What happens in the afterlife has been one of the ‘burning’ questions that
preoccupy humanity. As such, its representations provide a perfect platform to
dip into the past by looking at art through the eyes of its contemporary
people. So, please join me for a brief visit in the fourteenth century.
The year is 1373. The inhabitants of the village of Kitiros, in the
south-western part of the island of Crete, have just completed the decoration
of their parish church. At the time, Crete was under Venetian rule, but in
their vast majority the rural areas were inhabited by Greek speaking, Christian
Orthodox population. As such, the church is dedicated to Saint Paraskevi, a
female Orthodox saint. Its iconographic programme includes the punishments of
damned in Hell, the brutal and eternal suffering of those who disobey the law
of both God and man.
Unlike present-day, in the fourteenth-century the availability of images
was rather limited. One of the main places one could have encountered rich and
colourful imagery was in a church. Their visual impact, combined with the
preaching of the priest, would have been profound.
Among the sinners punished in Hell at Kitiros, are ‘Those Who Sleep on a
Sunday’ rather than attending the liturgy (Fig. 1; painting
rather damaged). The faithful standing before this wall painting on a Sunday
morning would have known that this was not a sin they were committing – if Hell
were waiting for them on the other side it certainly would not have been for
not attending Sunday Mass. Other sinners include a ‘Man Who Ploughs Over the Boundary
Line [of his field]’, a ‘Miller Who Cheats while Weighing [flour]’, a ‘Tailor Who
Cheats [his clients] and a ‘Goat Thief’ – all thefts punishable by penal law
and explicitly forbidden in the Ten Commandments. Furthermore, in the fourteenth-century
such actions could have made the difference between life and death – less land
to produce agricultural products, less flour, less meat, all equalled less
chances of survival for a farming family. Among the sinners are also a ‘Woman Who
does not Breastfeed her Children’, another matter of life and death in an era
where no substitute formula was available, and a man and a woman ‘Who Fornicate’
(have carnal relations outside marriage) (Fig.2).
These images were not only projecting a powerful incentive for the
Christian villagers to stay on the right path, they were also reassuring them that
those who did not were going to suffer insufferable pain for ever. The hope for
a blissful eternal afterlife following the hardships of their
fourteenth-century rural lives, could not be underestimated.
The examination of the representations of Hell in the eastern Mediterranean reaches beyond the study of Christian religion; it includes experiencing a social, legal and economic past in search of building a learned future. Because, studying the past is not only about continuity and what we can relate to, but also what was different and what it can teach us. Therefore, looking at these pictures makes us question what the moral taboos of our own time are, and how they are being reinforced.
Figure 1, Church of Saint Paraskevi, Kitiros (Selino), Chania, 1372/3, wall painting (west wall): Those Who Sleep on Sunday (painting rather damaged: a black devil stands above a couple who lie naked in bed on a Sunday morning, rather than attending Mass) Figure 2: Church of Saint Paraskevi, Kitiros (Selino), Chania, 1372/3, wall painting (west wall): top to bottom and left to right: Ploughs over the Boundary Line; Tailor; Miller; Woman Who does not Breastfeed her Children; Fornicator (female); Fornicator (Male); Goat Thief.
Angeliki Lymberopoulou is Senior Lecturer in Art History at The Open University. She is the editor, with Rembrandt Duits, of Byzantine Art and Renaissance Europe (2013) and of Cross-Cultural Interaction between Byzantium and the West 1204-1669. Whose Mediterranean is it Anyway? (2018)....
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