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Three Protoexempla and Their Place in a Thirteenth-Century Pilgrim Book

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 January 2017

Gail Lenhoff
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Archbishop Antonii’s Kniga Palomnik (circa 1201-4) is the earliest extant account of a Novgorodian pilgrimage to Constantinople. The work has long been valued by historians as a document of the Byzantine capital's treasures on the eve of the Latin invasion and by philologists as a model for the literary genre known as the khozhdenie. Recent scholarship suggests that Kniga Palomnik’s readership was far wider than previously supposed and that Archbishop Antonii’s literary skills should not be underrated. But when it comes to analyzing the appeal of the work, the critical consensus ends. Some view Kniga Palomnik as an exemplary account with a few insignificant breaches of etiquette. Others contend that the author’s talents are most apparent in rhetorical exhortations, where he lapses from the genre’s decorum. There are grounds for both positions. Kniga Palomnik is indeed typical, in that it consists of a series of descriptive essays framed between exordial and concluding topoi. At the same time, Antonii’s fondness for rhetoric undeniably signals a break with tradition. My own findings indicate a third alternative, namely, that the rhetorical “lapses” and the “normative” passages conform to a system of etiquette compatible with but distinct from that of the account of the journey per se.

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Slavic Review , Volume 40 , Issue 4 , Winter 1981 , pp. 603 - 613
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Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. 1981

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References

1. Among the historians who have discussed Kniga Palomnik are Kondakov, N. P., Vizanliiskie tserkvi pamiatniki Konstantinopolia (Odessa, 1887)Google Scholar; Jean, Ebersolt, Les arts somptuaires de Byzance. Etude sur I'art imperial de Constantinople (Paris, 1923)Google Scholar; idem, Recueil d'etudes d'archeologie el d'histoire (Paris, 1951); Lazarev, V. N., Vizantiiskaia zhivopis‘(Moscow, 1971)Google Scholar; George P., Majeska, “The Image of the Chalke Savior in Saint Sophia,” Byzantinoslaviea, 32, no. 2 (1971) : 284–95Google Scholar; idem, “The Russian Travellers on the Relics, ” Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 27 (1973) : 71-87; idem, “The Body of St. Theophano the Empress and the Convent of St. Constantine, ” Byzantinoslaviea, 38, no. 1 (1977) : 14-21. On the khozhdenie, see V. V. Danilov, “O zhanrovykh osobennostiakh drevnerusskikh ‘khozhdenii, '” Akademiia nauk SSSR, Institut russkoi literatury, Otdela drevnerusskoi literatury, Trudy, 18 (1962) : 21 37; Gai! Lenhoff-Vroon, “The Making of the Medieval Russian Journey” (Ph.D. diss., University of Michigan, 1978); N. I. Prokof'ev, “Russkie khozhdeniia XII-XV vv., ” Moskovskii gosudarstvennyi pedagogicheskii institut im. Lenina, Uchenye zapiski, 363 (1970) : 64-95; Seemann, Klaus-Dieter, Die altrussische Wallfahrlsliteratur. Theorie und Geschichte eines literarischen Genres (Munich, 1976), pp. 213–21 Google Scholar. On recent discoveries and the reassessment of the journey, see O. A., Belabrova, “'Kniga Palomnik’ Antoniia Novgorodskogo (k izucheniiu teksta),” Trudy, 29 (1974) : 185 Google Scholar; idem, “O ‘Knige Palomnik’ Antoniia Novgorodskogo, ” in Vizanliiskie ocherki. ed. Z. V. Udal'tsova (Moscow, 1977), pp. 225-35; Gail, Lenhoff, “ Kniga Palomnik : A Study in Old Russian Rhetoric,” Scando-slavica, 23 (1977) : 39–61Google Scholar; Journel, M.-J. Rougt de, “A propos du Voyage d'Antoine de Novgorod, ” Revue des Etudes Slaves, 34 (1957) : 112–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Prokof'ev takes the stand that Kniga Palomnik is a typical documentary account ( “Russkie khozhdeniia, ” pp. 90-94). Seemann is more interested in the departures from objective exposition, but does not analyze them (Die altrussische Wallfahrtsliteratur, p. 220). The four rhetorical “exhortations” are cited and discussed with respect to the Old Russian rhetorical tradition in Lenhoff, “Kniga Palomnik, ” pp. 43-49.

