a GreeK woman coPyISt from

the 16th century : euPhroSyne of xanthI

Phokion P. KotzaGeorGIS

the study of womens activities in medieval and early modern society in

the Greek peninsula is a desideratum for scholarship. although numerous
studies on women in Byzantium have recently appeared, almost none of them
deal with their literary achievements.1 the acquisition of codices and/or the
copying of manuscripts are two of the most important activities, from which
one could trace the literary level of women.
as early as the beginning of the 1980s Professor angeliki Laiou stressed
the idea that the level of womens literacy was reflected in the growing role
women of the high aristocracy played in Byzantine society. furthermore,
Professor Laiou believed that the general level of literacy in Byzantine society coincided with that of women.2 Laiou drew her conclusions after studying
official documents. In this paper I will point out some characteristics of
women copyists in the early modern period through the treatment of a case
study, that of euphrosyne from xanthi.
very few things are known for the female production in manuscript copying. due to a recently published article, we infer that only four women manuscript copyists can safely be identified in the Byzantine period. for some others there is not adequate evidence yet.3 womens position in the Byzantine
society notwithstanding, their low number in writing activity can be interpreted by the low percentage of bibliographical notes in the Greek medieval
manuscripts. So, although womens presence in the manuscript notes is
1. a detailed bibliography on women in Byzantium can be found in the website
http://www.doaks.org/womeninByzantium.html. for the profession of manuscript scribe, see
h. marGarou, Tivtloi kai epaggelmatikav onovmata gunaikwvn sto Buzavntio: sumbolhv sth
melevth gia th qevsh th" gunaivka" sth buzantinhv koinwniva, thessaloniki 2000, p. 215. there
are mentioned only two women who were occupied with writing manuscripts.
2. a. LaIou, the role of women in Byzantine Society, in XVi. internationaler
Byzantinistenkongress. Akten, I/1, vienna 1981, p. 256-257.
3. P. SchreIner, Kopistinnen in Byzanz mit einer anmerkung zur Schreiberin eugenia im
Par. Lat. 7560, RSBn 36, 1999, p. 34-45. the four women copyists are: nun maria, nun (?)
anna, theodora Kantakouzene rhaoulaina Palaiologina Komnene, and eirene (daughter of the
copyist theodoros hagiopetrites). for the four copyists, see respectively e. traPP et aLII,
prosopographisches lexikon der palaiologenzeit (hereafter plp), 1-12, vienna 1976-1996,
no. 16889, no. 1001, no. 10943, and no. 5971.
Revue des tudes Byzantines 66, 2008, p. 233-240.

