Reassessing Religious Identities in the Fourteenth-century Venetian Crete: Foundations of Two-aisled Churches and the Kallergis Family

Abstract

The study of the complex plural society of Latins and Greeks, solidified on Crete during the Venetian rule, would seem to have become the concern of many scholars by now. And yet, despite of relatively grown interests, the coexistence of two communities still leaves rather problematic questions open. These today concern, first and foremost, with the dimensions of everyday religious life. The recent discourse on the history of Cretan churches with two aisles becomes a point in case. Here archaeological evidence of bipartite monuments not only did lead scholars to draw parallels between architectural practices of Latins and Greeks, but, more importantly, placed emphasis on the connection of their worship experience.

As the aforementioned contributions regarding the churches with two aisles lay the solid groundwork for the further research, in this thesis I tend to rejoin the discussion. Besides providing a critical preface to typological and functional approaches, basically I focus on the tightly-knit case study of the first two-aisled churches of Crete. Significantly, here physical evidence and written sources emphasize analysing the history of the foundations through the prosopographical study of the patrons, namely, the Greek-Cretan family of the Kallergis. Thus, while aiming to understand the development and functionality of the early bipartite Cretan monuments on micro level, I also attempt to reassess the complex religious reality and identities of the time.