Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025 1204 Power Patronage and Ideology Barbara Hill Full Chapter

Imperial Women in Byzantium
1025-1204: Power, Patronage and

Ideology Barbara Hill
Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://ebookmass.com/product/imperial-women-in-byzantium-1025-1204-power-patr
onage-and-ideology-barbara-hill/
Imperial W omen in Byzantium 1025-1204
WOMEN AND MEN IN HISTORY
This series, published for students, scholars and interested general readers,
will tackle themes in gender history from the early medieval period through
to the present day. Gender issues are now an integral part o f all history
courses and yet many traditional texts do not reflect this change. Much
exciting work is now being done to redress the gender imbalances o f the
past, and we hope that these books will make their own substantial con
tribution to that process. This is an open-ended series, which means that
many new titles can be included. We hope that these will both synthesise
and shape future developments in gender studies.
The General Editors o f the series are Patricia Skinner (University of South
ampton) for the medieval period; Pamela Sharpe (University of Bristol) for
the early m odern period; and Penny Summerfield (University o f Lancaster)
for the m odern period. Margaret Walsh (University o f Nottingham) was the
Founding Editor of the series.
Published books:
Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025-1204: Power, Patronage and Ideology
Barbara H ill
Masculinity in Medieval Europe
D.M. Hadley (ed.)
Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy
Judith C. Brown and Robert C. Davis (eds)
Gender, Church and State in Early Modern Germany: Essays by Merry E.
Wiesner
Merry E. Wiesner
M anhood in Early Modern England: Honour, Sex and Marriage
Elizabeth W. Foyster
Disorderly Women in Eighteenth-Century London: Prostitution in the
Metropolis 1730-1830
Tony Henderson
Gender, Power and the Unitarians in England, 1760-1860
R uth Watts
Women and Work in Russia, 1880-1930: A Study in Continuity through
Change
Jane McDermid and A n n a Hillyar
The Family Story: Blood, Contract and Intimacy, 1830-1960
Leonore Davidojf, Megan Doolittle, Janet Fink and Katherine Holden
More than Munitions: Women, Work and the Engineering Industries 1900-
1950
Clare Wightman
Imperial Women in
Byzantium 1025-1204:
Power, Patronage and
Ideology
BARBARA HILL
R Routledge
Taylor &.Francis Group
LO N D O N AN D NEW YORK
First published 1999 by Pearson Education Limited
Published 2013 by Routledge

2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon 0X 14 4RN
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA
Routledge is an im print o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an inform a business
Copyright © 1999, Taylor & Francis.
The right o f Barbara Hill to be identified as author o f this Work has

b een asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright,
Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by
any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopy
ing and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Notices
Knowledge and best practice in this field are constantly changing. As new research and experience
broaden our understanding, changes in research methods, professional practices, or medical treat
ment may become necessary.
Practitioners and researchers must always rely on their own experience and knowledge in evaluating
and using any information, methods, compounds, or experiments described herein. In using such in
formation or m ethods they should be m indful of their own safety and the safety of others, including
parties for whom they have a professional responsibility.
To the fullest extent of the law, neither the Publisher nor the authors, contributors, or editors, assume
any liability for any injury and/or damage to persons or property as a matter of products liability, neg
ligence or otherwise, or from any use or operation of any methods, products, instructions, or ideas
contained in the material herein.
ISBN 13: 978-0-582-30352-2 (pbk)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hill, Barbara.
Imperial w om en in Byzantium, 1025-1204: power, patronage,
and ideology / Barbara Hill,
p. cm. - (W omen and m en in history)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0 -5 8 2 -3 0 3 5 3 -2 (csd). - ISBN 0 -5 8 2 -3 0 3 5 2 -4 (ppr)
1. Empresses - Byzantine Empire - History. 2. Byzantine Empire
- History - 1025-1081. 3. Byzantine Empire - History - 1081-1453.
4. Leadership in w om en - Byzantine Empire - History. I. Title.
II. Series.
DF591.3.H56 1999
949.5'02'0922 - dc21 98-52955
CIP
Set by 35 in 1 0 /1 2 p t Baskerville
Contents
List of maps, figures and family trees vii

