Notes on a milking scene

ΖΩΑ ΚΑΙ ΠΕΡΙΒΑΛΛΟΝ ΣΤΟ ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΟ(7ος-12ος αι.)

NATIONAL HELLENIC RESEARCH FOUNDATION

INSTITUTE FOR BYZANTINE RESEARCHINTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM 21

ANIMALS AND ENvIRONMENT IN BYZANTIUM

(7th-12th c.)

Edited by

Ilias Anagnostakis - Taxiarchis G. KoliasEftychia Papadopoulou

ATHENS 2011

ΕΘΝΙΚΟ ΙΔΡΥΜΑ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝ

ΙΝΣΤΙΤΟΥΤΟ ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΝΩΝ ΕΡΕΥΝΩΝΔΙΕΘΝΗ ΣΥΜΠΟΣΙΑ 21

ΖΩΑ ΚΑΙ ΠΕΡΙΒΑΛΛΟΝ ΣΤΟ ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΟ

(7ος-12ος αι.)

Επιστημονική Επιμέλεια

Ηλίας Αναγνωστάκης - Ταξιάρχης Γ. ΚόλιαςΕυτυχία Παπαδοπούλου

ΑΘΗΝΑ 2011

Ηλεκτρονική επεξεργασία-σελιδοποίηση: Ζαμπέλα λέονταρα

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© The National Hellenic Research Foundation Institute for Byzantine Research vassileos Konstantinou 48, 116 35 Athens - GR

ISSN : 1106-1448ISBN : 978-960-371-063-9

ΠρόλογοςΒραχυγραφίεςΤαξιάρχης Γ. Κολιας, Ο άνθρωπος και τα ζώα στο Βυζάντιο Johannes Koder, Παρατηρήσεις για τη χρήση βοοειδών στο

Βυζάντιο Βασιλική Ν. Βλυςιδου, Ο χοίρος ως σύμβολο ευδαιμονίας του

βυζαντινού ανθρώπουΤηλέμαχος Κ. λουγγης, Περί ιχθύων και αλιείας διάφοραΣτυλιανός λαμπαΚης, Απάνθισμα περί αμνοεριφίων και άλλα

συναφή αγροτοποιμενικάΑναστάσιος Κ. ςιναΚος, Τὸ κυνήγι κατὰ τὴ μέση βυζαντινὴ ἐποχή

(7ος–12ος αἰ.) Dionysios StathaKopouloS, Invisible Protagonists: the Justinianic

Plague from a Zoocentric Point of view Chryssi BourBou, Fasting or Feasting? Consumption of Meat, Dairy

Products and Fish in Byzantine Greece. Evidence from Chemical Analysis

Nancy P. ŠevčenKo, Eaten Alive: Animal Attacks in the venice Cynegetica

Ilias anagnoStaKiS – titoS papamaStoraKiS, St. Romanos epi tēn sklepan. A Saint Protector and Healer of Horses

Ewald KiSlinger, Byzantine Cats vanya loZanova-Stancheva, The Basilisk: visualization of the

Mystery Ηλίας αναγνωςταΚης, Ο φράκτης, ο αγριόχοιρος και η άρκτος Kallirroe linardou, Notes on a Milking Scene in Parisinus Graecus

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Μαρία Χρονη, Τὰ ζωϊκὰ προϊόντα ὡς πρώτη ὕλη γιὰ τὴν παρασκευὴ φαρμάκων καὶ περιάπτων στὰ βυζαντινὰ ἰατρικὰ κείμενα τῆς μέσης περιόδου. Ἡ ἐξελικτικὴ σχέση τῆς πανίδας μὲ τὴν ἰατρικὴ καὶ τὴν λευκὴ μαγεία

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Μαρία γέρολυματου, Η κτηνοτροφία στο Βυζάντιο: από την επιβίωση στην εμπορευματοποίηση (8ος-12ος αι.)

