Learning about Learned Medieval Women with Dr. Megan J. Hall

This week, we’re looking back at an earlier episode of “Meeting in the Middle Ages.” In late 2022, we chatted with Dr. Megan J. Hall, Assistant Director of the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame. We spoke with her about women’s literacy and learning in medieval England, the trials and tribulations of writing an academic article, and why impromptu bell-ringing can reveal the true value of scholarship.

Studying history can show us the bigger picture. It can help to explain why nation states behave as they do, why complex geopolitical situations emerge, and how entire landscapes have been shaped over time. But it also allows us to connect with the past on a local level. It can show us where we come from. Speaking with Dr. Hall, we were reminded several times that through historical research, people can identify with those who came before. Moments of identity like that can drastically reshape our relationship with the past. Dr. Hall’s meeting with a group of bellringers in rural England is a perfect example. During this surprise encounter, she was able to share her own work with the group and participate in a tradition of bell ringing which has centuries of history. Her work prompted one of the group to ask ‘so, could women read in the Middle Ages?’ Dr. Hall was able to correct a common misconception of women and the possibilities open to them in medieval England. Yes, some women could read! Some books were written specifically for women! This revelation changed the questioner’s view of medieval women, and was a triumphant ‘I knew we could!’ she experienced a moment of solidarity with them.

Dr. Hall’s story, as has been the case for so many of the conversations we’ve had on Meeting on the Middle Ages, is also a reminder of the privilege that medievalists have. We are able to visit museums, archives, libraries, and go beyond the public spaces. We can consult ancient materials. We don’t have to rely on facsimiles (well, sometimes we do). We can work with the original, turning it over in our hands and connecting with its creator. In doing so, we become another link in a chain that has been forged over centuries. With the Ancrenne Wisse it begins with the object’s creator, perhaps the scribe or composer of a manuscript. It binds together dozens of men and women who received the text and used it in their lives. Dr. Hall is part of that chain. And in telling her story, we all become a part of it too.

Thanks for listening. See you next time in the Middle Ages.

Will Beattie & Ben Pykare
Medieval Institute
University of Notre Dame

The Anti-Latin Polemic of Metropolitan Ephraim of Kiev

While I think it is true, as I have argued before, that the Greek church never considered the events of 1054 as marking any kind of definitive break with the Latin West, this does not mean that the theological writers at the time ignored the sudden and dramatic juxtaposition of Eastern and Western liturgical, ritual, and cultural practices. Indeed, almost the reverse is true: the decades following 1054 witnessed a flourishing of a genre that has been termed the “Byzantine lists,” essentially short treatises outlining a series of objectionable practices that were common (or were believed by the authors to be common) among Latin Christians. Typically inspired by the letter of Michael Cerularius to Peter of Antioch, which added several complaints about the Latins to a list of issues that were under more active discussion between the two sides in 1054, these lists commonly discussed issues that pertained to liturgical or ritual practice. Greek Christians regularly complained that their Latin confrères did not celebrate baptism correctly, did not fast from the correct foods or with sufficient rigor, and did not sing the word “alleluia” during church services at the correct times of the year, among other problems.

St. Peter of Antioch, detail of the mosaic in the Basilica of San VitaleRavenna, 6th century.

The primary study of the genre as a whole remains Tia Kolbaba’s monograph The Byzantine Lists: Errors of the Latins, published in 2000 [1]. Kolbaba maintains that the composition of these lists was fundamentally a project of Byzantine cultural consciousness, a way of emphasizing (or constructing) the unity, antiquity, and correctness of Eastern Roman practice by way of comparison to the “other,” in this case, the Latins. These lists were intended as emotional appeals to a broad Greek audience, and were somewhat low-brow in both style and content: theologically difficult issues like the filioque are presented side-by-side with complaints that Latin bishops wear silk rather than woolen robes, with no effort to rank the comparative importance of the various complaints.

Given Kolbaba’s argument that these lists of complaints are fundamentally inward looking, focused more on the Eastern Romans than the Western ones, it is especially interesting that one of the earliest examples of the genre was not written within the oikoumene at all, but rather under the political authority of the Kievan Rus’. Ephraim, the metropolitan of Kiev from around 1055 to the early 1060s, was an ethnic Greek recently transplanted in the eastern Slavic territory when he authored a list of twenty-eight distinct complaints against the Latin Christians [2]. Most of these complaints concern topics that are familiar to students of the East-West conflict: the filioque, the use of azymes (unleavened bread) in the celebration of the Eucharist, the practice of fasting on the Sabbath (Saturdays). Indeed, the complaints in Ephraim’s treatise echo the issues raised in the 1054 conflict so completely that he either had received a thorough report of the events or was still personally resident in Constantinople during the time of the Humbertine legation.

Miniatures from the Kiev Psalter, 1397CE.

