Tag: azymes

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Laycus of Amalfi on the Azymes

As a continuation of sorts to my last post, on Peter Damiani’s reaction to the events of 1054, I’ve decided to take a look at another churchman writing on the same topic a few years later, a certain Laycus of Amalfi, who undertook to compose a defense of the use of unleavened bread (azymes) in the Eucharist around the year 1070 [1]. His work took the form of a letter, addressed to Sergius, a Latin-rite abbot living in Constantinople. According to the text, Laycus had been motivated to write by reports from his correspondent and from other Latins that they had been completely surrounded by those who were trying to persuade them to abandon the Latin liturgical usage in favor of the Greek [2].

Other than his name, virtually nothing else is known about the author of the text. The sole surviving manuscript witness (Brussels, Bibliothèque royale 1360 / 9706-25, 116v-119r) gives only the identification “a letter of Laycus, cleric” (“epistola layci clerici”), a seeming contradiction in terms that leaves us with the assumption that “Laycus” is a given name. Anton Michel, who edited the text in 1939, notes further that monastics of the time tended to identify themselves as such: the absence of a word like “frater” in self-reference suggests that the author was not in monastic orders [3]. Even the origins of the author in the city of Amalfi are conjectural, and they are based more on his presumed links to Abbot Sergius, who was likely the leader of the monastery of St. Mary of the Amalfitans in Constantinople, an establishment attested by Peter Damiani around the same time[4].

The famous bronze doors of the Cathedral of St. Andrew in Amalfi, manufactured in Constantinople around the year 1060. Photo credits Berthold Werner, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

The manuscript that preserves this text is also one of the few early copies of the work of Humbert, Cardinal of Silva Candida, and, as it happens, it is from Humbert’s writings that our Laycus drew most of his arguments in favor of the azymes. The core argument, in Laycus as in Humbert, was an appeal to the example set by Christ at the institution of the Eucharist during the Last Supper. According to the argument, Christ, who came to fulfill the Law of Moses, would have used unleavened bread at the Last Supper since the synoptic Gospel accounts place the event on the first day of the celebration of Pascha (Pesach), when leavened bread was prohibited in observant Jewish households. This act of institution was reinforced during the supper at Emmaus, which likewise occurred during the days of Pascha and is regarded in the text as a celebration of the Eucharist [5]. This practice was preserved by the Roman Church, according to Laycus, who cited Popes Anacletus, Clemens, and Sylvester as uniquely instrumental in this effort [6].

Especially for the period of the pre-Gregorian Reform, the tone of the text is fairly mild. The introductory paragraphs make reference to the “most pious, holy, and wise fathers and doctors [of the Greeks]” who themselves used leavened bread in the Eucharist (but who didn’t, though, attack the Latin use) [7]. And the letter of Laycus appears all the more gentle in comparison with the source material: gone is the spirited, “listen up, stupid” (“audi, stulte”) style of invective found in Cardinal Humbert [8]. Instead, we find almost a plea to avoid rending the garment of Christ by provoking division between the two rites, coupled with an emphatic statement that the one faith could contain various customs within the churches [9].

Does the work of Laycus of Amalfi change our understanding of the azyme debate or the conflict between the Eastern and Western churches more broadly? In terms of theological content, to put it bluntly, not really. The arguments advanced by Laycus were the same as those put forward by Humbert some fifteen years prior, and, while the text written by Laycus was itself copied by Bruno of Segni in another epistle in the early twelfth century, this branch of the post-Humbertine literary tradition does not leave any substantial mark in the theological framework of the Latin church. On the other hand, the very existence of this letter, along with the fact that a Greek prelate took the time to respond to it, does indeed broaden our insight into the East-West conflict more generally [10]. It emphasizes, first of all, that the Humbertine legation in 1054 was not a one-off attempt to open lines of communication between the two churches. Rather, communication was happening, even without the intervention of popes and patriarchs, and it was based on pre-existing and well-established ties connecting East and West. A Latin-rite monastery in Constantinople, staffed by Amalfitans, would naturally be in contact with friends, relatives, and fellow clerics back home.