Σπύρος τρωιανος - Αλέξανδρος λιαρμαΚοπουλος, Τὰ ζῶα ὡς ἀντικείμενο ἐγκληματικῶν πράξεων στὸ βυζαντινὸ δίκαιο

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Ilias anagnoStaKiS, Graos Gala : Une légende byzantine des Jours de la Vieille (pastoralisme au féminin et destruction de l’environnement à Byzance)

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Kallirroe linardou

notes on a MilKing scene in Parisinus Graecus 135

Byzantine illustrated manuscripts of the Book of Job teem with representations of animals, domestic and wild, realistic beasts as well as imaginary creatures1. Parisinus graecus 1352, a paper codex containing the Book

I would like to express my sincere graditude to Prof. Titos Papamastorakis for encouraging me to study Parisinus graecus 135 and for all his friendly advice and support. I would also like to thank Dr Ilias Anagnostakis for inviting me to contribute in this volume.

1. St. PaPadaKi-oeKland, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job: A Preliminary Study of the Miniature Illustrations. Its Origin and Development, Athens 2009, 58-65, 158-159, 258-292; M. BernaBò, Le miniature per i manoscritti greci del libro di Giobbe. Patmo, Monastero di San Giovani Evangelista, cod. 171; Roma, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, cod. Vat. Gr. 749; Sinai, Monastero di Santa Caterina, cod. 3; Venezia, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, cod. Gr. 538 [Millenio Medievale 45, Strumenti e studi n.s. 6], Florence 2004, figs 7-10, 15-20, 34-46, 73, 123-127, 131-132, 138, 143-145, 148-154. See also J. Poesch, The Beasts from Job in the Liber Floribus Manuscripts, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 33 (1970), 41-51.

2. M. theochari, Ἕνα Βυζαντινὸ χειρόγραφο τοῦ Μυστρᾶ, in Νέες Μορφές, Μάρτιος-Ἀπρίλιος 1962, 25-28; T. VelMans, Le Parisinus graecus 135 et quelques autres peintures de style gothique dans les manuscrits grecs à l’époque des Paléologues, Cahiers archéologiques 17 (1967), 209-235; H. C. eVans (ed.), Byzantium. Faith and Power (1261-1557), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, (exhibition catalogue), New York-London 2004, no. 33, p. 63, with references to older catalogue entries. See also J. M. andrews, Familiar foreigners: Artistic innovations in a fourteenth-century illustrated commentary on Job, Arte Medievale, II Serie, Anno XIV, nn. 1-2 (2000), 113-121; eadeM, Imagery in the aftermath of the Crusades: A Fourteenth-Century Illustrated Commentary on Job (Paris, BN graecus 135), University of California 2002, unpublished Ph.D dissertation; C. alcalay, Le Parisinus graecus 135: Un hommage à Jean Cantacuzène? Étude historique d’un livre de Job du XIVe siècle, Byzantion 78 (2008), 404-480; PaPadaKi-oeKland, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, 401-404. On the scribe Manuel Tzykandeles and the colophon of the manuscript see: H. oMont, Fac-similés des manuscrits grecs datés de la Bibliothèque nationale du IXe-XIVe siècle, Paris 1891, 18, pl. XCIII; I. sPatharaKis, Corpus of Dated Illuminated Greek Manuscripts

KALLIrrOe LINArDOU236

of Job with lengthy catenae, copied by the reknowned scribe/calligrapher Manuel Tzykandeles in 1362 and today housed in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, is no exception.

Therein, the biblical narration is enhanced by an extensive cycle of 198 miniatures, inserted without frame in the text, always in close proximity to the biblical extract they are reliant to and executed in a manner that betrays the conspicuous gothic infiltrations in both style and iconography. The illustration, which covers the entire biblical story, is literal and lucid, and translates with astonishing inventiveness and imagination the narrative sections of the text as well as the mental pictures introduced by the metaphors and the similes of the philosophical dialogues. The idiosyncratic character of this ‘voluble’ illustration singles out our codex amongst a group of Byzantine illustrated manuscripts of Job with extensive illustration3, and it certainly relates to the circumstances in which the codex was commissioned and produced, as well as to its intended audience. However, these factors remain puzzling to this day.

