worlding