3. “And below near the [place where the hymn to the] Myrrh-Bearing Women [is sung] in Saint Sophia is the small coffin of Saint Athenogenes’ child. For God sent an angel after the child's soul. Athenogenes was conducting the service with the child in the church when the angel of the Lord entered and stood before him, saying to Athenogenes, ‘God has sent me for the soul of this youth, that I might receive it.’ Saint Athenogenes replied to the angel, ‘Wait until the child and I have completed this holy worship service to your God and mine, Creator of heaven and earth, Who sent His son to us unworthy and sinful [mortals] to cleanse us of our sins and save our souls and in anticipation of those who would turn from their sinful ways to the Lord and repent.’ And he said this in all humility. Upon hearing Athenogenes, the angel of the Lord obeyed him and stood, waiting until the sacrifice had been completed. When Athenogenes and the child had finished the service, the saint took the child by the hand, bowed to the angel and gave up the child. The angel of the Lord received the child's soul and went off to God, rejoicing and exulting and glorifying God for the salvation of the youth's soul “(Khr. Loparev, ed., Kniga Palomnik. Skazanie mest sviatykh v Tsaregrade Anioniia arkhiepiskopa novgorodskogo v 1200 godu, in Pravoslavnyi Palestinskii sbornik, 62 vols. [St. Petersburg, 1882-1916] [hereafter cited as Kniga Palomnik], vol. 17, fascicle 3, book 51, p. 73). All references to Antonii's text are taken from the Iatsimirskii manuscript (appended to the Loparev edition) (Gosudarstvennaia publichnaia biblioteka im. Saltykova-Shchedrina, Muzeinoe sobranie, no. 10261, listy 156-58), which is acknowledged to be the oldest and most accurate copy, but was discovered too late to serve as the basis for Loparev's edition. See also A. I. latsimirskii, “Novye dannye o khozhdenii arkhiepiskopa Antonii v Tsar'grad, ” Akademiia nauk, Leningrad, Otdelenie russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti, lzvestiia, 4, no. 3 (1899) : 223-54. An annotated translation of this and other medieval Russian pilgrimage accounts by George P. Majeska is forthcoming.

4. “And nearby is a large mosaic of the Savior affixed to a step [var : wall]; the artist did not'depict one finger of the right hand, but upon completing all [that is here], gazed upon [his work] and said, ‘Lord, 1 have portrayed You as You were in life! ‘And the image of Christ replied to him, ‘When did you see me?' The artist was struck dumb and died, and the finger was never painted in, but [the place where it would have been] was encased in silver and gilded” (Loparev, Kniga Palomnik, p. 74).

5. “And by the side doors in the antechapel on the wall is a large mosaic of Christ. A priest would light an icon lamp before it every day and night. Once as he was burning incense, the [image of] Christ spoke to the priest, saying, ‘Eispollaeti, Despota [For many years, master].'On the third day thereafter, he was consecrated patriarch. Observe, brethren, how virtue leads to honor and high rank in this age and in the age to come” (ibid., p. 81).

6. Richard Pope, in particular, has raised fundamental questions in this sphere. See his “On the Type and Extent of the Influence of Byzantine Literature on South and East Slavic Original Literature : A Discussion and a Methodology, ” in American Contributions to the Seventh International Congress of Slavists : Warsaw, August 21-27, 1973, vol. 2, ed. Victor Terras (The Hague, 1973), pp. 470-72 and “On the Comparative Literary Analysis of the Patericon Story (Translated and Original) in the Pre- Mongol Period, ” Canadian Contributions to the VIII International Congress of Slavists, Zagreb- Ljubljana, 1978, ed. Z. Folejewski et al. (Ottawa, 1978), pp. 1-23. Also of interest are the essays in the collection Istoki russkoi belletristiki, ed. la. S. Lur'e (Leningrad, 1970). On sovereign and vassal genres in medieval Rus', see D. S. Likhachev, Poetika drevnerusskoi literatury, 3rd ed. (Moscow, 1979), pp. 59-79 and passim.

