The Iconographic Program of Decorated Chancel Barriers in the Pre-Iconoclastic Period

The Iconographic Program of Decorated Chancel Barriers in the Pre-Iconoclastic Period Author(s): Lawrence Nees Source: Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, 46 Bd., H. 1 (1983), pp. 15-26 Published by: Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Munchen Berlin Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1482116 . Accessed: 15/02/2011 10:08 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at . http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=dkgmb. . 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Deutscher Kunstverlag GmbH Munchen Berlin is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte. http://www.jstor.org Lawrence Nees The IconographicProgramof DecoratedChancel Barriersin the pre-IconoclasticPeriod Perhapsthe single most distinctivefeature of the programwas well established.This programoften interiorof an Orthodox churchis the ornatechan- involved representationsof the major liturgical cel screen commonly known as the iconostasis, Feasts of the church, and generallyincluded as a but the earlyhistory of the decoratedchancelbar- central feature the Deesis, Christ between the rierremainsa subjectmuch disputedby scholars1. prayingfiguresof the VirginandJohn the Baptist, The problem is aggravatedby a persistentlack of with archangels,apostles and saints flanking the uniformity in the use of the term iconostasis, re- central group5. Several scholars have suggested strictedby some to the high wall completely sepa- thatthe Deesis programmay in factbe tracedback ratingthe congregationfrom the sanctuaryas em- to the pre-Iconoclasticperiod, and it is this ,>early ployed in the modern period, the usage I myself Deesis iconography<theory that I would like to preferand will employ here, while others use it in briefly reviewhere, takinginto accountsome new a looser sense to refer to any chancel barrier(or material evidence recently excavated and a new templon)bearingfiguraldecoration.Yet the diffe- interpretation of a written source recently rences among scholarsare also substantivein na- published. ture. The extremeposition enunciatedin the early 3 KurtWeitzmann,?Die Elfenbeine byzantinischen years of the twentieth century by KarlHoll, that einesBamberger Gradualeund ihreurspringliche a fully-developed iconostasis already existed as ? in Studienzur Buchmalerez und Verwendung, Goldschmiedekunst des Mittelalters. early as Justinian's Hagia Sophia in the sixth Festschrift fur KarlHermannUsenerzum 60. Geburtstag am 19. century, and indeed could be tracedback directly August1965,ed. FriedaDettweileret al. (Marburg to much earlier Greek theatre architecture,has an der Lahn,1967),pp. 11-20, reprintedin Kurt found little Since that time a generally support2. andIvoWeitzmann,ByzantineBookIllumination numberof scholarshave however developedsolid ries(London,1980),no. VII. Of coursethisshould not betakento implythatthechancelbarrieralways evidence for the view that at least by the ninth or receivedsuchafiguralprogram.InthispaperI make tenth centuryin the Byzantinechurchthe chancel no attemptto touchuponthe complexquestionof barrierwas already commonly equipped with a thearchitectural formandliturgicaluseof thechanseries of icons in variousmaterials3,and although celbarrier; fortheseproblemsandforadiscussionof aniconicscreenssee theexcellentstudyby A. H. S. probably not yet a high wall blocking the congre?TheSkripouScreen, TheAnnualof the view of the a Megaw, altar4, gation's generaliconographic BritishSchoolatAthens61(1966),1-31.I wouldlike to thankProf.C. L. Strikerforbringingthisarticle Themostrecentandbestgeneralintroduction to the to my attention. is thearticleby subject,withextensivebibliography, Ann WhartonEpstein, >TheMiddle Byzantine 4 Manolis Chatzidakis, >>EiKoveqCTEaruAiov 1rTOTO Barrier:Templonor Iconostasis?<< in his JourSanctuary yliou'Opoc?,4,4 (1964-65),377ff.,reprinted Studiesin ByzantineArtandArchacology nal of the BritishArchaeological Association134 (London, Icons(above,note 1972),no. XVIII,andGalavaris, (1981),1-28,whichreachedmeonlyafterthisarticle was in pressandtoo latefor systematicincorpora2), p. 8. tion. I wouldliketo thankProf.AnthonyCutlerfor 5 Thebibliography on theDeesisis vastandneednot besurveyedhere.A generaldiscussionis byTh.von callingmyattentionto thisimportant study.I would forthegeneespeciallyliketo expressmy gratutude Bogyay, ?Deesis,< in Reallexikonzur byzantiniroussupportof theUniversityof Pennsylvania, schenKunst1 (Stuttgart, this 1966),cols. 1178-1186.To the olderbibliography therecitedshouldbe added paperhavingbeenwrittenundertheidealconditions Doula Mouriki,>A Deesis Icon in the Art Muprovidedthereduringmy tenureasa MellonFellow in theHumanities for 1981-1982. seum,?<Recordof the Art Museum,PrincetonUni2 KarlHoll, -Die Entstehung derBilderwand in der versity27 (1968),13-28, two importantarticlesby griechischenKirche, Archivfir Religionswissen- ChristopherWalter,?TwoNotes on the Deesis,< Revuedesetudesbyzantines 26(1968),311-337,and schaft9 (1906),365-384.Thetheorywasbrieflybut ?FurtherNotes on the Deesis,< Revue des6tudesbypersuasivelyrebuttedby EdmundWiegand,>Die Ikonostase der justinianischenSophienkirche,, zantines28 (1970), 161-187, and especiallythe 2 (1949),209-210,but was recently Kunstchronik extendedstudyandcriticalreviewof thepreviousliteratureby MariaAndaloro,?Notesui temiiconoquoted without explicitdisagreement by George IconsfromtheElvehjemArt Center(exGalavaris, graficidellaDeesise dellaHagiosoritissa,Rivista hibitioncatalogue,TheElvehjemArt Center,Unidell'IstitutoNazionaledi Archeologia e Storiadell' Arte17(1970),85-153,especiallypp. 93-97. versityof Wisconsin- Madison,1973),p. 7. 