Zaraka Monastery is a ruined Frankish abbey near Stymfalia, in the

Peloponnese The Peloponnese ( ), Peloponnesus ( ; , ) or Morea (; ) is a peninsula and geographic region in Southern Greece, and the southernmost region of the Balkans. It is connected to the central part of the country by the Isthmus of Corinth land bridg ...

, in

Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...

. It was built about a kilometre from the shores of Lake Stymphalia, the site of the ancient city of Stymphalus, during the "

Frankokratia The Frankish Occupation (; anglicized as ), also known as the Latin Occupation () and, for the Venetian domains, Venetian Occupation (), was the period in Greek history after the Fourth Crusade (1204), when a number of primarily French ...

", i.e. the occupation of parts of the

Byzantine Empire The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived History of the Roman Empire, the events that caused the ...

Franks file:Frankish arms.JPG, Aristocratic Frankish burial items from the Merovingian dynasty The Franks ( or ; ; ) were originally a group of Germanic peoples who lived near the Rhine river, Rhine-river military border of Germania Inferior, which wa ...

and Venetians, following the events of the

Fourth Crusade The Fourth Crusade (1202–1204) was a Latin Christian armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III. The stated intent of the expedition was to recapture the Muslim-controlled city of Jerusalem, by first defeating the powerful Egyptian Ayyubid S ...

in 1204, and the establishment of the

Latin Empire The Latin Empire, also referred to as the Latin Empire of Constantinople, was a feudal Crusader state founded by the leaders of the Fourth Crusade on lands captured from the Byzantine Empire. The Latin Empire was intended to replace the Byzantin ...

of Constantinople and Greece.

History

The monastery was built by monks of the

Cistercian Order The Cistercians (), officially the Order of Cistercians (, abbreviated as OCist or SOCist), are a Catholic religious order of monks and nuns that branched off from the Benedictines and follow the Rule of Saint Benedict, as well as the contri ...

, in ''c.'' 1225. What is particularly noteworthy about this monastery is that it the only one actually built by the Cistercians in Greece (out of the approx. 17-19 houses throughout Greece), since in all other occasion the Cistercians had occupied existing Greek Orthodox monasteries that had been abandoned by the Greek monks. In this respect it is one of the exceptionally few samples of western Gothic architecture in Greece, along with the (most likely

Benedictine The Benedictines, officially the Order of Saint Benedict (, abbreviated as O.S.B. or OSB), are a mainly contemplative monastic order of the Catholic Church for men and for women who follow the Rule of Saint Benedict. Initiated in 529, th ...

) monastery of Isova in the western Peloponnese (just north of the village of Trypiti). It was initially excavated by Professor Anastasios Orlandos in the 1920s and then by E. Stikas in the 1960s before a joint project by the Canadian Institute at Athens and the Archaeological Society of Athens prepared the first detailed state plan of the church in 1984. Excavations from 1993 to 1996 by the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto uncovered areas around the gate house and the cloister. Some scholars believe that the abbey had been built in the same location, or general area as an ancient Greek temple dedicated to

Artemis In ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, Artemis (; ) is the goddess of the hunting, hunt, the wilderness, wild animals, transitions, nature, vegetation, childbirth, Kourotrophos, care of children, and chastity. In later tim ...

, which is supported by the fact that materials from a temple have been extensively used in the buildings of the monastery; it is possible, however, that these elements (reused column drums, for example) came from the ancient city a few hundred metres away. The monastery makes sporadic appearance in the Statutes of the Cistercian General Chapter and it was one of the houses granted special exemption from the compulsory annual attendance at the General Chapter, and along with the houses in Syria and the Crusader States it was only required to attend once every seven years. The monastery was abandoned in 1276. The main surviving structures are the imposing vaulted gate house and the church, especially its western end as well as parts of the defensive wall around the monastery. Excavation to the NE of the east end of the church (possibly a narthex was originally planned but never completed) revealed an arched entrance probably to the refectory which had fallen in an earthquake. The PIMS excavations demonstrated that the abbey was resettled in the late 14th century and inhabited perhaps intermittently until the mid 16th century. A number of graves from this later reoccupation were excavated in and around the cloister, including a headless man and one with a German banker's token of the mid 16th century.

Sources

* E. A. R. Brown 'The Cistercians in the Latin Empire of Constantinople and Greece, 1204-1276', ''Traditio'' vol.14 (1958), 63-120 * B. Kitsiki-Panagopoulos, ''Cistercian and Mendicant Monasteries in Medieval Greece'' (Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1979) * P. Lock, ''The Franks in the Aegean, 1204-1500'' (Longman, 1995) * D. H. Williams, ''The Cistercians in the Early Middle Ages, 1098-1348'' (Gracewing, 1998) * Excavation report my Sheila D. Campbel

External links

Official website
{{Authority control Cistercian Order Christian monasteries established in the 1220s Medieval Corinthia Buildings and structures in Corinthia Roman Catholic monasteries in Greece Principality of Achaea History of Catholicism in Greece Gothic architecture in Greece Ruined abbeys and monasteries Former Christian monasteries in Greece Medieval sites in Peloponnese (region)