Here, we will briefly discuss the representations of oxen and cows in the context of the specific manuscript and comment on a problematic milking scene contained therein.

Normally, the representations of cattle in the Paris codex consist of literal illustrations of the biblical text where they are mentioned explicitly either as βοῦς/ox, cow or μόσχος/calf. In particular, cows are mentioned (Job 1:3, 1:5, 1:14-15, 42:8, 42:12) and respectively depicted (ff. 8v, 10r, 19r, 243r, 240v), either as part of Job’s livestock or as offerings in a sacrificial context, i.e. in the prologue (Job, 1-2) and the epilogue (Job, 38-42). Such images are regularly included in all Byzantine illustrated manuscripts of Job4. In all cases, however, the animal is rendered invariably as an adult cow with horns, regardless of whether it is mentioned as μόσχος / calf in the text.

to the Year 1453, Leiden 1981, no. 264, 65; r. etzeoglou, «Ἐγράφη ἐν τῷ Μυζιθρᾶ». Βιβλιογραφικές δραστηριότητες στον Μυστρά κατά τον 13o και τον 14o αιώνα, ΔΧΑΕ, Περίοδος Δ΄, 26 (2005), 181-192, esp. 189-190 (with an english abstract); PaPadaKi-oeKland, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, 401.

3. For this group of illustrated manuscripts see BernaBò, Le miniature per i manoscritti greci del libro di Giobbe, 15-19 and esp. 16; PaPadaKi-oeKland, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, 204-302 and especially her comment on p. 401, where she acknowledges the peculiarities of the Tzykandeles Job.

4. PaPadaKi-oeKland, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, 58-65, 158-159.

NOTeS ON A MILKINg SCeNe IN PARISINuS GRAECuS 135 237

In addition to the images mentioned above, representations of cows appear in four more cases in the section of the dialogues (Job, 3-37), in three of which the animal is explicitly mentioned and therefore its depiction accords well with the illustration mode adopted in the manuscript.

On folio 67v (Fig. 1), a cow eating from a manger forms part of the literal illustration of verses 6:5-75, where in a series of rhetorical questions inspired by the life of animals, Job expresses vividly his indignation, as he is unable to comprehend the torments allotted to him by god.

On folio 150v (Fig. 2), an adult cow nurses her calf. In the text, 21:10-12, the infuriated Job elaborates on the good fortune of those who have distanced themselves from god and yet enjoy a life without pain and personal disasters6.

5. What then? Will the wild ass bray for nothing, if he is not seeking food? Or again, will the ox low at the manger, when he has a fodder? Shall bread be eaten without salt? Or again, is there taste in empty words? For my wrath cannot cease; for I perceive my food as the smell of a lion [to be] loathsome.

6. Their cow does not cast her calf, and their [beast] with young is safe, and does not miscarry. And they remain as an unfailing flock, and their children play before [them], taking up the psaltery and harp; and they rejoice at the voice of a song.

Fig. 1. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Parisinus graecus 135, fol. 67v, illustrating Job 6:5-7.


Among other things, the safe laboring of a cow that casts her calf with no complications is considered good fortune. This would have undoubtedly appealed to the experience of the medieval beholder; cattle must have been important assets of the household and aspects relating to their safe maintenance and procreation were of high significance for the domestic planning.

Along the same line, in verses 24:2-3, Job recounts incidents of personal disaster unduly allotted to the righteous, namely the alienation of livestock from their legal owner by the ungodly7. On folio 163v (Fig. 3), the ill-fated widow who suffers the loss of her cow to the impious is depicted with her arms raised in a gesture of desperation while he snatches her animal away. Again, such an image would have generated a strong emotional response of empathy from the medieval beholder.

7. While the ungodly have passed over the bound, carrying off the flock with the shepherd? They have led away, the ass of the fatherless, and taken the widow’s ox for a pledge.

Fig. 2. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Parisinus graecus 135, fol. 150v, illustrating Job 21:10-12.


Fig. 3. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Parisinus graecus 135, fol. 163v,illustrating Job 24:2-3.