15 1. Chancel barrierwith Deesis, Apostles and Saints. Crusaderpainting, 13th c., Mount Sinai Critical to this entire problem of the decorated chancel screen in the early Byzantine period is the interpretation of the poem by Paulus Silentiarius concerning Justinian's Hagia Sophia, which describes the chancel barrier at considerable length. Written after the collapse of the great dome in 558, the poem was probably recited for the re-consecration of the Great Church in 5636. Although posing difficult problems for the archaeologist or art historian who would like to understand it, the description does clearly refer to carved images of Christ, angels, prophets, apostles, and the Virgin placed somewhere ?on the columns<7. This list of figures corresponds rather closely to some later chancel screens and other works of Byzantine art such as ivory triptychs, and in a splendid article Kurt Weitzmann reconstructed a tenth-century chancel barrier with ivory plaques forming a Deesis, also comprising images of Christ, angels, apostles and the Virgin, an arrangement perhaps best paralleled among surviving complete chancel barriers by a Crusader painting on Mount Sinai (fig. 1). Almost as an afterthought Weitzmann tentatively offered the hypothesis that, although certainly one cannot expect to find the fully developed program of the Prayer of Intercession (the Deesis) in the Justinianic period, the Hagia Sophia decoration presented a >prelude< to the Middle Paul Friedlander,ed., Johannesvon Gaza und Paulus Silentiarius,KunstbeschreibungenJustinianischer Zeit (Leipzig/Berlin, 1912), p. 110. A convenient modern Englishtranslationis now availablein Cyril Mango, TheArt of the Byzantine Empire312-1453, Sourcesand Documents in the History of Art Series (Englewood Cliffs, N. J., 1972), p. 87. 7 The fundamental analysisof the text andreconstruction of the chancel barrierit describes, which has won wide acceptance,is by StephenG. Xydis, ?The 6 16 ChancelBarrier,Solea, andAmbo of HagiaSophia,< Art Bulletin 29 (1947), 1-24. The reconstructionof the chancelbarrierhas been reviewedmore recently by Thomas F. Mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople:architectureand liturgy(University Park, 1971), pp. 96-98, with a discussion of some new archaeologicalfindings which do not however bearon the iconographicproblemhereunderdiscussion, a problem not addressed by Mathews. It should be noted thatXydis's proposedtextualemendation concerningthe form of the image frames,resulting in a reconstructionwith circularmedallions ratherthanelongatedovals, which has been accepted by most subsequentscholars,was rejectedon philologicalgroundsby JohannesKoderin an appendixto Karoline Kreidl-Papadopoulos, >Bemerkungen zum justinianischenTemplon der Sophienkirchein ByKonstantinopel, Jahrbuchder Osterreichischen zantinischen Gesellschaft17 (1968), 279-289. This point plays an importantrole in Kreidl-Papadopoulos's iconographic study, which envisages a multilayered composition on the front of the screen, probablydepictinga scenic imageperhapssimilarto the Ascensionrepresentedon severalPalestinianampullae and in the well-known miniatureof the RabbulaGospels, whichpresentsthe samecastof characters. I find this reconstructionextremelyunlikelyfor manyreasons.Firstamulti-tieredscenicimageseems grossly anachronisticin generaltermsfor one of the earliestchancelscreensbearingfiguraldecorationof any kind whatever, and also it is quite inconsistent with the layout of the space, since the solea and ambo also on the centralaxis directlybefore the center of the chancel screen would allow no clear view of this areafrom the naveof the church. Paulus Silentiariusprovides no positive support for such a reconstruction,which is rathersurprisingsince we are then driven to conclude that he either entirely missed the main point of so magnificentand central a decorativeprogramor else simply chose to ignore it. Also Kreidl-Papadopoulos'sinterpretationrequires us to accept a singularlytorturea interpretation of Paulus Silentiarius'sterm ?elsewhere?describing the location of the Virgin, as actuallysignifying,below.< Finally there seems to be no plausiblereason to actually connect the supposedly related images (ampullaeand so forth) to the decorationof chancel screens. Byzantine iconography8. Weitzmann did not however attempt to specify the precise nature of this prelude or discuss exactly how it was connected to the later arrangement, but some other scholars have gone so far as to conclude that the Deesis was the likely subject of the Hagia Sophia screen9. Additional support for this ,early Deesis< idea has appeared more recently in Weitzmann's interpretation of the three medallions of the triumphal arch of Justinian's church at Mount Sinai as a kind of Deesis"?. Yet before the theory that the Deesis decorated early chancel screens gains wider currency, and thereby inevitably sheds the wise circumspection with which it was first proposed, it 8 Weitzmann, ,BambergerGraduale?(above, note 3), pp. 14-15 and especiallyp. 19. Of course it is necessary, in orderto see the close connectionhere, to follow the suggestion by Weitzmann (and by Xydis, -Chancel Barrier?p. 11) that John the Baptist was simply includedwithin the categoryof prophets.To 2. Christ. Marblepanelfrom chancelbarrierat my mind this seems forced; if given special promiSt. Polyeuktos, Istanbul nence in the decoration, one would expect the Baptist to have been specifically mentioned in the cescription by Paulus Silentiarius,who is rathermore inclined to prolixity than undue terseness. Weitzmannhas himselfoffereda slightly revisedversionof the reconstructed ivory chancel barrier, including Feast icons, in an interestingarticlewhich does not however shed furtherlight on the problem here under discussion; see Kurt Weitzmann, ,Diptikh slonovoi kosti iz Ermitazha,otnosyashchiisyak krugu Imperatora Roman, Vizantiiski Vremennik 32 (1971), 142-155, reprintedas ,An Ivory Diptych of the Romanos Group in the Hermitage,? in Kurt Weitzmann, Byzantine Book Illuminationand Ivories (London, 1980), no. VIII. 9 Xydis, ,Chancel Barrier,<p. 11, made this suggestion rathertentatively, but unambigoussupportfor the Deesis interpretationof the Hagia Sophiaimages was givenin the importantarticleby Viktor Lasareff, ,Trois fragmentsd' Epistyles peintes et le Templon byzantine,e AeAriov XplaravlKfic ApxaloAoyiKfic 'Eralpeiac 4,4 (1964-65), 117ff., especially p. 122. Although his languageis rathervague and elliptical, a similarview appearsto be expressedby Galavaris, Icons,p. 7. In a similarlytentativefashionTaniaVelmans observed that the text of Paulus Silentiarius ,permet de supposer que le theme de l'intercession figure deja sur le templon de Sainte-Sophiea Constantinople, in her article L'imagede la Deisis dans 3. Virgin and Child. Marblepanel from chancel barrier les eglises de Georgie et dans celles d'autresregions at St. Polyeuktos, Istanbul du monde byzantin,? Cahiers archeologiques29 (1980-81), p. 51 note 31. The scholarlydifferencesof Saint Catherineat Mount Sinai (Ann Arbor, 1973), opinion were noted without expressionof personal plate volume, p. 15. Von Bogyay, )Deesis? (above, preferencefor either side of the debalein the survey note 5), col. 1181, calls attentionto the unusualarby Manolis Chatzidakis, ?Ikonsstas,- Reallexikon zur byzantinischenKunst 3 (Stuttgart, 1978), cols. rangementwith the Virgin at the left of the Lambin this mosaic, andstressesthatthis is a purely,heaven329-330. 