List of abbreviations viii
Glossary ix
Author’s acknowledgements xi
1. Introduction 1
Secondary sources 3
R ecent scholarship 6
Sources 8
Feminism, sex and gender 10
W om en in Byzantium: an introduction 14
Towards a fem inist history o f Byzantium 18
Byzantium: an introduction 28
2. The role of women in eleventh-century politics 37
Introduction 37
Zoe 42
T h eo d o ra 55
Family governm ent in the eleventh century 58
Eudokia M akrembolitissa 62
T he rise o f the Kom nenoi 66
T he coup o f 1081 69
3. Creating the ideal Komnenian woman 72
Introduction: deconstructing ideology 72
Ideology and the K om nenoi 75
M other 78
Wife 83
Sister and d aughter 87
Physical attributes 88
C onclusion 93
4. Titles for imperial women 96
Sources and historiography 97
T he system 100
v
VI Imperial women in Byzantium 1025—1204
Augousta 102
Basilissa 108
D espoina 114
C onclusion 117
5. The method of marriage 120
A nthropological analysisof the K om nenian system 123
M arriage 124
Inheritance, descent and nam ing strategies 132
W oman as subject 141
C onclusion 150
6. Power through patronage 153
D efining patronage 155
Individual patrons 161
Patterns o f patronage 174
Econom ic resources 176
T he effect o f m arital status 178
Conclusion 179
7. A woman’s ideology 181
A nna K om nene and the Alexiad 187
8. The collapse of the Komnenian system 199
Maria o f Antioch 201
Euphrosyne Doukaina 204
9. Conclusion 208
Chronology 218
Appendix: Family trees 220
Bibliography 222
Index 242
L ist o f M aps, Figures an d Family Trees
M aps
C onstantinople xi
F ig u r e s
Figure 1 T he hierarchy o f titles devised by Alexios 101

Figure 2 T he wom en in P rodrom os’s work 110
Figure 3 Genealogical connections 137
Fa m il y T rees
1. T he en d o f the House o f M acedon 220

2. T he House o f Doukas 220
3. T he House o f Kom nenos 221
4. T he H ouse o f Angelos 221
L ist o f abbreviations
AHR Am erican Historical Review

B Byzantion
BF Byzantinische Forschungen
BMGS Byzantine an d M odern Greek Studies
BS Byzandnoslavica
BS/EB Byzantine S tudies/E tudes byzantines
BSHAR Bulletin de la Section H istorique, Academ ie Roum aine
BZ Byzantinische Zeitschrift
DOP D um barton Oaks Papers
IRAIK Izvestija Russkago Archeoliceskago Instituta v Konstanti-
nople
JOB Jah rb u ch d er O sterreichischen Byzantinistik
JRS Jo u rn al o f Rom an Studies
JThS Jo u rn al o f Theological Studies
NE Neos Ellenika
OCA O rientalia C hristiana Analecta
P&P Past & Present
REB Revue des etudes byzantines
TM Travaux et m em oires
TRHS Transactions o f the Royal Historical Society
W Vizantijskij V rem ennik
Glossary
W ords defined in the Glossary are asterisked on their first appear

ance in the book.
affines: persons related by m arriage

augousta: title o f crowned em press
basileia: power holding
basilikos logos: set speeches in h o n o u r o f an em peror
(pi. basilikoi logoi)
basilissa basilis: em press (pi. basilissai)
beneficia: grants and rewards which can be
bestowed
chrysobull: decree issued by the em peror
despoina: mistress o f the house, also used for
empresses
despotes: a title for the em peror, b u t one which
focuses on his practical duties rather
than im perial majesty
diataxis: decree
didaskalos: teacher
eisiterioi: verses o f welcome
filiation: a system which hands property from
father to son
gambroi: plural of gambros - a relative
habitus: thought-world
imperium: em perorship
kaisarissa: wife o f a Caesar
kouropalatissa [kouropalates]: wife o f kouropalate
lemma: heading of a poem o r speech stating
its dedication (pi. lemmata)
magistrisse: wife of magistros
m orning gift: gift given to bride on m orning after
wedding - often a percentage of dowry
oikos: household in the largest sense
ix
X Imperial women in Byzantium 1025-1204
philanthropia: generosity to those poorer than