7. On vassal genres in the chronicle, see A. D. Stokes, “What is a Voinskaia PovestH” Canadian-American Slavic Studies, 13, nos. 1-2 (Spring-Summer 1979) : 32-51.

8. Pope, “On the Comparative Literary Analysis, ” p. 20. Compare the position taken by Dmitrii Chizhevskii in “On the Question of Genres in Old Russian Literature, ” Harvard Slavic Studies, 2(1954) : 111-12.

9. Norman Ingham argues eloquently for the importance of viewpoint in distinguishing the genre of texts which do not manifest readily classifiable structural features (Ingham, “The Limits of Secular Biography in Medieval Slavic Literature, Particularly Old Russian, ” American Contributions to the Sixth International Congress of Slavists, Prague, 1968, August 7-13, vol. 2, ed. William E. Harkins [The Hague, 1968], pp. 181-99). On the authorial “image, ” see Likhachev, Poetika, pp. 69-70.

10. Prokof'ev, “Russkie khozhdeniia, ” pp. 77, 84-85, and passim.

11. Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God. trans. Catharine Misrahi (New York, 1960), p. 168.

12. On the identification of “legends” with folklore see Afanas'ev, A. N., Narodnye russkie legendy (Moscow, 1859), pp. v–viiGoogle Scholar; Adrianova-Peretts, V. P., “Istoricheskaia literatura Xl-nachala XV veka i narodnaia poeziia, ” Trudy, 8 (1951) : 95–137Google Scholar; Sokolov, Iu. M., Russkiifol'klor (Moscow, 1941), p. 36 Google Scholar; O. V. Tvorogov, “Siuzhetnoe povestvovanie v letopisiakh XI-XII1 vv., ” Isloki russkoi belletristiki, pp. 35-44.

13. An extreme example of the Soviet tendency to minimize the role of religion in supernaturally oriented texts may be seen in Poliakova, S. V., “Vizantiiskie legendy, kak literaturnoe iavlenie,” in Vizanliiskie legendy, ed. S. V. Poliakova (Leningrad, 1972), pp. 245–54 Google Scholar. The “legends” in question include excerpts from the vitae of saints Cosmas and Damian, Pelageia and Mary of Egypt, as well as the Ijiusaic History of Palladiusand the Pratum Spiritualeoi John Moschus. See also Pope, Richard W. F., “But the Literature Does not Fit the Theory : A Critique of the Teleological Approach to Literature, ” Slavic Review, 36, no. 4 (December 1977) : 667–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. Saint Athenogenes, as will be discussed below, is ostensibly identified, but his status has no connection to the causality or the moral of the tale although it might be argued that he lends a certain credibility or authority to the account.

15. On the moralistic tales found in various miscellanies, including the Izmaragd, see G. P. Fedotov, The Russian Religious Mind, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1946-66), 1 : 203, 2 : 58-59, 97-98, 107-108.

16. For an overview of exemplum scholarship and the history of the genre, see Owst, G. R., Literature and Pulpit in Medieval England (Cambridge, 1933)Google Scholar; Welter, Jean-Thiebaut, L'exemplum dans la litterature religieuse el didaetique du Moyen age (Paris, 1927; rpt. New York, 1973)Google Scholar; Mosher, Joseph Albert, The Exemplum in the Early Religious and Didactic Literature of England (New York, 1911)Google Scholar; Otto, Bardenhewer, Geschichte der altkirchlichen Literatur, 5 vols. (Freiburg, 1913-22), 3 : 337–45Google Scholar; Frederic, Tubach, “Exempla in the Decline,” Traditio, 18 (1962) : 407–17.Google Scholar

17. On exempla in Rus', see Vladimirov, P. V., Velikoe Zertsalo (iz istorii russkoi perevodnoi literatury XVII veka) (Moscow, 1883)Google Scholar; Derzhavina, O. A., “Velikoe Zertsalo” iego sud'bana russkoi pochve (Moscow, 1965)Google Scholar; idem, Fatsetsii : perevodnaia novella v russkoi literature XVII veka (Moscow, 1962); Rainer Alsheimer, Das Magnum Speculum als Ausgangspunkt populárer Erzáhltraditionen. Studien zu seiner Wirkungsgeschichte in Polen und Russland, Europaische Hochschulschriften, series 19, vol. 3 (Frankfurt, 1971).