10 ly< representation,with no theme or function of inGeorge H. Forsyth and Kurt Weitzmann, The tercession. Churchand FortressofJustinian, The Monasteryof 17 4. Apostle A. Marblepanelfrom chancelbarrierat St. Polyeuktos, Istanbul 1 7. 4'* I -f .=-'?'??.r:..Z?'j ' i:, i'i i..., i"'* I?; *?. ( "'??,ii:,??i the early Byzantine church of St. Polyeuktos. This church was founded by Eudocia in the first half of the fifth century and extensivelyrebuiltby Anicia Julianaprobably between 524 and 52711. The third campaignof excavationin 1966 unearthed a series of small marble reliefs (roughly 37 x 35 cm on average)carvedwith figures, including Christ (fig. 2) the Virgin carryingthe Infant Christ (fig. 3), and four apostles (fig. 4), all presented in half-length12.Three additionalfigure of apostles were found in 196813,bringing the total numberof apostlesto seven (fig. 5), or eight if the excavatorsare correct in identifying a very small fragmentfound in 1966 as part of the series. The originalposition of these reliefs atop a templonor chancelbarrierwas suggestedonly very tentatively by the excavators, but the polishing of the back of each panel and the provision of a square dowel on the bottom does seem to rendersuch an interpretation quite plausible, if still inevitably hypothetical, and it has been accepted at least tacitly by both Andre Grabar and Manolis Chatzidakis14. Although the church as a whole surviveduntil the thirteenthcentury, the deliberate destruction of all the faces renders the outbreakof Iconoclasma strongterminusante quem, and they have accordinglybeen datedby both the excavators and by Grabar in the late sixth or seventh century, the latterprovidingsome stylistic comparisons15.These relief from St. Polyeukof the CyrilMangoandIhorSevcenko,>Remains DumChurchof St.PolyeuktosatConstantinople,, bartonOaksPapers15(1961),243-247. 12R. MartinHarrison andNezihFiratli,-Excavations secondandthirdpreliminain Istanbul: atSarachane ry reports,, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966), 222-238, especiallyp. 235 and figs. 33-38. 13 R. MartinHarrisonand Nezih Flratli, -Excavations at Sarachanein Istanbul:fifth preliminaryreport,< Dumbarton Oaks Papers22 (1968), 195-216, especiallyp. 199 and figs. 10-12. 14 Andre Grabar,,Recherches sur les sculpturesde 1' Hypogee des Dunes, a Poitiers, et de la crypteSaintPaul de Jouarre,, Journal des Savants (1974), 3-43, especiallypp. 38-41 and figs. 22-24, and Chatzidakis, ?Ikonostas? (above, note 9), col. 330. The St. 5. Apostle F. Marblepanel from chancelbarrierat St. Polyeuktos, Istanbul ought to receive carefulscrutiny both on its own terms and in comparisonto other possible interpretationsof the availableevidence. Following upon a chancediscoveryin 1960, several campaigns of excavation have been carried out at Sarachanein Istanbul, revealingremainsof 18 Polyeuktosreliefswere mentionedin passingby on theirrudequality CyrilMango,whocommented and later (than the sixth century) date, but did not addresstheirpossiblefunction,presumablythere- fore raisingno objectionto theirassociationwith the chancel barrier,in ?Storiadell' arte, in La Civilta bizantina dal IV al IX secolo, Aspetti e problemi, Universitadegli studi di Bari, Centro di studi bizantini, Corsi di studi 1, 1976(Bari,1977),pp. 316-321. 15Harrison and Firatli, ,Sarachane III,? p. 235. The pre-Iconoclasticdate was also acceptedby Grabar, >Recherches,<p. 40. tos thereforeconstitute the first possible physical evidencefor the figuredchancelscreenin the preIconoclastic period. The subjects, Christ, Virgin and apostles, do indeed appearto relateclosely to those mentioned in Paulus Silentiarius'sdescription of the chancelscreen of Hagia Sophia, but it is importantto note that the subjects do not include the image of John the Baptist, or indeed of any prophetswhatsoever, and thereforethe iconography simply cannot be termed a Deesis in the usual sense of the term16. In the face of this newly discovered group of plaques, what should be said concerning the relatedprogramof the chancelscreenof HagiaSophia, known only from literary description? Certainly it is true that the far smaller available space at St. Polyeuktos would havemade a reduction of the numberof holy figurespresentedin the Hagia Sophiaschemedesirable,even if the designer at St. Polyeuktos had wished to present the same basiciconographicprogram.Yet the fact remainsthat enough room was certainlyavailableto include at leastthe singlefigureof John the Baptist had he been regardedas an essential part of the iconographic unit. Since he was not in fact included at St. Polyeuktos to the best of our present ktowledge, one must assume that he was not so regarded.The naturalinferenceis then thatthe arrangementof the figures on the chancel screen at Hagia Sophiawas likewise not at all an organized version of the liturgically-based intercession prayer ordinarilyassociatedwith the Deesis, but more simply an hierarchicalarrayof variousclasses of sacred personnages. After all, the intercession idea suggestsa pictorializationwith the intercessors addressingtheir prayersdirectlyto Christ and thereforephysicallyturningtowardhim, as is consistently the case with Middle Byzantine images of the Deesis. Indeedthe distinctturningof all the figures except Christ was an importantfactor in Weitzmann's reconstruction of the Bamberg ivories as a Deesis composition in the firstplace17. In this light it is strikingto observe that all of the figures in the St. Polyeuktos reliefs are depicted frontally, a featurewhich surelycannotbe dismissed purely on the basis of the stylistic preference for rigid frontalposes which is frequentlyobservable in some but certainlynot in all works of the latersixth andseventhcentury18.The St. Polyeuktos reliefs were depicted frontally rather than facing toward Christ because they were never conceived as elements of a unified composition, a >greatDeesis'19. That the Hagia Sophia figures were likely conceived along the same lines may then be surmisedboth by simple analogy, and because the almost indubitably later and much cruderSt. Polyeuktos reliefs arevery likely direct reflectionsof the now lost imagesfrom the Great Church. Even without introducing the evidence of the newly discovered reliefs from St. Polyeuktos it seems to me that a Deesis composition can scarcely be envisagedon the sixth-centurychancelbarrier of Hagia Sophia, since the descriptionof Paulus