ABSTRACT
In assessing the importance of the Evergetis in the history of Byzantine monasticism it is important to bear in mind that our sources present us with a particularly lop-sided view. We know virtually nothing about the monastic formation of its founders; Timothy was a disciple of Paul, but where did Paul come from and what was his family background? If we possessed the solution to that mystery, then many of the administrative and spiritual practices of the Evergetis could be placed in context. As it is, we can only identify possible links with Stoudios and speculate about any with the St Mamas of Symeon the New Theologian. We also have virtually nothing of the administrative documentation which every monastery possessed. Faint traces of it can be found: mentions of imperial chrysobulls for example, and possibly quotations from them embedded in the text of the administrative typikon.153 A later addition to the original typikon makes mention of estates; but where is the full brebion that would contain their detailed description?154 Where are the copies of donations, agreements, privileges and exemptions which, as we know from the dossiers of Athos and Patmos, comprised a monastic archive of this period? None of them survives and even the most important documents of all – the two typika – have only survived in their full form in one manuscript. Most of the later documents which are so clearly based on Evergetine models do not, indeed, acknowledge that fact.
