Semantra and bells in Byzantium
According to written sources, semantra were used to summon the faithful to prayer throughout the history of Byzantium, during more than one millennium. Semantra were first made exclusively of wood, while as of the mid-11th century some monasteries used three types of semantra - a small and...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | Bulgarian |
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Institute for Byzantine Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
2018-01-01
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| Series: | Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.doiserbia.nb.rs/img/doi/0584-9888/2018/0584-98881855271M.pdf |
| Summary: | According to written sources, semantra were used to summon the faithful to
prayer throughout the history of Byzantium, during more than one millennium.
Semantra were first made exclusively of wood, while as of the mid-11th
century some monasteries used three types of semantra - a small and big
semantron made of wood, and the third, bronze semantron. Up until the Fourth
Crusade, lay churches in Constantinople, including Hagia Sophia, as well as
cathedral temples in the interior, maintained the ancient tradition of using
wooden semantra only. The first reliable example of the use of bells
originates from the mid-12th century. At a least hundred years earlier, they
were brought to the Empire’s territory by traders from the Apennine
peninsula for their places of worship. The erection of a high belfry in
front of the Constantinople Great Church at the time of the Latin Empire had
the decisive influence on the acceptance of bells after 1261, first in the
liturgical practice of the capital, and then in the entire territory of the
restored Empire under the Palaiologoi dynasty. The new practice did not
uproot the older one - semantra continued to be used. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177032] |
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| ISSN: | 0584-9888 2406-0917 |