Silentiarius itself implies a decentralized paratactic composition. InevitablyChrist is described first and is said to occupy the center, presumably over the centraldoorway20,and the angels are in fact clearlydescribedas bowing theirheadsbefore him, a motif which does suggest that they at least do face toward him21.Yet the Virginis mentioned only afterthe prophetsand apostles, and that this displacementis due to more than a poet's problem with the meterof the verseis provenby the unambiguousstatementthather imagewas >>elsewhere, a term which induced Stephen Xydis to suggest that her image was most likely to be found over one of the lateraldoors, andthus not even on the same side of the barrieras Christ22.It is worth noting in this connectionthatthe medallionon the triumphal arch mosaic at Mount Sinai plausibly 16Chatzidakis, col. 330,alsopointedout ?Ikonostas,< thatthe St. Polyeuktosreliefsdo not constitutea of this Deesis,butdoesnot discusstheimplications finding. Kreidl-Papadopoulos,?Bemerkungen< (above,note 7), p. 285, alsorejectedthe Deesisreconstruction. 17Weitzmann, Graduale,p. 14. >Bamberger 18Ernst Artin the Kitzinger,Byzantine Making.Main linesof stylisticdevelopment in Mediterranean Art 3rd-7th Century(Cambridge,Mass., 1977), pp. 101-105.For a splendiddiscussionof the threequarterview as the concreteexpressionof interaction between figures, see Otto Demus, Byzantine MosaicDecoration.Aspectsof Monumental Art in Byzantium(Boston,1955),pp. 7, 28 and50. Fora very interestinggeneraldiscussionof frontalityin medieval art see Meyer Schapiro, Wordsand Pictures.On theLiteralandSymbolicIllustration of a Text(TheHague,1973),pp. 37-49. 19 Thesamereasoning leadsto theconclusionthatthey didnotformanyothersortof ?scenic?composition, as wasproposedfor HagiaSophiaby Kreidl-Papadopoulos,?Bemerkungen,< pp. 284-285. 20Xydis, >ChancelBarrier,<p. 9. 21 This feature is reminiscent of compositionssuchas thaton the centraltriumphalarchat MountSinai, twoflyingangelscarrying thecentralmepresenting dallion,with AgnusDei. Thusthe ?bowing<attinot theimtudeof the angelsverylikelyrepresents of the pactof theliturgybutsimplythecontinuation Romancompositionof theVictoriesbearingimagines clipeata. 19 identified by Weitzmannas the Virgin and possibly involved in a kind of Deesis image, likewise does not face toward the medallion with the Agnus Dei, but is depicted frontally23.If these images should be described as Deesis compositions, thattermneedsto be construedvery loosely indeed, so loosely as to lose its specialsignificance and to causeneedless confusion24. Other argumentsmay also be brought forward against the hypothesis that any pre-Iconoclastic chancelbarrieswere decoratedwith Deesis images based on the intercessoryprayersof the liturgy. The liturgical connection itself presents something of a problem, and even though only a competent liturgistcould treatthe question adequately it deserves at least some mention here. The Middle Byzantine Deesis image does certainly correspondquite closely to the patternof the intercessoryprayerscontainedin the liturgy, specifically to the prayersin the prothesis,which mention first the Virgin, then the archangels,John the Baptist, the apostles, and various saints (but not the prophets as a class). Unfortunately for the proponentsof the >earlyDeesis< theory, the prothesis as a whole cannot be traced earlier than roughly the eleventh century, and certainlycannot be traced back to the pre-Iconoclastic period25.On the other hand, the far older intercessory or commemorativeprayersof the anaphora begin with an extensivelist of forefathers,fathers, patriarchs,prophets, apostlesand other saintsbefore proceeding to the Virgin and Baptist, and they thus correspond less convincingly with the visual Deesis images26.This cannot conclusively prove, but does suggest that the pre-Iconoclastic chancelbarrierswere not decoratedwith the Deesis compositon, or at least that if they were then the form of the Deesis was at thattime not connected with the liturgicalprayers of intercession. If this latter line of argumentis accepted, it would lend additional weight to Christopher Walter's view that despite its clearlaterinterpretationas a votive intercessoryimage, the origin of the Deesis composition should be sought not in the liturgical prayersbut ratherin the looser and more flexible conception of the court of Heaven paying tribute to the Glory of Christ27. It would probablybe a mistaketo assumea complete iconographicconsistency in the decoration of chancelbarriersin the pre-Iconoclasticperiod. If the St. Polyeuktos figuresdid not form a Deesis ensembles, as seems to me quite evident, the figures at Hagia Sophiamay still be thought to have done so. With only these two examplesto weigh, 20 each example being somewhat difficult to interpret in its own right, the power of the rathercrude reliefs of St. Polyeuktos to attract our iconographicinterpretationof the greatlost silverfigures of Hagia Sophia is limited. However, I believe it is now possible to add to the balancea third exampleof a pre-Iconoclasticchancelbarrierwhose programof decorationis known from literarytestimony. For this third exampleit is necessaryto turn to a distant and at first a seemingly unlikely sourcefrom the otherend of the Christianworld. In his Lives of the Abbots, written between 716 and 735, the VenerableBede described at some length the treasuresbrought to the monasteryof St. Peter at Monkwearmouthin Northumbriaby its founder BenedictBiscop in ca. 67828.Listedin fifth place among these treasureswere pictures (picturae)of the Virginand of the twelve apostles, >>quibusmediam eiusdem aecclesiae testitudinem, ductoa parieteadparietemtabulatopraecingeret. Like the descriptionby PaulusSilentiarius of Hagia Sophia, these words of Bede have been translatedandinterpretedin differentways, but in an importantrecent articlePaul Meyvaerthas offered an interpretationbasedon philologicalconsiderations which I find quite convincing. In brief, Meyvaert argues that these images were brought to Northumbria directly from Rome,29 22Xydis, >ChancelBarrier,<< 11. p. ForsythandWeitzmann,ChurchandFortress, pls. CIII,CXXIIIandCXXV. 24The precisemeaningof the termDeesis is in fact nearlyas greata problemasis thatof thetermiconostasis;seeespeciallyWalter,?TwoNotes<(above, note5). 25 Casimir Kucharek,TheByzantine-Slav Liturgyof St.John Chrysostom (Allendale,N. J., 1971),pp. 279-298. 