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PhoKIon P. KotzaGeorGIS

scanty, it should be logical to argue that women copyists in Byzantium were

much more numerous than the poor figure of the four above mentioned.
although scholarship has made remarkable efforts in the last two decades
for the identification of women copyists of the middle ages, this is not the
case for the early modern period. as far as I know, the only study on this subject remains the old article written by Spyridon Lambros and published in
1902/3.4 Lambros based his study mainly on manuscripts in the libraries of
athens and mount athos. he succeeded in identifying thirty one women,
from whom twenty flourished in the period between the 15th and the 17th
century. however, not all of them were copyists. four were mentioned as the
copyists of relevant manuscripts and for four others Lambros set forth only
the hypothesis that they were involved in manuscript production.5 from the
former, one belonged to the local aristocracy of moldavia, two had family
names (Sophia, daughter of rikou Kaloioanni, and maria Kroussapoula) and
none of them were nuns. unfortunately, for none of them are known her place
of origin and/or of copying activity.6 If Lambros inventory can be considered
as a reliable base for further research, we can have a first outlook on Greek
women of the early modern era, which, however, might considerably differ
from that we have for Byzantium. In fact, the three women copyists found in
S. Lambros inventory and mentioned before neither belonged to the aristocracy nor were nuns.7 on the contrary, this is not the case for another catalogue, compiled by the late Professor Linos Politis, and published after his
death. the catalogue contains an inventory of Greek copyists of the 17th and
18th centuries. the three women that are included in this preliminary catalogue are all nuns (makaria, melani and melania).8 I stress that the four
women copyists from the Byzantine period were either nuns or had a reason
for their involvement in the manuscript production.9 are these differences
haphazard? to this question we cannot give an answer because our sample is
very limited.
4. S. LamBroS, Ellhnivde" bibliogravfoi kai kurivai kwdivkwn katav tou" mevsou" aiwvna"
kai epiv Tourkokrativa", Eqnikovn Panepisthvmion, Episthmonikhv Epethriv", 1902-1903, p. 229264. for this subject the monumental work of e. GamILLScheG-d. harLfInGer (eds.),
Repertorium der griechischen Kopisten, 800-1600, 3 vls., vienna 1981-1997, is very important.
By now the volumes for the libraries of Great Britain, france and rome (plus vatican) have
been published. they contain not one woman copyist.
5. S. LamBroS, art. cit., nos. 12, 15, 19, 23. the suspicious copyists are nos. 14 and 28-30.
6. for no. 15 Lambros expresses the hypothesis that she (i.e. Sophia) could have originated
from the Greek regions under frankish occupation (S. LamBroS, art. cit., p. 254).
7. even in the case of elissavet, wife of the ban of moldavia John Ieremia voevoda, it is not
certain that she was a copyist. none of the relevant manuscripts, where notes on women are
found, comes from the libraries of Great Britain, france or rome; thus, nothing is mentioned in
the monumental work of Gamillscheg-harlfinger.
8. L. PoLItIS-m. PoLItI, Bibliogravfoi tou 17ou kai tou 18ou ai.: Mia suvntomh katagrafhv, Deltivo tou Istorikouv kai Palaiografikouv Arceivou tou Morfwtikouv Idruvmato"
Eqnikhv" Trapevzh" 6, 1994, p. 537 and 553. makaria lived in the 18th century, whereas the two
others in the 17th.
9. See above footnote 3.

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235

In 1912, the then canon of the metropolitan see of xanthi, chryssostomos

chatzistavrou, published in the Byzantinische Zeitschrift an inventory of manuscripts in the monasteries of virgin mary named archangeliotissa and virgin
mary named Kalamou, which are located near the town of xanthi.10 this catalogue is of great value, since by approximately that date those manuscripts were
transferred to Bulgaria during the Bulgarian occupation of the region in 19131919, a transfer which makes very difficult the task of the identification of the
manuscripts of chatzistavrous catalogue. today, the manuscripts of the two
monasteries of xanthi are housed, with other Greek manuscripts, in the
ecclesiastical historical and archival Institute (ehaI) in Sofia.
In chatzistavrous catalogue for the monastery of archangeliotissa, the
manuscript under the number 16 has the title: Nomiko;n pavnu wjfevlimon kai;
ejklekto;n dia; patevra" pneumatikouv" (a legal [manuscript], very useful and
special for spiritual fathers). the codex is made out of paper and contains
four hundred pages. at the end of the codex the following bibliographical
note is added (in chatzistavrous reading): Qeou' to; dw'ron kai; Eujfrosuvnh"
povno", | ejteleiwvqh ejpi; e[tou" zxzVw/ ejn mhni; Mai?w/ aVh/ (the gift is Gods and
the labor is euphrosynes, | [the codex] was finished in the year 7067 [= a.d.
1559], at the 1st day of may).11 It is a typical bibliographical note which
informs us that a woman was the copyist of the codex.
after the xanthi manuscripts were transferred to Bulgaria, two Greek
scholars studied them. at first, the late Professor L. Politis, on the occasion of
a congress, saw the manuscripts. a few years later, in an article he presented
the results of his endeavour to identify the extant manuscripts in Bulgaria
with those in chatzistavrous catalogue. he succeeded in finding some new
manuscripts, not contained in the catalogue, but he was not able to identify
others. among the latter was the legal manuscript no. 16 of archangeliotissa.12
In 1978, a three-member scientific team led by the late Professor
P. christou, then director of the Patriarchal foundation for Patristic Studies
of thessaloniki, went to Sofia and took photographs of the mentioned manuscripts. Seventeen years later, one of the members of this team, Professor
G. Stoyioglou, in a congress, communicated the preliminary results from the
study of those manuscripts. according to Professor Stoyioglous paper, that
team did not succeed in tracking down the above legal manuscript.13
10. ch. chatzIStavrou, Katavlogoi duvo twn ceirogravfwn twn en Xavnqh th" Qravkh" ierwvn
enoriakwvn Monwvn Panagiva" Arcaggeliwtivssh" kai Panagiva" Kalamouv", BZ 21, 1912,
p. 65-75.
11. ch. chatzIStavrou, art. cit., p. 70.
12. L. PoLItIS, Ta ceirovgrafa duvo monasthriwvn th" Xavnqh" (Panagiva"
Arcaggeliwvtissa" kai Panagiva" Kalamouv"), Qrakikav Cronikav 33, 1977, p. 16.
13. G. StoyIoGLou, Ta ceirovgrafa twn monwvn th" Xavnqh" (Panagiva" Arcaggeliwvtissa"
kai Panagiva" Kalamouv") sto Ekklhsiastikov Mouseivo th" Sovfia", in Klemmevna politistikav agaqav th" Anatolikhv" Makedoniva" kai Qravkh". H enestwvsa katavstash kai to
nomikov kaqestwv" th" epistrofhv" (Dhmokrivteio Panepisthvmio Qravkh". Qrakikhv
Biblioqhvkh), ed. by G. K. PaPazoGLou, Komotine 1999, p. 72.

