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The monastery of Piperatou (eleventh century)

 
 

Obverse

Bust of St. Romanos with a short beard, holding a martyr's cross and an unidentifiable object. On either side the inscription: |Μ|ΑΝ|ΟΣ: ὁ ἅ(γιος) Ῥωμανος. Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines, rows of pellets above and below. Border of dots.


+ΜΟ
ΝΙΣΣΦΡΑ
ΓΙΖΤΟΥ
ΠΙΠ.ΡΑΤˊ
Λ.Γ/

μονῖς σφραγίζω τοῦ Πιπ[ε]ράτ(ου) λ[ό]γ(ους)

Obverse

Bust of St. Romanos with a short beard, holding a martyr's cross and an unidentifiable object. On either side the inscription: |Μ|ΑΝ|ΟΣ: ὁ ἅ(γιος) Ῥωμανος. Border of dots.

Reverse

Inscription of five lines, rows of pellets above and below. Border of dots.


+ΜΟ
ΝΙΣΣΦΡΑ
ΓΙΖΤΟΥ
ΠΙΠ.ΡΑΤˊ
Λ.Γ/

μονῖς σφραγίζω τοῦ Πιπ[ε]ράτ(ου) λ[ό]γ(ους)

Accession number BZS.1958.106.131
Diameter 21.0 mm; field: 18.0 mm
Previous Editions

DO Seals 3, no. 84.1. Cf. Wassiliou-Seibt, Siegel mit metrischen Legenden I, no. 1460.

Translation

μονῖς σφραγίζω τοῦ Πιπεράτου λόγους.

I seal the correspondence of the monastery of Piperatou.

Commentary

This is a correct twelve-syllable verse.

According to the Peira (15.4) the μονὴ τοῦ Πιπεράτου was a private house that was transformed into monastery by a pious monk who gave it to Romanos I Lakapenos before his accession to the throne. He improved it when he became emperor, and then gave it to the protovestiarios Marianos and to his successors; patriarch Nicholas II (979-991) unsuccessfully tried to attatch it to the patriarchal properties. This is probably the monastery that owned the seal published below, especially since it is decorated with a portrait of St. Romanos the martyr, the patron saint of Romanos I. We know nothing of the location of this monastery but we assume that it was not inside Constantinople because it is not mentioned in any other text (we recognize though that this if a very weak argument).

Then there is the nunnery τοῦ Πιπερούδη, on the Asiatic coast of the Bosporus, "founded" by Eudocia Makrembolitissa, where she was forced to retire in 1071; it was dedicated to the Virgin (see, e.g., Bryennios, ed. Gautier, 124). The resemblance and rarity of the name lead us to identify the two institutions and to speculate that Eudocia gave a second dedication to an existing institution and transformed it into a nunnery. See Janin, Grands centres, 28.

Bibliography

  • Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and at the Fogg Museum of Art, Vol. 3: West, Northwest, and Central Asia Minor and the Orient (Open in Zotero)
  • Nicéphore Bryennios Histoire (Open in Zotero)
  • La géographie ecclésiastique de l’empire byzantin, vol. 2, Les églises et les monastères des grands centres byzantins (Open in Zotero)
  • Corpus der byzantinischen Siegel mit metrischen Legenden, Vol. 1, Siegellegenden von Alpha bis inclusive My (Open in Zotero)