Ephraim, however, was also cognizant of his new cultural context, and Igor Čičurov, who first printed an edition of the text, points out instances where Ephraim used words or referenced topics that would have been far more familiar to a Slavic audience. For example, Ephraim attributes the sacramental use of azymes to the Vandals, noting that this group of people are now called the “Nemitzioi” (“τῶν νῦν Νεμιτζίων καλοθμένων”) a native Slavic term for Germans (i.e., non-Slavs): “немитции” or “немцы” [3]. Furthermore, Ephraim deviated from his literary model, Michael Cerularius, in accusing the Latins of not giving baptizands the names of saints, but instead the names of various animals (lions, bears, leopards, etc.) [4]. This complaint, Čičurov notes, is not made in any list of complaints against the Latins composed within the Eastern Roman Empire itself. Instead, it is only from the Slavic context, where the practice of retaining a non-Christian name after baptism was common, that this issue was raised [5].

This complaint brings us back to Kolbaba’s thesis, that the so-called Byzantine lists had more to do with policing cultural practice and ritual purity within the Eastern Christian world than in correcting behavior in the West. Constantinopolitan authors of similar works, although they surely would have objected to this naming practice, apparently did not see the need to mention it among their complaints. In Ephraim’s case, however, we see an ethnic Greek confronted with the very foreign (to him) practice of retaining a non-Christian name. His attack on the Latin practice would equally have served as a critique of the princely families of the Rus’ by whom he was surrounded. We are left, in the end, with a strengthening of Kolbaba’s central argument: “[…] the intended audience was not Latin. There are anti-Latin works which were intended to convince Latins, but the lists are not among them” [6] Instead, we should see Ephraim’s work, at least in part, the effort of a Greek clergyman to enforce the norms of Constantinopolitan orthodox theology and practice in the Eastern Christian hinterland.

Nick Kamas
PhD in Medieval Studies
University of Notre Dame

[1] Tia M. Kolbaba, The Byzantine Lists: Errors of the Latins (Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, 2000). See especially chapter 1, pp. 9-19, for the argument on the purpose and context of the lists.

[2] For some biographical details on Ephraim of Kiev, see Gerhard Podskalsky, Christentum und Theologische Literatur in der Kiever Rus’ (988-1237) (München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1982), 285-286. Further details, including a helpful bibliography, are in А. В. Назаренко, “Кое-что о Двух Русских Митрополитах XI в. Ефреме Киевском и Ефреме Переяславском” Древняя Русь: Вопросы Медиевистики 75.1 (2019): 87-90.

[3] “Антилатинский Трактат Киевского Митрополита Ефрема (ок. 1054/55-1061/62 гг.) в Составе Греческого Канонического Сборника Vat. Gr. 828,” Вестник ПСТГУ 19.3 (2007): 127. This publication in Russian is a revision of an earlier German article: I. Čičurov, “Ein antilateinischer Traktat des Kiever Metropoliten Ephraim,” Fontes Minores X (Frankfurt am Main, 1998): 319–356. The edition of the Greek text appears only in the German version.

[4] Traktat 18, in Čičurov, “Ein antilateinischer Traktat,” 344.

[5] Чичуров, “Антилатинский Трактат,” 126.

[6] Kolbaba, Byzantine Lists, 28.

On St. Nick’s Beard

The development of the appearance of the modern Santa Claus is a fascinating one, evolving from traditional representations in Germany and the Low Countries, a distinctly English Father Christmas, and the Coca-Cola Company’s efforts to sell product. One of the most distinctive features of the modern portrayal, though, predates all of these: the beard, a sine qua non of the modern depiction, dates back centuries, and likely originated with the historical St. Nicholas himself. Unlike some of the other aspects of his appearance, though, the decision of St. Nicholas (probably) to wear a beard, and the decisions of his later iconographers to depict him with one (or not, as the case may be), were generally not socially or theologically neutral. In this post, I’d like to explore some aspects of the meaning conveyed by St. Nick’s beard, focusing mostly on the Middle Ages and as an excuse to bring up my favorite research topic: the differences that arose between Latin and Greek expressions of Christianity during and after the conflict of the mid-eleventh century.

But first, by way of background, what can be said about the appearance of the historical St. Nicholas, the bishop of Myra in Asia Minor in the first half of the fourth century? While the sources for the general practice of the time period are not unanimous, the consensus of the Christian writers of the period, especially in the Eastern part of the Roman Empire, seems to have been in favor of beard-wearing [1]. Clement of Alexandria, writing the century prior, argued, “For God wished the woman to be hairless and smooth, rejoicing in her hair alone, like the horse does its mane, but He decorated man with a beard, just like the lions” [2]. Nor was the sentiment confined to Christian authors. Emperor Julian (“the Apostate” or “the Philosopher” depending on whom you ask), about as un-Christian an author as one could ask for and a reasonably close contemporary of Nicholas, is famous for his written defense of the beard. At the same time, clergy in many parts of the West, and the city of Rome in particular, retained the republican and imperial Roman custom of cleanshavenness.