oneself
phronema: highm indedness
pittakion: decree
porphyrogennitos: born in purple cham ber reserved for
wife of em peror
potestas: power
prim ogeniture: system of inheritance by eldest son
propemptic talk: speech o f advice
prostaxis: decree
protosebastos: son o f first son in K om nenian system
o f titles
sebastokrator: son o r b ro th er o f the em peror
sebastokratorissa: wife o f a sebastokrator
spiritual kinship: creation of godparents
theatron: literary circle (pi. theatra)
typikon: foundation charter o f a m onastery
(pi. typika)
A u th or’s acknowledgements
This book started life as my doctoral thesis, com pleted for the
Q u een ’s University o f Belfast in 1994. Special thanks go o f course
to my supervisor, M argaret Mullett, who introduced me to Byzan
tium in the first place and rem ained an inspiration and example
throughout. To Liz Jam es m ust go m uch o f the credit for getting
this book published, since she m entioned the thesis to my aca
dem ic editor, Patricia Skinner. Patricia’s academ ic excellence and
generous support facilitated the transition from thesis to book. T he
Longm an team o f Hilary Shaw, T erka Bagley and V erina Pettigrew
deserve many thanks for their patience and expertise. Finally, as
always, thanks to my husband Ross who proof-read the m anuscript
and helped greatly in the preparation and production o f the index.
xi
B LA C K SSA
N t h r a c ia V
y<
Blachernae /> S s .
Gate of
Charisius s~ ~ '—
^ x<C\~■O7fcCf hrysopolis -
V V % N — x
^ \ - C h a lc e d o n
Sea o# » v>
< 2 j\> t ? SKYAE Mmrmra
Gate of >
Romanus y Church of * ' ,‘V \ * 5 '' S o N ic o ^
St Laurencet X t i O f \ \
\c * \ ' A \ •Cyzicus b ithy n ia
|] f Church > \ \ |]
' lip of the Holy Jy^ Co 0 40km
Gate of // o \ \ Apostles
Rhegium [H -5 0 4 0 m ile s
/' Oj
/1 o //.C \ of Valens ^ \ H a r t» t^ P h o ip h o < to n
b. // ^ s
// °
/1 -C /'/ 69 J Sate of « 1
// (§" Forum of ^ © I
ocs
Jf K <&J\. \ 1*^ i<St Barbara
/r o // O Arcadius
// o Forum of
Gate of *o \ 'o
U) C
D Old Forum of , Constantine ( C h«hof
the Pege
7/ s Golden ^ T h e o d o s iu s / ttwHkty
G atej; -sJ^s* iT o ^ V M e s e t Wisdom
o "5
\\ y / T i^ o t Hippodrome ------- __
Augwsteum
C.
5
S w a ts Hoys©
TklZZz,k.^ Harbour of Julian m \
m eodos« ^Im p e ria l PsHaw*
Golden m
Gate u= 0 ^ X of HiO£r#&da& V f
i : ***•:
| ...?.......... s t B a s e r** \
0 1
\
CONSTANTINOPLE
Source: A. Bridge, Theodora (Chicago, 1993), opposite p. 1.
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
T he study o f wom en is currently fashionable during this second

