Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2brh9 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T02:58:01.776Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

7 - Images of Hell and the Afterlife in the Churches of Lakonia

from Part II - Eastern Mediterranean

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 October 2021

Angeliki Lymberopoulou
Affiliation:
The Open University, Milton Keynes
Get access

Summary

Sharon E. J. Gerstel and Panayotis S. Katsafados explore images of Hell in churches of the 12th and 14th centuries in Lakonia, the southern Peloponnese, considering the transition of images of sinners from those collectively punished to those individually tormented. After examining the traces of images of Hell in two churches in Mystras and Chrysapha, the authors turn to more humble structures in Epidauros Limera and the Mani, where the representation of sinners is related to village life. The depicted priests, farmers, and women engage in sins that destabilised the village’s agrarian economy and disrupted social order, suggesting that, at a local level, warnings about behaviour in the earthly world were as critical to the community as warnings about salvation in the world to come. Rare images of figures labelled as ‘potion makers’ and ‘witches’ indicate attempts of the Church to regulate dangerous activities that contravened ecclesiastical law and teachings. Representations of usurers, falsifiers of documents, and those who cheat at the scales hint at the challenges that plagued communities in financial hardship. Such depictions continue in the region in the post-Byzantine period, though with increasing complexity, demonstrating a long-term interest in the use of imagery for social commentary.

Type
Chapter
Information
Hell in the Byzantine World
A History of Art and Religion in Venetian Crete and the Eastern Mediterranean
, pp. 310 - 345
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×