Finally in chapter 20, Sophar the Minaean, one among the three friends of Job, elaborates on the gloomy destiny of the impious and recounts in disturbing details the tormenting punishments that would be meted out to him personally and his assets. In verses 15-17 Sophar refers explicitly to the treasures of the impious:

His wealth unjustly collected shall be vomited up; a messenger of wrath shall drag him out of his house. And let him suck the poison of the serpents, and let the serpent’s tongue slay him. Let him not see the milk of the pastures, nor the supplies of honey and butter.

All three verses have been illustrated most reallistically in the Paris codex; yet here we will focus on the miniature on folio 145r (Fig. 4), which illustrates


verse 17 and represents the rural activities related to the production of butter and honey, namely milking and bee-breeding.

At this point it is essential to emphasize that no other Byzantine illuminated manuscript of Job, dated earlier than Paris. gr. 135, illustrates specifically this particular verse of the biblical text8. A similar miniature

8. PaPadaKi-oeKland, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, Appendix II, Table IV. The twelfth-century Athenensis codex gr. 164 (formerly known as no. 62) kept in the Byzantine and Christian Museum, was planned to be illustrated with 154 miniatures, which were never finished. Today we only see the framed areas intended to accommodate illustration. What interests us here is that on f. 179r a miniature was planned to illustrate verses 20:17-18 but it was never executed. Therefore, we cannot substanciate either what kind of illustartion it would eventually appear on this particular folio or which of the two verses of the biblical text it would have been chosen for illustration: PaPadaKi-oeKland, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, 378-380.

Fig. 4. Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Parisinus graecus 135, fol. 145r, illustrating Job 20:17.


illustrates verse 20:17 in the sixteenth-century illustrated Job of the Bodleian Library, Oxford, codex Laud gr. 86, p. 2379. This book, though, was produced in Venice almost two centuries later and evidently the Tzykandeles Job was used as its model10. Furthermore, the iconography of this later miniature has been substancially modified compared to its model and adapted to represent the milking of both cows and sheep exclusively by men.

At first glance, the picture in Paris. gr. 135, being in visual contact with the biblical extract it illustrates (verse 17), merely conforms to the general principle that underlies the illustration of the manuscript. A couple, a woman and a man, milk a cow and a sheep respectively, while three bee-hives on the right complete the picture. At a closer inspection, though, we realise that the selection of the animals depicted is not dependent on the content of the adjacent biblical extract. Therein, neither sheep nor cows are mentioned in specific, but instead ‘pastures’ (νομάδων) in general.

Ilias Anagnostakis and Titos Papamastorakis who studied and exposed the peculiarities of this miniature, have noted that the Paris Job milking scene of a cow is unique in Byzantine art and seems to contradict the Byzantine written and visual records that predominantly relate cows and oxen to heavy rural activities such as tillage, threshing and transportation11. No other Byzantine visual example has survived to depict the milking of a cow either by a man or a woman, at least to our knowledge. Yet, what is even more interesting and puzzling about our image is the exceptional depiction of a woman as a dairymaid. In Byzantine visual records the milking of animals is presented as an exclusively male activity12.

9. I. hutter, Corpus der byzantinischen Miniaturenhandschriften, Band 2. Oxford Bodleian Library II, Stuttgart 1978, no. 4, 54-66, esp. 60.

10. PaPadaKi-oeKland, Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts of the Book of Job, 405; alcalay, Le Parisinus graecus 135: Un hommage à Jean Cantacuzène?, n. 10.

11. I. anagnostaKis – T. PaPaMastoraKis, Ἀγραυλοῦντες καὶ ἀμέλγοντες, in Η Ιστορία του Ελληνικού Γάλακτος και των Προϊόντων του. Ι΄ Τριήμερο Εργασίας (Ξάνθη, 7-9 Οκτωβρίου 2005), Πολιτιστικό Ίδρυμα Ομίλου Πειραιώς, Athens 2008, 211-237, esp. 217-221 and figs 17-20.

