ABSTRACT
Monastic communities played a diverse role in the rural landscape during the Byzantine period. Monasteries controlled strategic locations, influenced rural societies, monitored important trade routes, and helped link cities and towns with the surrounding countryside. The complex role undertaken by monastic institutions relied on important conditions and processes, which included the symbolic and physical taming of a dangerous landscape through ascetic prayer and hardship. This chapter discusses the development and use of these strategies during the Middle, Late and Post-Byzantine periods based on topographic comparisons and on-site observations. The overview of the ascetic origins of rural institutions, followed by a focused discussion of asceticism in the countryside of Paphos in Cyprus. The analysis of three examples from Northern Greece, the Skete Prodromou near Veroia, the Chortaitou monastery near Thessaloniki and the monastery of St John Prodromos near Serres, will highlight the ways rural monastic communities defined the countryside and retained close urban links and relationships.
