History writing is often driven by particular “interests” (what was sometimes referred to as “schools of thought”) that create a sub-genre within the discipline. Of late, one of the most intriguing of these “interest areas” has been the study of sensory experience in history. At first blush, one wonders how such a thing is even possible: how can one speak of smells, sounds, tastes, and sights in relation to history, especially history before the advent of photography? The two works reviewed here are testimony to these developments of “sensory history” as an featured category in publications by the Pennsylvania State University Press. Although the book on Hagia Sophia is, in fact, older than Mark Smith’s ‘Manifesto’, it makes some sense to review the shorter general work first, and then “illustrate” this general call for a new emphasis on seory history with a work more directly related to those with an interest in Christian Spirituality and history.

Reading Mark Smith’s “Manifesto”, however, is strikingly enlightening – and I am including initial comments about Smith’s important work before turning to a specific example of “Sensory history” that is more directly concerned with Christian Spirituality – namely Bossera Pentcheva’s work: “Hagia Sophia: Sound, Space, and Spirit in Byzantium” (2017 in Hardback, now in paperback). There is an obvious connection here – a general defense of sensory history before noting how significant such an approach can be to the study of Christian Spirituality and history in Pentcheva’s specific example.

Smith helpfully begins his study with a review of previous scholars who have arguably called for attention to sensory elements of history for some time now, beginning especially with the Dutch historian, Johan Huizinga (1872-1945) who tried to capture “historical sensation” as well as simply describing events. Smith quotes Huizinga’s claim, “The contrast between silence and sound, darkness andlight, like that between summer and winter, was more strongly marked than it is in our lives…The modern town hardly knows silence or darkness in their purity, nor the effect of a solitary light or a single distant cry…” (cited in Smith, 11). As Smith immediately notes, “there’s a lot wrong with this claim…”, but Smith equally argues that, nevertheless, Huizanga is “…nodding toward an essential fact: the sense existed in the past and are worthy of study.” (Smith, 11). As he later argues, “…our long, muddled,, complicated history is, in many ways, constituted by the senses. Writing the sensate out of this history leaves us impoverished, partial, and (dare I say) blind.” (Smith, 44).

However, for someone like myself who is entirely new to “sensory history”, I was still skeptical about how this is to be done other than simply taking not of those occasions when a historical source mentions such sounds, tastes, or smells, etc. One argument, however, in Smith’s work completely convinced me that it isn’t merely a matter of attending to such “mentions”, but on a focused consideration of the significance and importance of those discussions in sources, and even beyond the written word.

Smith’s frankly brilliant discussion of Abraham Lincoln’s skin as a critically important element to understand Lincoln in historical context was profoundly enlightening! He began by observing: “To think of historical biographies in terms of the senses goes against a deeply ingrained conceit. Implicit in a good deal of historical biography is a way of understanding the past that privileges the eye…Almost all biographical work inquires from the vantage point of how the subject ‘saw’ the world…” (Smith, 50). Smith points out that Lincoln’s skin was a matter of considerable contemporary interest in his day – the rough, leathery feel, the wart on his right cheek and scar over his right eye. Smith notes that in an era when “handshaking” was of serious political and social importance, his “democratic, working class, rural work” background written, as it were, in the feel of his handshake, was of more than passing interest. Smith notes, “Lincoln was a prodigious handshaker. It helped give rise to his reputation as a strog, egalitarian, common man, in touch with the people…” (Smith, 51). This becomes all the more interesting as Smith notes how often the anti-slavery President invoked skin-related metaphors – Lincoln is cited by Smith to have said, “When I see strong hands sowing, reaping, and threshing wheat and those same hands grinding and making that wheat into bread…I cannot refrain from wishing that those same hands some way…shall own the mouth they feed…” (Cited in Smith, 54). Smith even notes how later representations of Lincoln tried to tone-down the rough skinned image of the President in favor of a smooth-skinned, polished, and more statesmanlike imagery. Arguments even broke out in later decades about images and sculptures that emphasized his “rough skin” face and hands, including arguments about George Grey Barnard’s “gaunt and rugged conception of Lincoln” set up in Cincinnati’s Lytle Park in 1917. Smith’s striking discussion leaves little down that attention to what he calls the “haptic” aspects of Lincoln’s personal presence must not be a neglected aspect of his historic context and role. I came away from this part of Smith’s discussion with a new realization of the potential significance of a careful attention to the historical “sensory” importance of Thomas touching the hands of Jesus (John 20:26-28).