26 Kucharek,Liturgy,pp. 624-634. The length and ra- therdisorganized of thislistrecallssimiimpression lar invocationsfromthe periodof roughlythe seventhandeighthcenturyin a greatnumberof early Irishprayers.See RaymundKottje,Studienzum aufRechtundLiturgie EinflussdesAltenTestaments 6.-8. Jahrhundert, Bonner desfriihenMittelalters, historischeForschungen 23 (Bonn,1964),pp. 1921. 27Walter, >FurtherNotes, p. 176. CharlesPlummer,ed., Venerabilis BaedaeOpera Historica(Oxford,1896),pp. 369-370.AmongmaI mentiononlythatbyJames ny Englishtranslations Historyof the Campbell,Bede, The Ecclesiastical EnglishPeopleand OtherSelections(New York, 1968),p. 376, and thatby CaeciliaDavis-Weyer, EarlyMedievalArt 300-1150,SourcesandDocuments in the History of Art Series(Englewood Cliffs,N.J., 1971),p. 74. 29 PaulMeyvaert,>Bedeandthe churchpaintings at Wearmouth-Jarrow,Anglo-Saxon England 8 28 L. Tt i-Lde3 o-Cof Llf -t r--u I 1 6. Twelve Apostles. Side of Coffin of St. Cuthbert that by picturaeBede clearlymeans not illuminated manuscripts30 but paintedwooden panelsof at leastmoderatesize31,thatthe thirteenseparatepanels were joined together to form a continuous plank or beam of some sort (tabulatum),32and that this tabulatumwas stretchedbeneaththe arch marking the entrance from the nave to the santuary,probablydecoratingthe top of a chancel barrier33. If Meyvaert'sinterpretationof Bede's text is accepted, one must conclude that Benedict Biscop acquiredin Rome in the 670's a series of painted panels depicting the Virgin and the twelve apostles, designed to run across the top of the chancel screen. This reconstruction, made without referenceto the art historicaldebateconcerning chancel barriersand thus of enhanced independentvalue, correspondsremarkablyclosely to the recently discovered fragments from St. Polyeuktos in Constantinople. They are of approximately the same date, also appear to have decorated the top of a chancel screen, and also presentedthe apostles and the Virgin on a collection of separatepanels. Even in regardto their approximatescale the reliefs from St. Polyeuktos appearto nearly match those from Monkwearmouth;the St. Polyeuktos reliefs averageroughly 34 cm in breadth, while Meyvaert plausibly calculated the Monkwearmouth panels as no more than 17 in., that is approximately 43 cm, in breadthat the maximum, and most probably somewhat less34. Only the image of Christ is (ratherstrangely)absent from the tabulatum described by Bede. Perhaps one should imagine that the figure of the Virgin describedby Bedecarriedthe Christchildbeforeher, as at St. Polyeuktos, but this is merelyfancifulspeculation, and it is probably both unwise and unnecessary to expect any exact correspondence. Nevertheless one rathersurprisingpiece of concrete evidence does support the hypothesis of an extremely close associationbetween the lost Ro- mano-Northumbrianchancel screen and the surviving fragmentsof the decoratedchancelbarrier from St. Polyeuktos. The wooden coffin-reliquary of St. Cuthbert carved in Northumbria and possibly at Monkwearmouth-Jarrowaround the year 698, that is about two decades after the installation of the Roman chancelbarrierthere, bearsa complex and highly puzzling figural decoration. On the lid is depicted Christ in Majesty, surrounded by the four symbols of the evangelists, on the foot the Virgin with the Christ child, on the head and along one of the long sides full-length figures of the seven archangels,and on the other long side the twelve apostles. The apostles are arrangedas half-lengthfigures in a double frieze (fig. 6), in a manner which forms an interestingparallelto a long chancel beam such as the Crusaderpainting from Mount Sinai (fig. 1), if one imagines the twelve figures stretchedout into a single strip. In his very detailedandprofound study of the Cuthbert coffin-reliquary,Ernst Kitzingerconsidered the possibility that this seriesof apostlesmight be related to the Roman panels described by Bede, (1979),63-77, especiallypp. 64-67, rejectingthe mistakenconclusionby a numberof previousscholarsthattheseimagesmayhavebeenbroughtfrom Gaulinstead. 30 As hadbeensuggested An by AdolphGoldschmidt, of theAesopFablesofAvianusand EarlyManuscript RelatedManuscripts, IllumiStudiesin Manuscript nation1 (Princeton,1947),pp. 33-34. 31Meyvaert,>Church paintings,< pp. 67-70. 32 70-73. Meyvaert,>Church paintings, pp. 33 Meyvaert, -Churchpaintings, < pp. 73-74.Thisis in accordwith the interpretation earlierofferedby PeterHunterBlair,TheWorldof Bede(NewYork, 1971),p. 173,asnotedby Meyvaert. ?ChurchPaintings,<< 34 Meyvaert, p. 74. He arrivedat the figureby divindingthe numberthirteen(the numberof panels)intothewidthof thenaveof the churchat Monkwearmouth, for whichsee H. M. Architecture 1 TaylorandJoanTaylor,Anglo-Saxon 1965),pp. 432-446,especiallyp. 440. (Cambridge, 21 and in fact demonstratedthat the order in which the apostles appear on the reliefs is paralleled only in the Roman Canon of the Mass35.However, Kitzinger finally rejected this possible source for two reasons, the lack of physiognomic variation among the apostles, which led him to suspectanad hoc inventionbasedon the figuresof the archangels,and the absenceof good Mediterraneanparallelsfor figuresof apostlesnot as mere busts but insteadabruptlycut off at the waist and displaying the hands3. The first of these objections remainstroubling, although it seems to me that the Cuthbertcoffin apostles are not so entirely uniform as describedby Kitzinger, but certainly the then-unknown St. Polyeuktos reliefs providejust the sort of Mediterraneansourcepreviously absent, thereby eliminating the second objection. Therearesome distinctionsbetweenthe two sets of apostles, those on the Cuthbertcoffin lacking the splendidprotrudingearsof the St. Polyeuktos figures, and wearing their mantles rather differently, but the overallcompositionalsinilarities strikeme as too pervasiveto be dismissedas coincidental.Sincethe Cuthbertcoffin appearsto have been displayed above the floor somewhere near the altar,it even presentssome visualandfunctional parallelsto a decoratedchancelbarrier,and in generalI think it fairto say thatthe St. Polyeuktos reliefsin fact constitutethe closest parallelsof any sort that can be cited for the Cuthbertcoffin reliefs. The most reasonable explanation for this close relationship is to see the Cuthbert coffin apostles of ca. 698 as a conscious and on the whole reasonablyaccuratereproduction,or at the very leastemulation,of the paintedchancelscreen brought to Monkwearmouthfrom Rome by Benedict Biscop in 678, and in turn to see that seventh-centuryRoman chancelbarrieras a close reflectionof contemporaryByzantinepractice,as witnessednow by the reliefsdiscoveredat St. Polyeuktos. In view of the very close relationship between Roman and Constantinopolitanart during the seventhcentury, this similarityshould not be especially surprising,37and the result is in- cidentallyto provide a ratherstartlingaffirmation of the continuedmaintenanceof some close artistic contacts right acrossthe Christianworld even to the end of the seventhcentury38. 