| Summary: | This thesis is concerned with the interpretation of Coptic and Greek documents from the two Coptic monasteries founded by Apa Apollo at Bawit and Titicooh in the Hermopolite nome in Egypt. It uses Coptic and Greek sources to illustrate the workings of these monasteries in the VI-IXth Centuries C.E. One hundred and six Coptic and two Greek documents are edited, twenty-one of which have been published previously. None of the documents is dated and all but a few are unprovenanced; they comprise legal texts, orders, tax demands, accounts, lists and letters which are currently in the possession of libraries, museums and private collections around the world. Many of the documents mention a monastery of Apa Apollo which is, or may be, located in the Hermopolite nome; most of them are written by or addressed to monks from that institution. One of the main aims of the thesis is to ascertain which texts relate to the Bawit and which to the Titkooh monastery of Apa Apollo. The existence of other, unconnected Egyptian monasteries named after other Apollos complicates the process of identifying the Hermopolite monasteries of Apa Apollo. I include in the thesis texts which do not mention a monastery of Apa Apollo but which appear to be related to an Hermopolite one from external evidence, such as the circumstances of their acquisition, or from internal evidence, particularly linguistic, palaeographical, prosopographical, and toponomastic data. One chapter examines documents concerned with the collection of aparchê chiefly by monks of a monastery of Apa Apollo. Other chapters investigate documents which contain two epistolary formulae which I have identified as peculiar to documents relating to the Hermopolite monasteries of Apa Apollo: "I, brother (pason) NN am writing", and "Our father is the one who writes".
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