International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Myrto Veikou
Uppsala University, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala, Sweden;
[e-mail]
Literary Spaces and Human Agencies: 
The Area of Smyrna during the 13
th
Century
This presentation will comment on Byzantine agencies related to social-space construction, 
as deriving from an evaluation of literary spaces included in the cartulary of the Byzantine 
Monastery of Lemvos in the area of Smyrna. This collection comprising roughly two hundred 
Byzantine documents − ranging from imperial charters, acts of state officials, judicial decisions 
and ecclesiastical acts to a large number of private acts (mainly wills, donations and deeds of sale) 
dating to the twefth and thirteenth century −, which is preserved in MS 
Historicus graecus
125 of the 
Austrian National Library, has been recently re-evaluated in collaboration with Professor Alexander 
Beihammer (University of Notre Dame).

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The main aims of this particular paper is to offer a different approach to literary spaces 
mentioned in these documents and to complement our knowledge on the territory of Lemvos 
Monastery, offered by previous works such as by H. Glykatzi-Ahrweiler, P. Gounaridis, D. Kyritsis 
and K. Smyrlis. Specifically, I intend to focus on Byzantine perceptions of natural space and on 
Byzantines’ strategies for the construction of social spaces within this natural space. As a result of 
these considerations, I intend to furthermore discuss Byzantine practices for the construction of 
people’s local identities in this particular geographical area and period of time.
The work, which will be presented, was partly conducted as part of the Research Project 
“Continuity and change in the perception of natural space, the land use and settlement in Byzantine 
Eastern Mediterranean (6
th
-13
th
 centuries). A reappraisal of the cases of Southern Balkans and Asia 
Minor from an interdisciplinary approach.”
undertaken by the University of Crete and co-hosted 
by the University of Cyprus during the years 2012-2015 (http://byzantinespaces. ims.forth.gr/en/
index.php). The project was lead by myself, hosted by Professor A. Kioussopoulou and Professor 
A. Beihammer; it was implemented within the framework of the Action «Supporting Postdoctoral 
Researchers» of the Operational Program “Education and Lifelong Learning” (Action’s Beneficiary: 
General Secretariat for Research and Technology), and it was co-financed by the European Social 
Fund (ESF) and the Greek State.