w om en’s m ovem ent of the tw entieth century. Byzantine women
have n o t been neglected in the upsurge o f interest in the lives of
women in general. And yet, despite increased interest over the last
twenty years, the investigation and knowledge o f women still have a
long way to go before they are on a level with many o th er areas of
Byzantine culture and history. T he relatively recent Oxford Dictionary
of Byzantium does n o t have an entry on ‘em press’. For inform ation
on this person, readers are directed to the entry on ‘em peror’.1Even
prim ary evidence can be m isrepresented, and perhaps therefore
misread; this fact is dem onstrated by the usual characterisation of
the mosaic in the south gallery of Hagia Sophia as ‘the C onstan
tine p an e l’, despite the fact that C onstantine was clearly n o t the
original d o n o r o f the panel and was only em p eror in any case by
his m arriage to the reigning empress, Zoe the M acedonian, who is
also represented in the panel. This should be described as the Zoe
panel.2 T he erro r is fu rth e r com pounded by the inclusion o f the
panel in the very accessible Byzantium by R. Loverance. O n page 44
the photograph o f the panel excludes Zoe altogether, only showing
Christ and Constantine. Loverance does have the grace to include Zoe
in the caption, b u t the photograph is m ore likely to be rem em bered
an d few casual readers will read the caption. T he b itter extrem e of
exclusion o f wom en is that scholarly attem pts are m ade to remove
1. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium, A. Kazhdan (ed.), 3 vols (New York and
O xford, 1991).
2. See B. Hill, L. Jam es a n d D.C. Smythe, ‘Zoe and the rhythm m eth o d o f im per
ial renew al’, in P. M agdalino (ed.), New Constantines: the Rhythm of Imperial Renewal in
Byzantium, 4th-13th Centuries (Aldershot, 1994), pp. 215-29.
1
2 Imperial women in Byzantium 1025-1204
their visibility in cases where they have been visible. For example,
J. 1lo ward J oh n .ston would like to turn the Alexiad o f A nna K om nene
into the Alexiad o f N ikephoros Bryennios, edited by Anna Komnene,
on the ludicrous, no t to say unproved and chauvinistic, grounds that
women cannot write about battles.3 Howard-Johnston is no t doing
anything new: denying authorship to wom en is a tim e-honoured
tradition the absurdity and bias o f which have been convincingly
laid bare by Jo an n a Russ.4
It is no longer necessary to make excuses for or to justify study
ing women: m ost scholars accept that such work is axiomatic for
the full understanding o f social life, an d that ignoring over half the
hum an race results in a distorted picture o f hum an life. Even histor
ies o f the m ost m ale-dom inated areas o f Byzantine life like military
usurpations are no longer com plete w ithout the consideration of
the role o f wom en within them .5 W om en appear as actors on every
stage.
Before it is assum ed that m en and wom en are now equally rep
resented as subjects in history-writing, a historiographical note of
caution should be sounded. T here are m ore articles written every
year about women in Byzantium, an d a chronological survey shows
immediately the vast difference between this decade and the 1940s
for example, bu t the authors have also changed. In the 1940s three
very em inent m en wrote about Byzantine women: in the 1980s male
writers were heavily outnum bered by women. Has the study of
Byzantine wom en becom e a specialised subject, only undertaken by
women, ignored by Byzantinists as a whole? Has it been marginalised?
T he good general histories o f the decade, like A ngold’s The Byzan
tine Empire 1025-1204 and the works deliberately engaging with
culture, like Kazhdan and C onstable’s People and Power in Byzantium,
and Kazhdan and Epstein’s Change in Byzantine Culture, do m ention
women, usually in the context o f the family, bu t there are few
specific articles written by m en. In the 1980s the only m an inter
ested in wom en was one o f those who was writing in the 1940s,
nam ely Steven Runcim an. O f course, there is an alternative view
o f the preponderance of wom en writers over m en writers, which is
that wom en have taken charge in this area o f research. T he fact
3. J. H ow ard-Johnston, ‘A nna K om nene and the Alexiad’, in M.E. M ullett and

D.C. Smythe (eds), Alexios I Komnenos (Belfast, 1996), pp. 260-301.
4. J. Russ, How to Suppress Women’s Writing (Austin, 1983). T he flat denial of
agency to the wom an is the first option she discusses.
5. J-P. Cheynet, Pouvoir et contestations a Byzance (963-1210) (Paris, 1990), includes
a consideration o f the legitim ising role of w om en betw een 1028-1081.
Introduction 3
th at m uch w om en’s history is written by fem ale historians has no t