37 For the historicalbackgroundsee the excellentsum- mary by Peter Llewellyn, Rome in the Dark Ages (London, 1970), pp. 141-172. For the art historical situationsee ErnstKitzinger,ByzantineArt (above, note 18), pp. 113-118, and Richard Krautheimer, Rome:Profileof a City,312-1308 (Princeton,1980), pp. 89-108, with the olderbibliography.Specifically Krautheimerrefers to the descriptionin the Liber pontificalisof a number of icons set up on chancel barriersin Rome duringthe seventhcentury(p. 91), and describes this new development as but one of many Eastern features incorporatedin the Roman liturgy at thattime (p. 106). The gift to St. Peter'sby Pope GregoryIII (731-741) of a silverarchitraveincluding images of Christ, the Virgin and apostles strikes me as particularlyreminiscentof the Hagia SophiachanceIbarrier,andatthe sametimeprovides some evidencethat this basic iconographicarrangementwas widespreadandformeda continuoustradition from the sixth into the eighth century; see L. Duchesne, Le Liber pontificalis 1 (Paris, 1955), p. 417. 38 Because the connections with contemporary art seem so strong in both generaland specificterms, it seemsto me farmorelikely thatthe lost seventh-century Romanchancelbarriersarethe resultof Eastern influence and do not constitute a survivalor revival of an indigenousRoman tradition.The evidencefor the possible existenceof such a traditioninvolvesthe complexproblemof thefastigiumgivenby Constantine to the Lateranbasilicain the fourthcentury.According to the Liberpontificalis(I, 172), this great silvertreasurestood at or nearthe altarandincluded a figureof Christwith the twelve Apostles (aswell as anotherfigureof Christflankedby spear-bearingangels on the back, facing the apse). Traditionallythe descriptionhas been assumedto referto some sort of ciboriumsimilarto thatof St. Peter's,but recentlyan alternativereconstructionas a screencolonnadebefore the apse was proposed by Molly Teasdale Smith, >TheLateranfastgium.A Gift of Constantine the Great,< Rivista di archeologiacristiana46 (1970), 149-175, especiallyfig. 3, the author'sreconstruction drawing. The reconstructionis quite interesting and I think plausible, and has been endorsed as the more likely alternativein Richard Krautheimer,SpencerCorbett, and Alfred K. Frazer, Corpus BasilicarumChristianarumRomae 5 (Rome, 1977),pp. 88-89. If acceptedit would indeed provide a Romanprecedentfor a colonnadedscreen with figures of Christ and the apostles set up near the altar. However, a numberof factors lead me to 35 ErnstKitzinger,,The Coffin-Reliquary,< in The reject it as a possible direct source for the seventhRelicsof SaintCuthbert,ed. C. F. Battiscombe century chancel barriershere under consideration. (OxFirst, the fastigium was apparently destroyed by ford/London,1956),pp. 202-304, especiallypp. Alaricin 410, and the restorationunderValentianII 265-273 andpl. VIII. in the 430's makesno mentionof figures,while Teas36Kitzinger,?Coffin-Reliquary,?p. 267 andnote 3. dale Smith's ingenious suggestion that the figures See now also an the apostleseries,Dorothy G. may actually have survived into the sixteenth cenShepherd,?AnIconof theVirgin:A Sixth- Century tury (pp. 172-173) seemsa dubiouspropositioneven TapestryPanel from Egypt, Bulletin of the Cleveif not altogetherimpossible.In anyevent,the Lateran landMuseumof Art56, 3 (1969),90-120,especially 100-104. fastigium stood behind ratherthan before the altar, 22 Neither the chancel barrierpanels describedby Bede nor those discovered at St. Polyeuktos include John the Baptistor for that matterany prophets, or indicate in any way an associationwith the laterDeesis iconographyor with the liturgical prayerof intercession.Insteadboth comparevery closely with the series of medallionswith Christ and the twelve apostles decoratingthe arch separatingchancel and nave in the mosaics of SanVitale in Ravenna(fig. 7), below which there must have been a chancelbarrieror screenof some sort in the sixth century, probably limited to aniconic decoration39.If this analogyprovidesa clue to the origin of the program of the decorated chancel barrier, it suggests that without substantially changing the essential iconographic content displayed at the crossing between nave and sanctuary, the artists of the later sixth and seventh century altered the form and position of the images, bringing them physically closer to the viewer as something more like icons. This reconstructionof the developmentwould be consistent with salientdevelopmentsof the latersixth andseventh centuries in Byzantine art40,and would at the sametime representa first step in the direction of the theme of personal intercession developed liturgically in the Deesis iconography of postIconoclasticByzantine chancelbarriers. In summary, I would advancefour basic arguments in favor of the hypothesis that decorated and as TeasdaleSmithconvincinglydemonstrates, its monumental (5 ft. high)figuresprobablystood so that beneathratherthanon top of thearchitrave, in no respectdoes thefastigiumoffera convincing chancelbarriers parallelto thelaterseventh-century as describedby Bedeanddiscoveredin Constantinople. 39The as -courtof Heaven? iconographic relationship imagesbetweenthe SanVitalemosaicsandPaulus of theHagiaSophiachancel Silentiarius's description Nobarrierwas alreadynotedby Walter,YFurther tes? (above, note 5), p. 176; it is strikingthat he was able to draw this connection even without reference to the reliefsof St. Polyeuktos andthe descriptionby Bede, which clearlyoccupy an intermediateposition between SanVitale and Hagia Sophia. 40 Kitzinger, ByzantineArt, pp. 105-107. 