Second, to return to a point that I’ve made before, this letter makes clear that there was no general sense of schism between East and West in the aftermath of the 1054 legation. Indeed, as noted above, the tone of this letter is notably more civil than the polemics of Humbert. Although Laycus was certainly more of an azyme partisan than was Peter Damiani, the work and its date of composition points to an extended window in which ecumenical dialogue, in the sense that both sides still saw each other as part of the same community, was still possible.

Nick Kamas
PhD in Medieval Studies
University of Notre Dame

  1. Anton Michel has published the only substantial scholarly treatment of the material and the only edition of the text. Amalfi und Jerusalem im Griechischen Kirchenstreit (1054–1090): Kardinal Humbert, Laycus von Amalfi, Niketas Stethatos, Symeon II. von Jerusalem und Bruno von Segni über die Azymen (Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1939. See also a short summary in Jonathan Shepard, “Knowledge of the West in Byzantine Sources, c.900–c.1200” in A Companion to Byzantium and the West, 900-1204, ed. Nicolas Drocourt and Sebastian Kolditz (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 67.
  2. Laycus of Amalfi, c. 1, Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem, 35.
  3. Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem, 21.
  4. Peter Damani, Letter 131, trans. Owen J. Blum, The Letters of Peter Damian Peter Damian, Vol. 5, Letters 121–150, The Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation 6, (Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 55. For an assessment on why this monastic house in particular, see Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem, 18–19.
  5. Laycus of Amalfi, c. 5–11, Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem, 37–42.
  6. Laycus of Amalfi, c. 14–15, Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem, 44–45.
  7. Laycus of Amalfi, c. 2, Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem, 36. “Licet illorum [Graecorum] religiosissimi, sanctissimi atque sapientissimi patres ac doctores fuerint et studuerint ex fermentato pane omnipotenti domino sacrificium offerre, tamen numquam invenimus illos nostram oblationem evacuantes aut deridentes […].”
  8. Humbert, Cardinal of Silva Candida, Responsio sive Contradictio adversus Nicetae Pectorati Libellum, cap. 13, edited in Cornelius Will, Acta et Scripta quae de controversiis ecclesiae graecae et latinae saeculo undecimo composita extant (Leipzig: N. G. Elwert, 1861), 141.
  9. Laycus of Amalfi, c. 3, Michel, 36–37. “Numquid divisus est dominus in corpore suo, ut alius sit Ihesus Christus in Romano sacrificio, alius in Constantinopolitano? Quis hoc orthodoxus dixerit nisi ille, qui dominicam non veretur scindere vestem? Nos veraciter tenemus, immo firmiter credimus, quia, quamvis diversi mores ęcclesiarum, una est tamen fides […].”
  10. Probably Symeon II of Jerusalem. Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem, 25–28.
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(Pseudo-) Peter Damiani and the Reception of the Schism

In stark contrast to the almost non-reception of the events of 1054 in the literary Byzantine world, discussed here, on the Latin side of the equation, the report of the legation penned by Cardinal Humbert of Silva Candida quickly found its way into various historical chronicles and into theological literature. Two particularly fascinating examples that appear in Patrologia Latina 145 are both published under the name of Peter Damiani, who was, together with Humbert himself, one of the leading members of the papal curia in the mid-eleventh century. Although he would not be elevated to the cardinalate until 1057, under Pope Stephen IX, by the time of Humbert’s legation to Constantinople he was already active in attending various synods and had written the deeply influential Liber Gomorrhianus (addressed to Pope Leo IX). What makes these two works interesting, in light of their purported joint authorship, is that they take views of the azyme conflict (the use of unleavened bread in the celebration of the Eucharist) that are at odds both with each other and with the stance adopted by the Humbertine legation.

Photograph of a bust of Peter Damiani taken from the Florentine church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Credit to Srnec at English Wikipedia. CC 2.5.