18. See, for example, the comments of Chizhevskii, Dmitrii in History of Russian Literature From the Eleventh Century to the End of the Baroque (The Hague, 1960), pp. 324–25 Google Scholar; Derzhavina, “Velikoe Zertsalo, ” pp. 3-10; Likhachev, D. S., Razvitie russkoi literatury X-XVIIvekov (Leningrad, 1973), p. 139–43.Google Scholar

19. Among more recent works on the Dialogues (Rimskii paterik), see Gerhard, Birkfellner, “Gregorius I. der Grosse und die slavischen ‘Paterika’ (Anmerkungen zu einer Theorie),” Slovo, 24 (1974) : 125–33Google Scholar; idem, Das römische Paterikon. Studien zur serhischen, bulgarischen und russischen Überlieferung der Dialoge Gregors des Grossen mil einer Textedition, Schriften der Balkan-Kommission, Linguistische Abteilung, no. 27, 2 vols. (Vienna, 1979); Christian, Hannick, “Die griechische Überlieferung der Dialogi des Papstes Gregorius und ihre Verbreitung bei den Slaven im Mittelalter,” Slovo, 24 (1974) : 41–57Google Scholar; F. W., MareS, “Welches griechische Paterikon wurde im IX Jahrhundert ins Slavische übersetzt?” Anzeiger der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, 109 (1972) : 205–21Google Scholar; Richard Pope, “If Methodius Translated a Patericon, Which One was it?” in The Old Church Slavonic Translation of the Andrōn hagiōn Biblos in the Edition of Nikolaas van Wijk, ed. D. Armstrong, R. Pope, and C. H. van Schooneveld (The Hague, 1975), pp. 17-24.

20. See, for example, N. Kostomarov's commentary on “O zhenshchine, voshedshei v tserkov’ v nechistom vide” in Pamiatniki starinnoi russkoi literatury, izdavaemye Grafom Grigoriem Kushelevym- Bezborodko, ed. N. Kostomarov (St. Petersburg, 1860; rpt. The Hague, 1970), p. 210. “Fotronot” is none other than Italian Bishop Fortunatus of Tuscany; “M atrena” is, in Saint Gregory's original tale, a noble matron of Tuscany. Cf. Sancti Gregorii papae 1 cognomento magni, Opera omnia in Patrologia Latina, cursus completus, ed. J. P. Migne, 221 vols. (Paris, 1844-64), vol. 77, cols. 199-202. See also Saint Gregory the Great, Dialogues, trans. Odo John Zimmerman (New York, 1959), pp. 42-43.

21. Riccardo Picchio suggests that the Igor Tale may best be explained as “an exemplum condemning Igor’ Sviatoslavif's sin of pride” (Picchio, “The Function of Biblical Thematic Clues in the Literary Code of ‘Slavia Orthodoxa, '” Slavica Hierosolymitana, 1 [1977] : 31). He graciously allowed me to examine one chapter from the typescript of his forthcoming study of the Igor Tale, in which he pursues this line of inquiry and calls for an investigation of the exemplum tradition in Slavia Orthodoxa.

22. Tubach, “Exempla in the Decline, ” pp. 409-12; Pope, “On the Comparative Literary Analysis, ” p. 20.

23. Mosher, The Exemplum, pp. 5-19; Welter, L'exemplum, p. 63.

24. Tubach, “Exempla in the Decline, ” pp. 409-10.

25. Ibid., pp. 411-12.

26. Cf. Leonid Ouspensky, Theology of the Icon, trans. E. Meyendorff (Crestwood, New York, 1978), pp. 53-58.

27. Athenogenes, together with ten of his disciples, was beheaded in 311 and is honored by the Orthodox Church on July 16, Old Style. Cf. S. V. Bulgakov, Nastol'naia kniga dlia sviashchennotserkovno- sluzhitelei, 2nd ed. (Khar'kov, 1900), p. 246. See also note 14.

28. Georges Florovsky, “The Worshipping Church, ” in The Festal Menaion, trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware (London, 1969), p. 35. See also Alexander Schmemann, Sacraments and Orthodoxy (New York, 1965), pp. 25-55.