41 I should say here that a number of chancel barriers with Deesis iconographyhave been cited in connection with the Hagia Sophia screen by scholars, for example Xydis, -Chancel Barrier,<p. 11, Mango, Art of the Byzantine Empire (above, note 6), p. 87 note 154, and Galavaris,Icons (above, note 2), p. 7. However, to the best of my knowledgenone of these are pre-Iconoclasticin date (see also Megaw, ?Skripou Screen? [above, note 3], note 115), and hence not truly relevantto the pre-Iconoclasticiconographic program.Probablythe most interestingof these early post-Iconoclastic chancel barriersbrought to 7. Christ and Apostles. Mosaic on chancel arch, San 7.Christ and Apostles. Mosaic on chancel arch, San Vitale, Ravenna chancel barrierswith figures in the pre-Iconoclastic perioddid not presentthe Deesis iconography known from Middle Byzantine art41,but instead displayeda rathermore flexible arrayof sacredfigures including Christ and/or the Virgin, apostles, and on occasion expandedto include also anlightin recentyearsis the marbleepistylewithmedallionsof Christ,theVirgin,JohntheBaptist,archangels,apostlesandone saint,foundat Sebastein d'une Asia Minor;see Nezih Firatli,>Decouverte eglisebyzantinea Sebastede Phrygie,<Cahiersarcheologtques19 (1969), 151-166, especially 161 and figs. 14-22. 23 gels and prophets. 1) The liturgicalprayersof intercessionmost closely relatedto the Deesis image cannot be shown to be pre-Iconoclasticin date. 2) The description of the Hagia Sophia chancel screenby PaulusSilentiariussuggestsa ratherdispersed compostion, with the Virigin in no way closely relatedto Christ, as is invariablythe casein survivingDeesis compositions. 3) The figures on the only possible survivingpre-Iconoclasticchancel barrier, from St. Polyeuktos in Constantinople, areuniformlyrenderedfrontally,andin no way indicate a unified composition with the theme of intercessory prayer. 4) Of the three recoverable iconographic programs of preIconoclastic decoratedchancel barriers,two (St. Polyeuktos and the Romantabulatumbroughtto Northumbria and described by Bede) entirely lack the figure of John the Baptist or any other prophets, suggesting that the prophets (possibly but by no means certainlyincluding the Baptist) and angelsin the thirdexample(HagiaSophia)are not essential iconographiccomponents as in the Middle Byzantine Deesis images, but rather representoptional extensionsof the basicprogram. Logically it cannot be possible to decisively prove the negativeconclusionthatsomethingvery like the familiarMiddleByzantineDeesis composition did not occur on any pre-Iconoclasticchancel barrier, but I hope to have exposed some weaknesses of the argumentshitherto advanced for their existence, while at the sametime providing what seems to me a more plausiblealternative hypothesis. It also seems to me thatto removethe fully-developed Deesis iconography altogether from the pre-Iconoclastic period better accords with the generalview of the characterof Early as opposed to Middle Byzantine art which has emerged in the last few decades. The developed Deesis image is heavily impregnated with liturgicalassociations,has in fact been termeda liturgical image, and among others Kurt Weitzmann has demonstratedin a numberof important articles the extent to which the liturgy became a dominant shaping force in Byzantine art in the Middle Byzantine period42. The >classical? Middle Byzantine scheme of church decoration analyzed by Otto Demus presents a similarpicture, with the liturgicalconnectionsof the images playing a criticalrole in both the developmentand the interpretationof this scene in the period after Iconoclasm43.On the other hand the looser hierarchicalscheme here proposed for the Early Byzantine chancel barrierrecalls the continuing influenceof late Romanimperialiconographyespe24 cially in Justinianicart44,as well as the impact of Neoplatonic hierarchical conceptions as most notably appliedto the figuralprogramof the Cathedral of Edessa in a now well-known Syriac hymn of the latersixth century45. In the light of these commentsit is worth returning to Weitzmann'ssuggestionthatthe decoration of the chancelbarriererectedin Justinian'sHagia to Sophia ca. 560 constituteda kind of >prelude?< the later development of the iconostasis in the Orthodox churches. As stated by Weitzmann I would in fact agree with this formulation, but only with the clear understandingthat although based on similar raw material that >prelude< formed a distinct contrast to the later development, which constitutes a variationon the theme and carriesit into an entirelynew key. This point is of some importance, since a number of recent studies have arguedfor the remarkabledegree to which Middle Byzantineworks could in some instances carefully and deliberatelyreproduce the form of pre-Iconoclasticmodels46.But, to utilize 42 KurtWeitzmann,>ByzantineMiniatureand Icon Painting in the Eleventh Century,<<Proceedingsof the XIIIth International Congress of Byzantine Studies (Oxford, 1966), pp. 207-224, reprintedin KurtWeitzmann,Studiesin Classicaland Byzantine ManuscriptIllumination, ed. Herbert L. Kessler (Chicago/London, 1971),pp. 271-334. I myself earlier discussedthis point specificallyin relationshipto the Deesis image, in ,An Illuminated Byzantine Psalter at Harvard University,? Dumbarton Oaks Papers 29 (1975), 205-224, especially pp. 210-212 and223-224, andnotes 20-27 and94-97, with additional bibliography. 43 Demus, Byzantine MosaicDecoration (above, note 18), pp. 13-26. 44 See in general the classic study by Andre Grabar, L'Empereurdans l'art byzantin (Strasbourg,1936), pp. 85-98, 230-236 and especiallyon the Deesis pp. 258-260. 45 A. Dupont-Sommer, ?Une hymne syriaque sur la Cathedrale d'Edesse,, Cahiers archeologiques 2 (1947), 29-39, with additional art historical commentary by Andre Grabar, ?Le temoinage d'une hymne syriaque sur l'architecturede la cathedrale d'EdesseauVIesiecleet surla symboliquede l'edifice chretien,< Cahiers archeologiques2 (1947), 41-67. 46 Paul Underwood, ?The Evidenceof Restorationsin the SanctuaryMosaics of the Churchof the Dormition at Nicaea,< DumbartonOaks Papers13 (1959), 235-243, and more recently Hans Belting and Guglielmo Cavallo,Die BibeldesNiketas. Ein Werkder hofischenBuchkunstin Byzanz und seinantikesVorbild (Wiesbaden,1979), especiallypp. 46-48. I have myself attempted to identify the pre-Iconoclastic sourcesof a groupof ninth andtenthcenturyByzantine Evangelistportraits,in The GundohinusGospels at Autun (in press). the musical metaphor for the last time, the opening theme is always a critical element of any work as it guides and shapes later developments, and it is not by any means my intention to belittle the significance of the early program of images which decorated the chancel screen of Justinian's Hagia Sophia. Clearly Victor Lasareff was justified in describing those figures as the first and probably most significant figural decoration of the Great Church at that time47, and in stressing their influ- ence in the succeeding decades and centuries. This decoration announced a new departure at the very epicenter of the Byzantine world, a dramatic change in direction in the course of Byzantine art48, and one is surely entitled to see in the St. Polyeuktos and Monkwearmouth chancel decoration the direct progeny of Hagia Sophia, as one sees in Middle Byzantine Deesis chancel barriers descendants more distant but still very much within the family. of Canon 3 of The Significance the Council of Tours in 567 The new chancelbarrierwith attachedimagesof sacred figureserectedby Justinianat HagiaSophiaca. 