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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.
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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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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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