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PhoKIon P. KotzaGeorGIS

although the manuscript has not yet been discovered, and probably is not
in Sofia,14 the fact is that it contains information on a Greek woman copyist of
the 16th century called euphrosyne. who was she? a native of xanthi
(xanthiotissa)? or does the bibliographical note refer to one of the manuscripts that were written at a long distance from the place they were preserved
and were transferred to the monastery of xanthi for some reason?15 how did a
woman manage to copy a manuscript with legal content in a period of high
illiteracy among the christian population?
Let us begin with the copyists name. In Lambros catalogue two women
are registered under this name. the first one appeared in an evangelium of
the 11th century, but the bibliographical note referring to this woman is dated
from the 14th century.16 nevertheless, the above mentioned euphrosyne, a
nun from trebizond, was not a copyist and she lived in the 14th century. the
second one was euphrosyne the nun with the name Pegene (Eujfrosuvnh
monach; tou[noma hJ Phghnhv). It seems that she was a nun in a monastery
called Pege, but nothing else is known about her. She lived in the 15th century but she was not a copyist.17 So, we can hardly identify our euphrosyne
with one of the two above mentioned. quite interesting is the fact that the two
euphrosynes were nuns. Should we ascribe the characteristic of the religious
person to women copyists of the early modern times?
the role of the manuscript copyists during the 16th century was important.
they constitute (or they wanted to be) the literary elite of the Greek society.
the access to (hand-) writing was very difficult and the person who succeeded in doing this was automatically advanced to a higher cultural level
than the other common people. If this person could reach to such a point as
to copy lengthy manuscripts, he/she was immediately considered to be a
scholar. Because of this, the existence of a scriptorium in a monastery constituted an example of the high literary level of the monastery. the relation
between the copyists and the ecclesiastical milieu was direct, since the whole
network of education emanated from (and was controlled by) the church.
Scholarship has discerned two categories of manuscript copyists for the 16th
century: a) monks and b) laymen or clerics who lived in an ecclesiastical
milieu and/or were related to members of the high clergy. many of them
gained ecclesiastical offices (officia) as well.18 having in mind the cases of
the two euphrosynes and the categorization of the Greek copyists of the 16th
14. this conclusion can be drawn from the recently published checklist of the manuscripts
of the Institute. In this catalogue, euphrosynes manuscript is referred to as having a fate
unknown (d. Getov, A Checklist of the Greek manuscript Collection at the ecclesiastical
historical and Archival institute of the patriarchate of Bulgaria, Sofia 1997, p. 37).
15. as for example the manuscript of archangeliotissa no. 28, of which the bibliographical
note says that its copyist came from methoni in morea (L. PoLItIS, art. cit., p. 17).
16. S. LamBroS, art. cit., p. 244-245 (no. 8). for this euphrosyne, see plp, no. 6380.
17. S. LamBroS, art. cit., p. 251 (no. 13).
18. o. GratzIou, Epaggelmative" grafeiv" kai peristasiakoiv mikrogravfoi katav to 16o
aiwvna, in S. Patoura (ed.), The Greek Script in the 15th and 16th centuries, athens 2000,
p. 465-466.