The first example is a letter fragment written by Peter Damiani to Henry, the Archbishop of Ravenna, most likely between 1052 and 1058 [1]. The text is eye-opening both for the historian and for the contemporary canonists, so I’ll cite the full text of Fr. Blum’s translation:

…Just as it makes little difference whether at Mass we offer wine or unfermented grape juice, so, it seems to me, it is all the same whether we offer leavened or unleavened bread. For that “living bread that came down from heaven,” just as he wished to manifest himself under the appearance of wheat, he did so also under the form of the vine. “Unless,” he said, “a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a solitary grain.” And again, “I am the real vine.” Therefore, it suffices for me to offer either whatever is made from grain or whatever is produced by the vine. Nor am I too careful to inquire whether the bread was preserved in an immature dough until it could ferment, or also whether the grape juice was kept in a vat until it could turn into what one calls wine. But since it is not my purpose here to discuss these matters, I leave them to be handled by others…. [2]

Peter Damiani here showed himself to be vastly more permissive than most of the mainstream Latin West when it comes to the correct materials for confecting the Eucharist, and even more tolerant than the legates to Constantinople. Humbert, while he tacitly acknowledged that the Greek practice of using leavened bread was permissible, also had a clear preference for the unleavened Latin host. Peter, interestingly, does not here even mention the Greek practice: his letter is entirely within the context of the Latin rite, addressed to an archbishop of an (admittedly Byzantine-influenced) Latin see. This text allows us to see an approach very different from the one that appears in the aforementioned Liber Gomorrhianus. Given the fact that this was a topic of considerable polemics when he wrote the letter, Peter Damiani appears as a moderating, or even progressive, voice in the conflict.

What a surprise, then, when we examine the second text, taken from the Expositio canonis missae. The work as a whole falls into the genre of Mass commentaries, theological treatises that explain the various ritual components of the eucharistic celebration with historical or scriptural parallels and allegory. Fairly early in this treatise, while discussing the phrase “He took bread” (“accepit panem”) the author complains:

Leavened bread should not be offered in the sacrifice, both by reason of deed and by reason of the mystery. As is read in Exodus: “Leaven signifies corruption”, and as the Apostle witnesses: “A little leaven corrupts the whole lump”. But the Greeks, persisting in their error, celebrate [the Eucharist] from leaven. [3]

Now present is a direct mention of the conflict with the Greeks, using scriptural references that were first applied to the debate by the Humbertine legation. And gone is the tolerance of the previous passage, in which the matter of the Eucharist – so long as it comes from grapes and wheat – is a matter of indifference. Instead, for the author, the use of leavened bread violates the spiritual message of the scriptures, signifying corruption, and is therefore wholly unsuitable for the celebration of the Eucharist. 

The wildly divergent views, of course, lead the reader to question the traditional attributions of authorship for one or both of the passages, and indeed, the Expositio canonis missae has caught the attention of several scholars for containing passages that seem out of place in the literary corpus of Peter Damiani. In particular, the text uses the word “transubstantiation” (“transubstantiatio”), which would be the first appearance of this terminology if it could, in fact, be dated to the middle of the eleventh century. It is this terminological incongruity that caused Joseph de Ghellinck to conduct a line-by-line comparison with other commentaries on the Mass and to conclude that the Expositio postdates not only the De sacramentis of Hugh of St. Victor (d. 1141) but also the De sacro altaris mysterio of Lothar of Segni (later Pope Innocent III), which was written in 1198 [4]. The true date of composition, then, would fall somewhere around the turn of the thirteenth century, about a hundred and fifty years after originally supposed.