560 may have stimulateda reactionstrong enough to have been felt almostimmediatelyeven as farawayas Merovingian Francia.Canon 3 of the Council of Tours, held in 567, declared: Ut corpusDomini in altari non imaginario ordine, sed sub crucistitulo componatur.49This text is extremely difficult to interpret and translate, and has usually been understood as a direction to arrangethe Euchariston the paten not in an ?imaginary<< (that is, ?arbitrary,fancifull) fashion, but in the form of a cross. However, in an interesting recent article Robert A. Markushas again assertedthe readingfavored by DuCange, namelythat ,imaginario ordine,,refersto an array of actualimagesof some sort, and that the Council accordinglyis attemptingto directthat the Eucharistbe preparednot amid imagesbut beneaththe cross50. Markusrelatedthis text to the incipientcult of images in sixth-centuryFrancia,and also suggestedthat it may ba taken as a protest againstthe developmentof chancel barriersfurnishedwith sacredimagesin Franciaat that time. He offersas supportfor this interpretationthe evidence of the immediatelyfollowing Canon4 of the same council, which states that it is importantto reservethe spacenearthe altarfor the clergy alone, seeing here the endorsementof the proper, following upon the rejection of the improper,utilizationof a chancelbarrier.Of course this must remainonly an hypotheticalinterpretation of the text, on accountof the extremeambiguity of the languageemployed. Nevertheless I do find the suggestion quite persuasive in its broad outlines, although I would like to suggest at least one modification of some importance. The chief objection to Markus's theory is that 567 seems simply too earlya date for chancelbarriersdecorated with sacred figures to have appearedalreadyon Merovingianterritory. This is indeed a weighty consideration, and one difficult to set aside on the basis of such relativelyuncertainliteraryevidence.Yet I believe that a clue to the solution of the problem may actually be provided by the tortured and annoyingly vague languageas well as by the extremebrevity (it comprises but the single sentencequoted above, while severalother canons run to severa pages, and none are as short as this) of Canon 3 of the Council of 567. The awkwardness of this canonmay reflectnot only the low standards of MerovingianLatinity, but also the simple fact that the assembledclerics were condemning a new-fangled innovation which none of them had yet actually seen but of which at least one had already heard reports. Here it is importantto note thatthe Bishop of Tours, in whose city the conclavewas gathered,was SaintEufronius, first cousin to his more famous immediatesuccessor in the see, Gregory of Tours. Although Gregory succeededto the bishopricof Tours only in 573, he had been deacon there since 563, and very likely attended the deliberationsof the council. Scion of a greatsenatorial family, Gregory was especially well connected to Constantinople, and in fact is the earliest Western author to consistently use the term iconia for religious images51.The recent researchof Averil Cameron has shown that Gregory of Tours can be demonstratedto have had a direct contemporarysource in Constantinople, and that his accounts of Constantinopolitan events arenot only reliablebut in certaininstancesconstitute our best source52.Finally, althoughit may be no more than a coincidence, the same year which saw the Council of Tours meet (in December of that year) also saw the arrivalin nearbyPoitiersof VenantiusFortunatus from the East53,and it is temptingto see Fortunatus as at leastthe instrumentby which reportsof the newly decorated chancel screen of Hagia Sophia reachedthe clericsassembledat Tours. Thus I would like to offer the hypothesis that Canon 3 of the Council of Tours in 567 constitutes the earliest preservedreactionto the chancelscreenconstructedin Hagia Sophiaa few yearsearlier,a theory also raisedby Lasareff,>Troisfragmentsd'Epistyles<(above, note 9), p. 123. 48 See Kitzinger, Byzantine Art (above, note 18), pp. 99-122 on the period after550 as a truewatershedin the form and significanceof Byzantine art. 49 See Charlesde Clerq, ed. ConciliaGalliae,a. 511-a. 695. Corpus Christianorum, Series Latina 148A (Turnholt, 1963), pp. 175-197, especiallyp. 178. 50 Robert A. Markus, >The Cult of Images in SixthCentury Gaul,< Journal of TheologicalStudies 29 (1978), 151-157, especiallyp. 154. 51 Markus, >Cultof Images,<p. 156. 52 Averil Cameron, ?The ByzantineSourcesof Gregory of Tours,? Journal of Theological Studies 26 (1975), 421-426. 53 Averil Cameron, ?TheTheotokos in Sixth-Century Constantinople:A City finds its Symbol,<Journal of TheologicalStudies29 (1978), 79-108, especially pp. 90-92. 47 25 Markus,butless favoredby himthantheimpactof actual Frankishworks. As suchthe canonunderscorestheoften close connectionsbetweenEastandWestwhich continued into the later years of the sixth century, while at the same time it providesan early exampleof an unfortunateWesternand especiallyFrankishpredilectionfor the quick condemnationof poorly understoodeventsat Constantinople,such as will be seen in even more spectacularfashion in the famous controversywhich produced the Libri Caroliniat the time of Charlemagne,in close conjunctionwith the establishmentof a separate WesternEmpire54.However, it is importantto observe that Canon 3 of the Council of Tours cannotbe takenas reliableevidencethat actualchancelbarriersin Francia were providedwith any programof sacredimageat this early date. 54See Paul Meyvaert, ?The Authorship of the >Libri Carolini.< Observations prompted by a recent book,< Revue Benedictine89 (1979), 29-57, which does not treat this aspect of the problem at any length, but which does providethe most recentguide to the enormousliteratureon this question. Photos: Alexandria-Michigan-PrincetonArcheological Expedition to Mount Sinai 1. - Elizabeth Harrison, courtesy of MartinHarrison2, 3, 4, 5. - Durham, CathedralChapterand Library6. - DeutschesArchaologisches Institut, Rome 7. 26