The isles of great silence monastic life on Lake Scutari under the patronage of the Bal i s

At the time Zeta was ruled by the local lords of the Bal i family, in the late fourteenth and the first half of the fifteenth century, the islets in Lake Scutari (Skadarsko jezero) in Zeta were lively centres of monastic life. The paper looks at the forms of monastic life as suggested by the spatial organization and architecture of the monastic complexes founded by the Bal i s, and by the surviving written sources. The most important documentary source is the correspondence between Jelena Bal i and her spiritual father, Nikon, preserved in the manuscript known as Gori ki zbornik (Gorica Collection). The letters show that Lake Scutari was a centre of monasticism touched by hesychast-inspired spirituality where both the eremitic and coenobitic ways of life were practised. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177003: Medieval heritage of the Balkans: Institutions and culture]