When applied specifically to the passage about leavened bread, this reattribution to an anonymous author of the thirteenth century clears up a couple of difficulties. In the first place, the notion of the Greeks persisting “in their error” makes much more sense with the later dating. The use of un/leavened bread in the Eucharist didn’t arise as a point of contention until the 1050s, so the Greeks couldn’t have persisted in the error for very long if it had been Peter Damiani admonishing them. By the year 1200, of course, Latin polemicists could much more reasonably suppose that the Greeks had been given sufficient warning, and therefore that their continued use of leavened bread qualified them as “persisting” (“pertinaces”). Similarly, the hard-and-fast rule that “leavened bread should not be offered” is much more typical of the later period, in contrast with the more permissive attitude found in the eleventh century. We see, for example, an identical notion, in nearly identical phrasing expressed in Lothar’s De sacro altaris mysterio: “Not leavened bread, but rather unleavened, should be offered in the sacrifice, both by reason of deed and by reason of the mystery” [5].

But I want to conclude with an emphasis on the relative openness and permissiveness of the mid-eleventh century. Contrary to the reputation that the events of 1054 have developed in the centuries since, the Latin Christians at that time had only begun to develop their stance on the various points under discussion, un/leavened bread being maybe the most important among them. Had the more irenic figures like Peter Damiani (and even Humbert!) exercised a little more influence on this topic, the West might have maintained a more permissive tone by the time of the authorship of our Pseudo-Peter, and indeed, perhaps a different approach taken under the leadership of Innocent III, who had clearly been swayed by a century and a half of increasing aggressive liturgical polemics in his approach to the Greek rite. Whether openness to a variety of liturgical forms could have prevented the entirety of the calamity of the Fourth Crusade is doubtful, but it certainly couldn’t have hurt.

Nick Kamas
PhD in Medieval Studies
University of Notre Dame

  1. For the Latin text and date, see Kurt Reindel (ed.), Die Briefe des Petrus Damiani, MGG Briefe d. dt. Kaiserzeit 4.2, (München, 1988): 1–2.
  2. Owen Blum (trans.), Peter Damian, Letters 31–60, The Fathers of the Church: Medieval Continuation, (CUA Press, Washington, D.C., 1990): 215.
  3. (Ps.) Peter Damiani, Expositio canonis missae, PL 145.88. “Panis fermentatus non debet offerri in sacrificium, tum ratione facti, tum ratione mysterii. Sic legitur in Exodo. Fermentatum etiam corruptionem significat, teste Apostolo: modicum fermentum totam massam corrumpit. Graeci tamen in suo pertinaces errore de fermento conficiunt.”
  4. Joseph de Ghellinck, Le mouvement théologique du XIIe siècle: études, recherches et documents (Paris: Librairie Victor LeCoffre, 1914), 355–359.
  5. Lothar of Segni (Pope Innocent III), De sacro altaris mysterio, PL 217.854. “Panis autem non fermentatus, sed azymus debet offerri in sacrificium, tum ratione facti, tum etiam ratione mysterii.”

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Michael Cerularius and the Letters of Leo of Ohrid

Michael Cerularius, the Patriarch of Constantinople during the papal legation of 1054, has long been seen as a difficult personality whose theological, political, and personal views led him to thwart the will of the Eastern Emperor, Constantine IX Monomachos, and to undermine any hope of a military alliance between the Eastern Empire and the Papacy to combat the Norman advances in the south of Italy. This assessment stems even from the report of the papal legation itself, written by Cardinal Humbert, which portrays the Emperor as open, welcoming, and even deferential to the legates, while the Patriarch was standoffish and intransigent. Not surprisingly, this view has prevailed in the scholarly literature, up to and including the last dedicated biographical treatment of Cerularius in 1989 by Franz Tinnefeld [1].