a GreeK woman coPyISt

237

century, one may search for a connection of our euphrosyne with ecclesiastical circles, since she was not a nun. In this case, our euphrosyne should
belong to the second category of the above mentioned typology.
In the archive of the metropolitanate of xanthi and Peritheorion, among
other sacred relics and written sources, quite a few ottoman documents were
housed. their time span ranges from between the middle of the 16th century
to the beginning of the 20th century. the majority of the early documents
concerns cases put on trial before a muslim court and their judgments are
recorded in the court register. a document, officially called hccet, was given
to the person who won the case, if he/she requested it. It should be noted that
the court in the ottoman empire did not simply function as a todays court,
but it played the role of a notarys office and had administrative responsibilities as well.19
In such a document, dated from the 5th day of the month muharrem, a.h.
982 [a.d.: 27.4.1574], we read the following: one euphrosyne (efrein),
daughter of a certain vardassaki (Verdeaq), dweller of xanthi, appeared
before the court and declared in the presence of her brother, Serapion the
priest (papa erabin), the following: after the death of her father vardassaki,
her brother Kaloyannis and her mother vardassakena had made over their
share of the deceaseds inheritance to euphrosyne. the property consisted of
mills, vineyards and houses. By this judicial instrument, euphrosyne made an
agreement with her (other) brother, father Serapion, and sold to him her share
of their fathers inheritance. She got as a settlement fee (bedel-i sulh) one
hundred thirty six silver coins (ake). the document was promulgated after
the priests request.20
the document describes a routine case for a judge. the interest for my
subject is that it refers to a certain euphrosyne, dweller of xanthi, who settled
a case in the local muslim court, fifteen years after the copy of a manuscript,
written by a woman by the same name, probably in the area of xanthi. If the
two euphrosynes were the same person, what was their (her) relation with the
ecclesiastical circles and/or the monasteries of xanthi?
Let us begin with the second sub-question. father Serapion of the
ottoman document was not simply a priest of xanthi. two ottoman documents from the same archive referred to persons with the same name. In a
19. on the operation of the court in the ottoman empire, see r. JennInGS, Kadi, court and
Legal Procedure in 17th century ottoman Kayseri, Studia islamica 48, 1978, p. 133-172; Idem,
Limitations of the Judicial Powers of the Kadi in 17th century ottoman Kayseri, Studia
islamica 50, 1979, p. 151-184.
20. archive of metropolitan see of xanthi and Peritheorion, dossier 1, no. 47 [hereafter
amxP, 1/47]. the document is preserved in perfect condition; it is certified by the deputy judge
of the sub-district of xanthi, ahmet son of yahya. In the upper part of the recto is written the
following note: iprav cotzevti (= deed of settlement). In another note in the verso we read: dia
ta <ki> strevmata coravfh ovpou agovrase o serapivo" cotzevth (= the hccet for the <twenty?>
stremmata [20,000 sq meters] field that father Serapion had bought). the amount of money was
extremely small, since in 1566 the price of about 750 sq meters vineyard was one hundred and
fifty akes (amxP, 1/old no. 8).

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judicial document from 1585 the hieromonk Serapion, son of vardassaki