29. N. S. Tikhonravov, Sochineniia, 2 vols. (Moscow, 1898), 1 : 127-29, 132-38. See also A. N. Pypin, Istoriia russkoi literatury, 2 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1907), 1 : 370-71.

30. See, for example, the account of an icon pierced by a Jew with a spear in Abbot Daniil, Nachdruck der Ausgabe von Venevitinor 1883/85, Wallfahrtsbericht, ed. D. Chizhevskii, Slavische Propylaen, 36 (Munich, 1970) (hereafter cited as Abbot Daniil, Pilgrimage), p. 90.

31. Ibid., p. 141.

32. See Khozhdenie Stefana Novgorodtsa (hereafter cited as Stefan, Khozhdenie) in M. N. Speranskiy Iz starinnoi novgorodskoi literatury XlVveka (Leningrad, 1934). On the dating see Ihor Sevcenko, “Notes on Stefan, the Novgorodian pilgrim to Constantinople in the XIV century, ” Siidost-Forschungen, 12 (1953) : 165-75.

33. Stefan, Khozhdenie, p. 59.

34. See Opisanie Konstantinopolia nachala XIVveka (hereafter cited as Opisanie)'mSperanskii, Iz starinnoi novgorodskoi literatury. See also the more corrupt text in L. Maikov, Materialy i issledovaniiapo starinnoi russkoi literature. 1. Beseda o sviatvniakh i drugikh dostopamiatnostiakh Tsaregrada in Akademiia nauk, Leningrad, Otdelenie russkogo iazyka i slovesnosti, Sbornik, 51, no. 4 (1890)(hereafter cited as Beseda).

35. Opisanie, p. 131; cf. Beseda, pp. 16-17.

36. Seemann, Die altrussische Wallfahrtsliteratur, p. 74 and passim; cf. D. S. Likhachev, “Pamiatniki iskusstva v literature Novgoroda, ” in Novgorod. K1100-letiiugoroda, ed. M. N. Tikhomirov et al. (Moscow, 1964), p. 52, where he asserts that the protagonists of Novgorodian literature were architectural and artistic monuments.

37. Loparev (Kniga Palomnik, pp. xi-xiii), Prokof'ev ( “Russkie khozhdeniia, ” pp. 93-94), and Seemann (Die altrussische Wallfahrtsliteratur, p. 220) all characterize the rhetoric as digressive.

38. Loparev, Kniga Palomnik, p. 75.

39. Ibid., p. 76.

40. Ibid., p. 77.

41. Lenhoff, ‘Kniga Palomnik, ” pp. 43-49; idem, “The Making of the Medieval Russian Journey, ” pp. 124-28.

42. See Novgorodskaiqpervaia letopis’ starshego i mladshego izvodov, ed. A. N. Nadsonov (Moscow-Leningrad, 1950), pp. 250, 261, 269, 272-74, and 281. On the legends associated with Antonii, see V., Kliuchevskii, Drevnerusskie zhitiia sviatykh kak istoricheskii istochnik (Moscow, 1871), pp. 59–63 Google Scholar; Dmitriev, L. A., Zhitiinyepovestirusskogo severa kakpamiatniki literatury XIII-XVII vv. (Leningrad, 1973), pp. 16–18 Google Scholar. There seems to be some confusion between Antonii and the monk Antonii Dymskii. Cf. Bulgakov, Nastol'naia kniga, p. 36 and Entsiklopedicheskii slovar', ed. F. A. Brokgauzand I. A. Efron, 43 vols. (Moscow-St. Petersburg, 1890-1907), la : 856, 858.

43. “Let us strive, brethren, in the life of the world to come to avoid terrible torments and seek life eternal, where we shall dwell with Christ and with the archangels in joy and rejoice with all the saints. Leaving all evil to the devil and uniting in love, we should imitate the lives of those saints. Their memory is recorded here. For these saints were men, just as we, but they rejected the evil of this life and thought of it as filth. We [too] shall abandon it and wish to separate ourselves from it and shall seek those with whom we may come, rejoicing, to the living God in eternal life without end “(Loparev, Kniga Palomnik, pp. 93-94).