Skip to Content

Constantine bishop of Skopelos (eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of a bishop-saint holding the Gospels. Vertical inscription: .Ι|.Ι|Ν|Ο,: Ὁ ἅγιος Ριγῖνος. Indeterminate border.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. Indeterminate border.

ΣΦΡΑ
.ΙΣΚ̅Ν
ΠΙΣΚΟΠ
ΣΚΟΠΕ
Λ

Σφραγὶς Κωνσταντίνου πισκόπου Σκοπέλου

Obverse

Bust of a bishop-saint holding the Gospels. Vertical inscription: .Ι|.Ι|Ν|Ο,: Ὁ ἅγιος Ριγῖνος. Indeterminate border.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines. Indeterminate border.

ΣΦΡΑ
.ΙΣΚ̅Ν
ΠΙΣΚΟΠ
ΣΚΟΠΕ
Λ

Σφραγὶς Κωνσταντίνου πισκόπου Σκοπέλου

Accession number BZS.1947.2.150
Diameter 19.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 2, no. 55.1.
Laurent, Corpus V/1, no. 726.

Translation

Σφραγὶς Κωνσταντίνου πισκόπου Σκοπέλου.

Seal of Constantine, bishop of Skopelos.

Commentary

Laurent did not recognise the saint on the obverse and attributed this seal to Skopelos of Thrace. In our view, however, the saint represented on the obverse was a bishop of Skopelos of Hellas, that is, the island of Skopelos, so the seal should be attributed to this see (Syn. Eccl. CP, 148, 488, 490).

The inscription sounds metrical, and we might have here two six-syllable lines made possible by the omission of epsilon at the beginning of episkopou, which appears to be intentional. Cf. DO Seals 2, no. 60.2.

Skopelos was a suffragan bishop of Larissa of Thessaly (Darrouzès, Notitiae, no. 10, line 786; no. 13, line 562; cf. no. 3, line 685). Two of its bishops are attested in the eleventh century (Malamut, Iles, 357-58).

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of the Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 2: South of the Balkans, the Islands, South of Asia Minor (Open in Zotero)
  • Le Corpus des sceaux de l’empire byzantin (Open in Zotero)
  • Notitiae Episcopatuum Ecclesiae Constantinopolitanae (Open in Zotero)
  • Les îles de l’empire byzantin: VIIIe-XIIe siècles (Open in Zotero)