Dumbarton Oaks Papers: Number Fifty-Six, 2002 (review)

Abstract

Dumbarton Oaks Papers:Number Fifty-Six, 2002. Edited by Alice-Mary Talbot. (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection. 2003. Pp. vii, 324. $85.00.) Rarely are volumes of professional journals reviewed, but in this case, Dumbarton Oaks Papers has published nine articles on the theme of pilgrimage in the Byzantine Empire after 600. These papers were first presented at the Dumbarton Oaks Symposium, May 5-7,2000. Taken together, they represent a major work regarding Byzantine pilgrimage, to be placed next to that of John Nesbitt and Virgil Crisafulli on the Miracles of Saint Artemios. In introducing these articles, Alice-Mary Talbot emphasizes that Greek had no term for pilgrim, an English word derived through Italian from the Latin peregrinus (foreigner). The Byzantine term for those who traveled to a religious shrine was proskynetes (worshiper), a word which did not imply a journey. Another Greek term,xenos, most closely iefiectsperegrinus, but it has always retained a more general meaning of stranger or guest, and thus survives as the Greek word xenodocheion (hotel) or the English xenophobia, terms with no connection to pilgrimage. Three subsequent articles present evidence to support what Talbot infers from Greek terminology. In the first article, Talbot herself focuses on the years after iconoclasm; she examines miracle tales associated with saints' shrines in Asia Minor and Palaeologan Constantinople. Such miracle tales form a peculiar genre of hagiography. The most famous example of this genre is the Miracles of Saint Artemios, a seventh-century source recording forty-five miracles most of which describe how visitors to Saint Artemios' tomb in Constantinople were healed of disease. In studying Anatolian miracle tales, Talbot discovers that most visitors came from the local area rather than from distant lands. One could thus describe them as worshipers (proskynetes) rather than pilgrims. Unfortunately, no miracle tales survive from Ephesus and its wonder-working tomb of Saint John the Evangelist. Other sources prove that Ephesus did attract true pilgrims from all over the Mediterranean, including some Moslems, as Clive Foss's article emphasizes. The second article,by Jon Rosenqvist, focuses on Eugenics of Trebizond.In the miracle tales concerning this saint's shrine, Rosenqvist found again that visitors came only from Trebizond, not even from nearby mountain villages. Eugenics' tomb never attracted pilgrims, despite two attempts by local religious leaders to move his feast day from January to june, a month favoring long-distance travel. In the third article, Richard Greenfield reaches the same conclusion in examining the Life of Saint Lazaros of Mount Gelasion. Lazaros attracted thousands during his lifetime who came for spiritual advice, for material assistance, or simply out of curiosity, but none were pilgrims who traveled from distant provinces. …