(Vardaak), together with father Joseph, son of dimitris, represented a monk
of the monastery of virgin mary archangeliotissa before a muslim court in
an inheritance case. In another document from 1590, a Serapion (Sarapino)
represented together with two monks the monastery of archangeliotissa in a
criminal case.21 from these two documents it can be inferred that father
Serapion was a monk of archangeliotissa. So, having a brother in the brotherhood of the monastery of archangeliotissa, euphrosyne formed a direct contact with the monastic circles of xanthi. was father Serapion euphrosynes
only connection with the church?
during his expedition to Sofia, Professor Stoyioglou discovered in the
archive of the ecclesiastical museum a manuscript that neither chatzistavrou
nor Politis had previously pointed out. In a paper delivered in a congress by
Professor Stoyioglou, we are informed about the content of this manuscript. It
is a prothessis (commemoration book) of archangeliotissa dated from 1549
(e[to" znzV ijn(diktiw'no") zV ejgravfh). In it are written the names of the people
that wanted to be registered for commemoration. Judging from the village
names, we can assume that the prothessis was connected with alms-giving
(zeteia) of the monks in the western and eastern thrace.22 Before the enumeration of the villages and the corresponding personal names, there is the following entry: Manitai'o". Qei'on kai; iJero;n Brabei'on tou' ejndovxou
Megalomavrturo" Gewrgivou tou' Tropaiofovrou (manitaios. holy and
sacred brevium of the glorious and great martyr George the victorious). as
Professor Stoyioglou has stressed, the entry probably refers to a parish of
xanthi. the next entry concerns the village vouvalarion23 and after that the
village Peritheorion. If we trace the monks route by registered village names,
it seems that they followed the old via egnatia, the present xanthi-Komotini
road via Iasmos.
Leaving aside the problem of the church or parish of Saint George
manitaios24 and where it was located, I turn to the next information in the
prothessis which Professor Stoyioglou gives in his paper. according to the
21. the two documents (hccet) are: amxP, 1/old no. 9 (11-20 zilhicce 993/4 - 13.2.1585)
and amxP, 1/58 (1-10 cemaziylevvel 998/9 - 17.3.1590) respectively. In the first document,
father Serapion seems to be in a distant place, probably in the venetian territory.
22. G. StoyIoGLou, Topografiva th" Qravkh" mevsa apov klapevnta kwvdika th" monhv"
Arcaggeliwvtissa" th" Xavnqh" tou 16ou aiwvna, in Klemmevna politistikav agaqav th"
Anatolikhv" Makedoniva" kai Qravkh". H enestwvsa katavstash kai to nomikov kaqestwv" th"
epistrofhv" (Dhmokrivteio Panepisthvmio Qravkh". Qrakikhv Biblioqhvkh), ed.
G. K. PaPazoGLou, Komotine 1999, p. 103-107. for prothessis as a historical source of the
ottoman period, see Ph. KotzaGeorGIS, Anqrwpwnuvmia Coumnikouv (18o" ai.), Ellhnikav 53/2,
2003, p. 339-342.
23. Since the village appears to have been located between xanthi and Peritheorion and had
a good number of christian inhabitants, we can identify it with the present-day Kimmeria. the
ottoman name of the village was Koyun Ky [= the Sheep village], not unlike the Greek name
(vouvoularion = the place of oxen).
24. the name seems to be misspelled. the genitive maniteos (Manitevw") probably comes
from the word maneta (mavnhta) meaning anger.

