Perceptions and Understanding of the Greek Schism in the Latin Pilgrimage Literature of the Late Middle Ages, lecture by Nicky Tsougarakis (Edge Hill University) King’s College London, March 28, 2017, 5:30–7:00 pm

A variety of opinions about the Greeks and their rite are expressed in the Latin travel literature of the late Middle Ages, ranging from admiration of the Greek clergy’s asceticism to outright condemnation of the Greek rite as heretical. The opinions of these travelling authors are shaped by their own personal observations but also by a range of theological, polemic and historical texts, as well as the immediate historical context of their own times. Though these travellers are literate and, often, theologically trained, it is immediately obvious that their reports on the Greek Church and its rite do not always reflect accurately the Roman Church’s official position. This paper shall outline a) how the various pilgrims understood the doctrinal and ritual differences dividing the Greek and Latin Churches; and b) how they perceived the ecclesiastical structures and the condition of the Greek Church in the Latin states of Greece through which they passed. It shall also seek to explain the divergent views and changing attitudes of the pilgrims with reference to their sources of information and the authors’ particular backgrounds. In doing so, the paper shall seek to elucidate how the relations of the two Churches were perceived by a segment of the western European elite, which was, however, below the level of policy formulation.

Nicky Tsougarakis is a historian of the late Middle Ages. He studied for his MA and PhD in Medieval Studies at the University of Leeds, where he wrote a thesis on the Latin monastic orders in medieval Greece. After completing his PhD, he taught Medieval Latin at Leeds and, later, Medieval Palaeography at the University of Kent, before obtaining a lectureship at Edge Hill University. Nicky’s particular area of expertise is the Greco-Latin world in the aftermath of the Fourth Crusade. He is especially interested in the transplantation of religious institutions from the Latin West to the Byzantine East and the interaction between the Greek and Latin cultures in the frontier society of medieval Greece. His revised doctoral thesis was published by Brepols in 2012 under the title The Latin Religious Orders in Medieval Greece, 1204-1500 and he is co-editor of A Companion to Latin Greece (Brill, 2014).