12. See for example the pastural scenes in the illustrated liturgical homilies of gregory of Nazianzus: g. galaVaris, The Illustrations of the Liturgical Homilies of Gregory Nazianzenus, Studies in Manuscript Illumination 6, Princeton, N.J. 1969, figs 5, 104, 381, as well as the examples illustrated in anagnostaKis – PaPaMastoraKis, Ἀγραυλοῦντες καὶ ἀμέλγοντες, figs 13, 15, 23, 24, 25 and 26.


This lack of visual evidence on the matter might not have been accidental; on the contrary, it may reflect the Byzantine reality. A popular legend transmitted to us by Michael Choniates as well as contemporary anthropological evidence from nomadic populations of the Balkan peninsula corroborate the assumption that the milking of animals by women in Byzantium was an ambiguous activity subjected to a series of restrictions and prerequisities, almost a taboo, and as the Byzantine legend suggests, an act that made Byzantine women impure and resulted in their severe punishment by both god and men13.

This culturaly defined prohibition, however, was by no means universal. It certainly did not apply to the West where milking animals by women was a common place14. In the eyes of a westerner this particular representation would constitute a familiar daily activity and therefore a literal transmission of the text. In the eyes of a Byzantine, by contrast, the milking of a cow was indeed rare and most importantly the woman who milks the cow transgresses, she violates the unwritten law and becomes herself impure.

The interpretation of such an image is interwined with questions relating to the manuscript’s commission, production and intended audience. Why was this verse selected for illustration? What kind of visual resources did the miniaturist had at his disposal? Which culturaly defined code of practice will help us decipher the meaning of the miniature in its given context?

On the one hand, the absence of this milking scene from all surviving Byzantine illustrated manuscripts of Job suggests that the inclusion of this particular miniature in the Paris Job and its rendering was an ad hoc solution meant to serve a very specific purpose. If we take into consideration the lack of Byzantine visual material on the matter, it is almost certain that the miniaturist used western pictorial models in order to compose his picture.

13. anagnostaKis – PaPaMastoraKis, Ἀγραυλοῦντες καὶ ἀμέλγοντες, 223 n. 29 and fig. 21; A. Bryer, The means of agricultural production: muscle and tools, in A. laiou (ed.), The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through the Fifteenth Century, Washington, D.C. 2002, vol 1: 101-113, esp. 104 n. 9. See also the chapter by Ilias Anagnostakis, Graos Gala, in this volume.

14. See for example the representation of a dairymaid milking a cow, from a bestiary of c. 1240-50, Bobleian Library, MS Bodl. 764, f. 41v, in C. M. woolgar, Meat and Dairy products in Late Medieval england, in C. M. woolgar – D. serjeantson – T. waldron (eds.), Food in Medieval England. Diet and Nutrition, Medieval History and Archaeology series, Oxford University Press 2006, 88-101, especially pl. 7.1 on p. 95.


This would explain the appearance of a cow in a milking scene as well as the depiction of the dairymaid.

On the other hand, the textual context within which the picture is situated is charged negatively with disturbing mental pictures of distruction, reminiscent of a curse invocation. It concerns the destiny and the ultimate punishment of the impious, and therefore seems to support the negative, Byzantine ‘reading’ of the milking woman. Such an interpretation promotes the hypothesis that this particular icographical detail in the miniature was deliberately employed by a Byzantine in a very specific textual context and it was meant as a negative visual comment and subtle insinuation against the impure customs and habits of the Latins that eventually will be punished. Although only a Latin would be able to identify with the content of such imagery, the master-mind involved with the design of the book must have been a Byzantine and therein he managed to convey ingeniously, albeit in disguise, the frictions caused by the encounters of two distinctively different cultural identities on Byzantine soil15.

15. For more evidence and a comprehensive analysis in this direction see K. linardou, New Visions of Old Meanings. Paris. Gr. 135 and Some Anti-Latin Visual Implications, in A. lyMBeroPoulou (ed.), Images of the Byzantine World. Visions, Messages and Meanings. Studies Presented to Leslie Brubaker, Ashgate 2011, 169-184.

Notes on a milking scene

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