The agreement between Saint Sava and the administration of Mount Athos on the land purchase of a vineyard (1228) the origin and fate of the Greek and Serbian texts

Abstract

A comparative analysis of the Greek and Serbian versions of the text is used to establish the authenticity of the agreement between archbishop Sava and the representatives of the Mount Athos administration at the time of Protos Eusebius (August 1228), but also to identify layers from different periods, common for a document that has multiple copies. The paper seeks to determine the methods of creating the two versions and the precise relationship between the underlying manuscript traditions, as well as the diplomatic status of some versions, especially the two earlier Greek and the only Serbian version. By relying on a methodology that separates the textual and event-history levels in the document and by tracking the consistency and deviations in the surviving variants of the texts, it is demonstrated that the Greek text was created by Saint Sava by adapting an earlier agreement made under Protos Theoktistos (1215-1218/1219). It has also been concluded that the original version was most likely written by Sava?s collaborator, that the earliest Greek copy dates from the time of Saint Sava (as inferred by V. A. Mosin), that the Serbian Slavonic translation was made some time after Saint Sava?s death (ca. 1235/1236), that an intermediate copy was based on it (ca. 1498/1499) and that it served as the source for the only surviving manuscript copy, probably made by a Russian or a Serbian monk well versed in Russian chancery practices (the very beginning or the first decades of the 17th century). The Greek copies of the aforementioned agreement and its Serbian version reveal that Saint Sava purchased land intended for a vineyard for the Hermitage of Saint Sava in Karyes on two occasions, first as an archimandrite and then as an archbishop.