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text, at the head of the ninety-two names in the entry of the parish are a
man named vardatzakis and his wife Kyrdaladena. this means that
vardatzakis was a prominent person of the parish and that his relation with
the monastery of archangeliotissa is well-documented, so as to be registered
first in the diptychs.
the persons that appeared in the mentioned sources (the prothessis, the
three ottoman judicial documents and the Greek juridical codex), I presume,
were related to each other. the elements which speak for their relationship are
the following: a) the very short time span in the sources (between 1549 and
1590); b) the common place of activity (the town of xanthi); c) the rare
names they bore (varda[t]sakis,25 euphrosyne, Serapion). I conclude that the
copyist euphrosyne was the daughter of vardassakis and the sister of the
hieromonk Serapion of archangeliotissa. Be this as it may, we have the family profile of this person. her family was prominent or at least amongst the
more pious ones of xanthi (these characteristics were often coexistent in the
early modern era). the familys relations with archangeliotissa dated back to
at least 1549, probably before Serapion was a monk of the monastery. If
euphrosyne copied the codex in 1559, fifteen years later, when she sold her
share of the fathers inheritance, she might have been of a mature age, as suggested by her action in the ottoman document.
the fact that euphrosynes codex has not yet been discovered deprives
scholars of the study of euphrosynes script. If it could be found, then we
could possibly attribute to her other manuscripts as well. the codex
euphrosyne copied was written for the monastery of archangeliotissa, or, at
least, it came to the monastery at a later period. It is unimportant whether the
manuscript travelled before the monastery got it. It would be of great value
for researchers if we knew the precise content of the manuscript, because in
that way we would have other interesting elements as well, such as: was the
content of the codex original? which handbook the spiritual fathers of
that epoch used?
If all my identifications are correct, then we have before us a second
clearly documented woman copyist of the 16th century who did not come
from any of the cultural centers of hellenism of that era (e.g. constantinople,
crete, morea), but from a modest provincial town.26 If euphrosyne differs in
this way from the norm of Greek copyists of the early modern era, in the
characteristic of her social status she does not. In the above mentioned two
categories of Greek copyists of the 16th century, euphrosyne belongs to the
second one: she was a laywoman, but she was closely involved in monastic
affairs. however, in contrast with her colleagues of the middle ages,
euphrosyne was neither a nun, nor a relative of a high ranking person (like
25. this very strange and rare personal name seems to be a diminutive form of the known
Byzantine name vardas.
26. It should be noted that the only Greek woman copyist of the 16th century in the sources
is maria Kroussapoula, in a religious manuscript of the library of the Sinai monastery from 1531
(S. LamBroS, art. cit., p. 256, no. 19).

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theodora cantacuzene rhaoulaina Palaeologena comnene); moreover, it is

not known if any of her relatives was active in the same occupation.27
conversely, her case fits well with the reality of the 15th and 16th century.
from the known women copyists, two in the 15th and one in the 16th century,
none of them seems to belong to a high social circle. this situation may be
explained by the demographical (and cultural) restrictions the Greek aristocracy experienced in that period, immediately after the fall of constantinople.
Putting aside the purely bibliological concern, euphrosynes case is good
evidence for the general situation of womens education in the 16th century.
even in a provincial town, with a predominantly christian cultural character,
but surrounded by a massive muslim populace,28 womens education was not
impossible. the necessary prerequisite for such an effort was, as also partly
for men, womens relation to the ecclesiastical circles. the latter insured a
woman a salient position in local christian society. In such cases the presence
of monasteries might be lifeblood for preserving a spiritual and cultural level
in local society.
Besides this, the existence of the copyist euphrosyne in 16th-century
xanthi does not appear strange. rather, it indicates the existence of literati
amongst common women, outside the cultural milieu of constantinople or
other big towns. those women got a higher education as compared with the
general literary level. manuscript copying might have been the main way a
woman could enter a literary circle. while this activity does not pretend to
originality, it does require the knowledge of writing and reading at a very high
level.
finally, euphrosynes case confirms the preponderance of the church in
educational matters. In other words, educated Greek women of the early modern era whose main occupation was the copying of manuscripts, if they were
not nuns, were nevertheless related directly to church circles of the region
where they lived. they were few in number, but they did exist. one must simply search hard to find them.
Phokion P. KotzaGeorGIS
aristotle university of thessaloniki

27. the names of papa-Serapion, Kaloyanni or vardassaki are completely absent in

chatzistavrous catalogue. In contrast, the monastery of archangeliotissa in the same period
seems to have charged a monk called neophytos with the task of copying the liturgical books
for the needs of the monks (G. StoyIoGLou, art. cit., p. 73). on the other hand, eirene was a case
of a copyist who was a relative of a calligrapher; she was the daughter of the calligrapher
theodoros hagiopetrites in the 14th century (P. SchreIner, art. cit., p. 38).
28. the taxable christian population comprised nearly 90% of the inhabitants of the town in
the 16th century (G. voGIatzeS, H prwvimh Oqwmanokrativa sth Qravkh. VAmese" dhmografikev" sunevpeie", thessaloniki 1998, p. 363-364). In contrast, the remaining district had an
overwhelmingly muslim population: according to the abridged tax register (icmal tahrir defteri)
of 1530, the district had approximately 64% muslim and 36% christian taxpayers (Babakanlk
osmanl arivi, tapu tahrir defteri no. 167, p. 29).