The preference of the Eastern churchmen has been taken into account for forensic reconstructions done on the basis of the relics in his tomb in Bari, and the resulting depiction is dominated by a sizeable beard ]. This depiction persisted in subsequent centuries of Greek Christian iconography. From the earliest surviving example (seventh or eighth century, available in the Mount Sinai Archives), through to the present day, St. Nicholas, in the Greek tradition, is consistently depicted with a beard. And, given his ubiquity in the medieval and modern Orthodox church setting, it might be fair to say that he became one of the definitive archetypes for how clergy should look.

Apse of the Ferapontov Convent, Russia, By Dionisius, turn of the 16th c.
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

Clerical appearance took on a new significance as conflicts between the Greek and Latin churches began to arise. During the so-called “Photian Schism” in the ninth century, for example, while Photios himself noted the differences between Greek and Latin practices with equanimity, other Greeks were less tolerant [3]. The Roman Pope at the time, Nicholas I, complained to Hincmar of Reims that the Greeks condemned them for being clean shaven [4]. By the time of the legation of 1054, this condemnation had grown into an occasional cause for a break in communion. As Humbert of Silva Candida complained: “maintaining the hair of their head and their beards, they [i.e., the Greeks] do not receive into communion those who tonsure their hair and shave their beards according to the institution of the Roman Church” [5].

The Latins, as mentioned above, were much friendlier to the notion of cleanshavenness as far back as the Patristic period, especially among the clergy, and this permissiveness gradually evolved into a situation in which not having a beard became one of the defining markers of the clerical state. Even within monastic communities, wearing a beard was a sign of the low social standing of lay brothers in religious communities. Monks who were also ordained, in contrast, were usually clean shaven [6]. Defenders of the Latin tradition, therefore, predictably took a very different position from their Greek interlocutors. This expression ranged from the mild-mannered observation of the difference in practice made by the Norman Anonymous, writing around the turn of the twelfth century (“they observe a different custom in tonsure and habit […], for they are bearded”) to the vituperative Leo Tuscus half a century later (“Their priests, in a Jewish manner, permit their beards to grow, which are sodden with the Lord’s blood when it is drunk by them.”) [7].

So what of St. Nicholas? While the Greeks continued to portray him in the traditional manner, Latin artists (or perhaps iconographers?) chose to portray him not as he was, but as they felt he ought to have been. The Nicholas that emerges in the late Middle Ages looks every bit the part of a Latin bishop: in Latin clerical dress, complete with miter and crosier, and without a trace of a beard.

The De Grey Hours (c. 1390), National Library of Wales, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
The De Grey Hours (c. 1390), National Library of Wales, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Of course, it is important to note that St. Nicholas was hardly alone in this treatment: it was entirely commonplace to update the saints of antiquity to suit the sartorial standards of the artist. At the same time, precious few saints with so wide a following in the Latin Church were known to be Greek, and the Greek preference for the beard was equally well known, so it’s difficult not to see some degree of deliberate Latinization in the portrayal of the saint.

In the end, East-West polemic shifted to other topics, clearing the way for the restoration of the beard. And, in a sense, in fixing the image of a bearded Santa Claus so firmly in the modern imagination, to the point that a beardless Santa Claus would be near anathema, perhaps the Coca-Cola Company has earned a small debt of gratitude from contemporary iconographers.

Nick Kamas
PhD in Medieval Studies
University of Notre Dame

[1] A. Edward Siecienski, “Holy Hair: Beards in the Patristic Tradition” St Vladimir’s Theological Quarterly 58:1 (2014), 64.

[2] Clement of Alexandria, Paidogogus 3.3. PG 8.580.

[3] Photius of Constantinople, The Mystagogy of the Holy Spirit, trans. Holy Transfiguration Monastery (Long Island City, NY: Studion Publishers, 1983), 45–46. For a discussion of this and many of the following sources, see A. Edward Siecienski, Beards, Azymes, and Purgatory: The Other Issues that Divided East and West (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2023), 38–78.

[4] PP Nicholas I, Epistola Hincmaro et Ceteris Confratribus Nostris Archiepiscopis et Episcopis in Regno Karoli Gloriosi Regis […], MGH Epistolae VI, 603.

[5] “Excommunicatio qua feriuntur Michael Caerularius atque ejus sectatores.” Acta et Scripta, ed. Cornelius Will (Frankfurt am Main: Minerva GMBH, 1963), 153–154.

[6] Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 195–196.

[7] Norman Anonymous. “De consecratione sacerdotis,” in Die Texte des Normannischen Anonymus, ed. Karl Pellens (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1966), 104. Leo Tuscus, Malae consuetudines Graecorum, PG 140.547D.