Cross-Confessional Contacts: Everyday Piety and Social Boundaries on Cyprus in the Late Lusignan period (14th–15th Centuries)

In the late Middle Ages, the island of Cyprus was a strongly hybrid religious space. Ruled by the Latin Lusignan dynasty since the end of the 12th century, the formerly Byzantine island housed not only a majority of Byzantine Orthodox people, but also a Latin church that catered to the Latin immigrants, as well a various groups of Oriental Christians, such as Melkites, Nestorians and Maronites. At the end of Lusignan rule, these diverse groups had been living together for almost three hundred years, and the island’s inhabitants were used to negotiating relations with various church communities. The sources offer diverse evidence of these processes of negotiation. They suggest long traditions of shared religious places and practices, such as local saints venerated by all Christian groups, monasteries frequented by diverse people, and shared processions of faith. However, other documents show strong boundaries between the different rites that could not be easily transgressed. This paper follows up on the simultaneity of these processes and examines the significance of religious boundaries for the various population groups in everyday life as well as in relation to social status.