More recently, though, Anthony Kaldellis (University of Chicago, recently of Ohio State University) suggested a very different reading of some of the available sources [2]. In his retelling, Cerularius was an agent of a cohesive imperial policy toward the Latins who did nothing to provoke a hostile response from the legates or to stall the efforts of Emperor Constantine to forge a military alliance with Pope Leo IX. Instead, Kaldellis’s Cerularius deliberately avoided confrontation with the legates in order to give the emperor the space to make diplomatic overtures and to attempt to smooth over the religious differences that had been brought to light by polemicists on both sides. Kaldellis’s argument is bold, given that it seeks to overturn an essentially unbroken narrative about the 1054 legation that stretches back to the events themselves. It also asks important questions about the sources upon which this existing narrative has been based, noting quite reasonably that Cerularius was probably not some kind of evil mastermind lurking behind everything that the legates found objectionable in Constantinople. At the same time, I think a complete exoneration of Cerularius from any sort of offensive action stretches the source material too far in the other direction.

To keep things to a blog-appropriate length, I’d like to examine a single issue at the beginning of the conflict to serve as a microcosm of the whole. In the year prior to the famous legation, Archbishop Leo of Ohrid, a Greek churchman who had held high positions within the Constantinopolitan church hierarchy prior to his appointment to the province, wrote a series of three letters critiquing the Latin use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, among other ritual practices [3]. These letters were addressed primarily to the primate of Grado, Dominicus Marengo, and also to (arch)bishop John of Trani, with a request by the author in the first letter to forward the contents to the pope and to the Latin clergy in general. At least one of the addressees did just that, handing a copy of the first letter in the series (which may have been the only one received at that point) over to the papal court, and specifically to Cardinal Humbert, who drafted both a translation into Latin and an extensive point-by-point rejoinder. Humbert’s translation, unlike the original Greek text, ascribes this letter both to Leo of Ohrid and to Michael Cerularius. The question, then, is to what degree Cerularius was involved in this composition.

The Church of St. Sophia, Leo of Ohrid’s cathedral. Diego Delso, delso.photo, License CC-BY-SA.

Kaldellis rightly points out, with the agreement of other scholars, that the see of Ohrid was independent of Constantinople and that Leo was a long-tenured archbishop with the political and theological wherewithal to send his own letters [4]. The suggestion, though, that Cerularius didn’t play any role, and indeed “tried to create a constructive relationship in order to promote imperial interests, not instigate or inflame a conflict,” ignores both the concurrent and robust exchange of letters and people between East and West as well as the other actions of Cerularius himself.

To begin with, Leo of Ohrid did not write these letters in isolation. Just as Leo of Ohrid wrote to Dominicus of Grado, Dominicus was in turn writing to Patriarch Peter III of Antioch, who then replied to him [5]. Dominicus’s correspondence is instructive simply by virtue of its existence, since it shows a broader level of communication between East and West than is commonly assumed, and also because it complains that the holy Roman church had been attacked “by a clergyman of Constantinople” for its use of unleavened bread (“παρὰ τοῦ τῆς Κονσταντινουπόλεως κλήρου”) and that “they censure [with a plural verb: “Ψέγουσι”] the most sacred azymes.” In the aftermath of the excommunications the following year, Michael Cerularius and Peter of Antioch exchanged their own letters, in which they discussed nearly all of the same issues raised by Leo of Ohrid [6].

Cerularius, for his part, is known to have written only one letter, addressed to Pope Leo IX and unfortunately not extant, that seems to have avoided discussing any of these contentious issues. He was, however, busily pursuing the same agenda by other means. By his own later admission, he had already repeatedly refused to give communion to Argyrus, the Eastern Roman catepan in southern Italy on the grounds that he (a Lombard) was a supporter of unleavened bread [7]. Argyrus was known to the papal curia, so it is likely that Humbert knew about this when drafting his translation. Cerularius also took the even more provocative step of closing the Latin-rite churches in Constantinople (or at least some of them) [8]. His inimical stance against the Latin rite was also noted by other Westerners in Constantinople. Pantaelo of Amalfi, in his independent account of the 1054 legation, described him as “most foolish in deeds and discernment” (“actibus et intellectu stultissimus”) a direct contrast to Constantine Monomachos, the “most victorious emperor” (“victoriosissimus imperator”) [9]. Cerularius was, in short, not going out of his way to build constructive relations with the Latin church.