In fact, it doesn’t take long to begin to realize the profound potential of a sensory history of Christian faith and practice. Turning to review Stanford University historian, Bissera Pentcheva’s marvelous 2017 study of Hagia Sophia is but one excellent example of “sensory history” in practice for Christian history and experience. As a visitor, more than once, who has enjoyed the breath-taking experience of standing in Hagia Sophia in modern Istanbul, I can well understand the famous comment attributed to Emperor Julianian (537 AD) who is said to have stated, upon the completion of this incredible structure, “Solomon, I have surpassed you!”.

Pentcheva’s marvelous work was the Winner of the 2018 Award for Excellence in the Study of Religion (Historical Studies) from the American Academy of Religion. It is best to quote her directly with regard to the intention of this study. While many previous studies have emphasized the architecture and construction, or even the politics of the place in modern history, Pentcheva writes that she: “...argues fore the performativity of this space – the void, or air, under the dome – activated during the liturgy by light and sonic energy” (4). In other words – she is studying Hagia Sophia as a place of sensory encounter in various forms – interacting with theological and liturgical concepts in this space. She is interested in the “performance” of texts (8). If one wonders how she is able to speak with some confidence about these matters, she clarifies that her main evidence consists of:
(1) The material fabric of Hagia Sophia,
(2) The written stage directions available in later texts,
(3) The musical design of some chants,
(4) the visualizations available in 9th-11 Century Psalter illustrations, and
(5) digital reconstructions of chant and sound, especially pioneered by the “Icons of Sound” project initiated at Stanford University in 2008, and similar sound digitalization projects at UCLA/USC initiated in 2014.
The book is also illustrated by striking reproductions of what one would have seen in worship conducted in the central space of Hagia Sophia – with attempts to reproduce even the sheen of the shining marble and gold-covered accouterments of actual worship.

The chapters are as follows:
(1) Sophia and Choros: The Making of Sacred Space in Byzantium. In this chapter, Pentcheva engages in comparative architectural observations, with references to other buildings of comparative use and function.
(2) Inspiriting in the Byzantine Consecration (Kathieroses) Rite. Here, Pentcheva speaks to the Greek Orthodox theologies of the spirit interacting with objects, and how the experience of the place and its’ echoing sounds would have been meaningful in theological terms.
(3) Icons of Breath. Pentcheva uses the theology of Eikons – their creation and the ideology of their spiritual importance, to speak further of the significance of the interaction of objects and the spiritual presence they represent, and the sounds that place them in the context of worship.
(4) Aural Architecture. In this interesting chapter, Pentcheva speaks to the role of reverberation in worship in large domed spaces like Hagia Sophia – and how the very dominance of reverberated sound was also theologized. This interesting chapter also speculates on the loss of such reverberation in more recent religious architecture.
(5) Material Flux: Marble, Water, and Chant. Pentcheva also addresses the potential significance of the use of marble and reflective surfaces on both floor and walls – almost a kind of visual reverberation – by comparing light on polished surfaces to water, in relation to sound. She writes about “...chant as the emptying of breath in the space under the dome [which] offers an invisible sonic aggregation that gives a sensorial presence to the metaphysical.” (148).
(6) The Horizontal Mirror and the Poetics of the Imaginary. Pentcheva here turns to speculate on the visual impact of the very taking of eucharist in the context of the light and sound that she explicated in the previous chapter.
(7) Empathy and the Making of Art in Byzantium. Pentcheva then turns to concepts from art history to speak of how interacting with art can assist in understanding the architectural, theological, and liturgical experiences of worship in spaces such as Hagia Sophia.

There follows a conclusion. This work is meticulously documented, and will undoubtedly be considerably more meaningful for those who are well read in Greek Orthodox theological and philosophical concepts (a significant element of Pentcheva’s analysis, it must be said) but even for readers such as myself who are not specialists in these areas, her analysis – while speculative in many ways – was a marvelous experiment in “documenting” sensory experience in order to have a greater comprehension of the significance of the experience of a theology as well as reading about it. In the end, Pentcheva certainly does convince a modern reader that attention to these sensory details is not only better history, it is also significantly interesting theology as well – a theology of experience and place. The combination of Smith’s “Manifesto”, and Pentcheva’s illustration of concepts, make for a convincing introduction to the importance of “sensory history”.