Translated first letter of Leo of Ohrid. Roma, Biblioteca Universitaria Alessandrina, Manoscritti, ms. 169, fol. 128a. Rights belong to Internet Culturale https://www.internetculturale.it/it/15/termini-d-uso

So, at the very least, the joint authorial attribution in Humbert’s translation of Leo of Ohrid’s first letter represents the fact that Cerularius’s theological opinions were long-held, promulgated throughout the Mediterranean world, and closely aligned with the contents of the text. I think it’s also not too far a stretch to grant some credence to Humbert’s joint attribution of the text. Dominicus was a frequent conduit of information between Constantinople and the Papacy; John of Trani had just personally returned from a trip to Constantinople, likely with some degree of insight into the thought of Cerularius [10]. Both Dominicus and John were in close contact with the Curia during this time, and at least one of them gave the letter to Humbert. The balance of probability suggests that the letter was written at least with the knowledge and approval of Cerularius, and perhaps at his direct behest.

Does this bring us back to Michael Cerularius, evil mastermind? I think not. Kaldellis’s argument is an important check on a narrative that has often been taken too far, in which Cerularius is presented as a man of overwhelming political ambition doing his best to subvert imperial policy and take control of the throne, in fact if not in name. Rather, I think we ought to take him, together with the other Greek polemicists who were involved, at their word: they really were concerned about what type of bread to use in the celebration of the Eucharist. While he could not have been unaware of the political aims of Emperor Constantine, Cerularius clearly didn’t let them stop him from taking highly provocative actions against the Latin church. And in the end, for a medieval churchman, politics really shouldn’t be expected to stand in the way of orthodoxy.

Nick Kamas
PhD in Medieval Studies
University of Notre Dame

  1. Franz Tinnefeld, “Michael I Kerullarios, Patriarch von Konstantinopel (1043-1058): Kritische Überlegungen zu einer Biographie,” Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 39 (1989): 95–127.
  2. Anthony Kaldellis, “Keroularios in 1054: Nonconfrontational to the papal legates and loyal to the emperor” in Byzantium and the West: Perception and Reality (11th–15th c.), ed. Nikolaos G. Chrissis, Athina Kolia-Dermitzaki, and Angeliki Papageorgiou  (New York: Routledge, 2019): 9–24.
  3. Edited in Elmar Büttner, Erzbischof Leon von Ohrid (1037-1056): Leben und Werk (Bamberg, 2007): 181–256.
  4. Kaldellis, 10–11. See also Axel Bayer, Spaltung der Christenheit: Das sogenannte Morgenländische Schisma von 1054 (Böhlau: Böhlau Verlag, 2002), 65–67.
  5. Both are edited in Cornelius Will, Acta et Scripta quae de controversiis ecclesiae graecae et latinae saeculo undecimo composita extant (Leipzig: N. G. Elwerti, 1861): 205–208 (Dominicus to Peter), 208–228 (Peter to Dominicus).
  6. Will, Acta et Scripta, 172–183 (First letter of Cerularius to Peter), 184–188 (Second letter Cerularius to Peter), 189–204 (Letter of Peter to Cerularius).
  7. Will, Acta et Scripta, 177.
  8. This point has been contested, but I don’t think convincingly. See Tia Kolbaba, “On the closing of the churches and the rebaptism of Latins : Greek perfidy or Latin slander?” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 29 (2005): 39–51, J. R. Ryder, “Changing perspectives on 1054” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 35 (2011): 20–37, and Tia Kolbaba, “1054 revisited: response to Ryder” Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 35 (2011): 38–44.
  9. Edited in Anton Michel, Amalfi und Jerusalem in Griechischen Kirchenstreit: Kardinal Humbert, Laycus von Amalfi, Niketas Stethatos, Symeon II. von Jerusalem und Bruno von Segni über die Azymen (Rome: Pont. Institutum Orientalium Studiorum, 1939): 52–54.
  10. Büttner, 43–44, 48.