b een lost on feminists, some o f whom are now keen to include
interested m en in their discussions, and see such com binations as
the way forward.6
T he women in this study can be divided into two groups. The
first group consists o f two sovereign empresses, Zoe and T heodora,
the last heirs o f the long-standing M acedonian dynasty. T he second
group is com posed of the women who were powerful because they
were related to em perors. Most o f them belong to the Kom nenian
dynasty which seized power in 1081, establishing an unbroken rule
until the capture of the city in 1204 by the soldiers o f the Fourth
Crusade. These wom en were all im perial in the context o f the
K om nenoi, b u t n ot all were empresses. They were m others, wives,
sisters, sisters-in-law and daughters o f em perors. Such a definition
o f th eir status is n o t a concession to traditional history which always
defines women in relation to m en. In any autocracy m en and women
are defined in relation to the autocrat, an d Byzantium was no dif
ferent. Since all the m en aro u n d the em peror were defined in
term s of th eir relation to him , it is permissible in the historical
context o f the K om nenian era to do the same with the women.
This is n o t a gen d er difference; it is a political system. T he w om en’s
relation with the em peror was one o f the m ost im portant things
about them and about their society at this particular time. Some
were wives and some were widows. T he effect o f differing marital
status in Byzantine society and ideology will likewise becom e clear.
Secondary sources
Studies on wom en vary widely, from attem pts to elucidate the role
o f wom en in society, through studies on one aspect o f w om en’s life,
to detailed work on one woman. Paul Adams was the first to feel
the fascination o f Byzantine women, writing in 1893 a book on
Princesses byzantines, which included Eirene Doukaina and A nna
Kom nene. However, m odern scholarship can be said to have started
with Charles Diehl, whose charm ing b u t uncritical biographies
o f Byzantine women, Figures byzantines, perform ed the function of
6. O n the effects of the 1970s on history writing and the new breed of feminist
m en, see A. Farge, ‘M ethods and effects o f w om en’s history’, in M. P errot (ed.),
Writing Women’s History (French ed. 1984, tr. F. Pleasant, O xford, 1992), pp. 10-24.
4 Imperial women in Byzantium 1025—1204
pulling together all th at the sources had to say about each into one
place. They are still a good place to start learning the ‘facts’ about
the wom en he chose. T he tradition was carried on by B ernard Leib,
who after translating the Alexiad found so m uch m aterial th at he
proceeded to write many articles about Alexios’s reign, incorporat
ing the wom en around him: indeed, given such source m aterial he
could hardly have done otherwise. His ‘La role des femmes dans la
revolution des C om nenes a Byzance’ is the m ost relevant to the
present study. H e too gathers the source material into one place, but
there is no attem pt to criticise the source o r to analyse Byzantine
society. Steven R uncim an is the last great follower o f this tradition.
His work is very gallant, b u t in the course o f five articles specifically
on Byzantine wom en he does n o t go far beyond narration. His
interest is consistent: in a book on the em peror Romanos Lekapenos
he includes a chapter on his em press Zoe Karbonopsina, which is
the only detailed treatm ent o f this crucial and m uch m aligned
character. His article on the fall o f A nna Dalassene is an attem pt
to penetrate the silence o f the sources and analyse the events on
o ther grounds: it is n o t his fault th at the state of ou r knowledge has
progressed, leaving his work out o f date. A slighdy different approach
is taken by G rosdidier de M atons in ‘La fem m e dans l ’em pire
byzantin’. A lthough he has only the same source m aterial at his
disposal, he avoids a narrative account, and attem pts to present a
them atic description o f the life o f women. H e includes the highly
interesting and generally neglected subjects o f dangers o f childbirth
and the superstitious rites in which wom en took part in o rd er to
ensure either conception o r contraception, the birth o f a son, or
an abortion.
Them atic studies o f single aspects o f w om en’s life do exist. The
first treatm ent o f wom en an d law was that o f G eorgina Buckler: h er
work on A nna K om nene still stands as the only full-scale study of
this woman in English. T he best an d m ost exhaustive study o f the
law as it applies to wom en is by Beaucamp, which has so far n o t
been bettered. Bensam m ar’s study o f the titles o f the em press and
their significance is the only such study relating to women, in strong
contrast to the num erous articles on the titulature o f the em peror.
In 1985 Women and Monasticism was published, addressing such
aspects o f Byzantine w om en’s m onastic experience as choices in
becom ing a nun, the ideology and the reality contrasted, and the
values that nuns were supposed to hold. A second volume, on Women
and Byzantine Monasticism, was published in 1991, including articles
on founders o f m onasteries, im perial wom en an d the m onastic life,
Introduction 5
and equality in monasticism. Patlagean’s work on transvestite nuns,

including an essay in this volume, has illum inated the m onastic
choices open to wom en in the m iddle period, and the consequences
o f choosing them . This study is invaluable no t only for its subject
m atter, b u t for its pointers towards the type o f fu rth er research
which needs to be done. Alice-Mary T albot has explored the educa
tion available in m onasteries o f the later period.7
M uch o f the evidence for women in m onastic life relates to im
perial o r aristocratic women, who had both the m oney or property
to endow m onasteries and the education to write about their aims.
O n a sm aller scale, these same wom en paid for artistic decoration
in churches o r for icons even if they still lived in the secular world.
T he question of Byzantine devotion to icons was a contested point
then and still m erits discussions today. W om en’s devotion to cer
tain images above others and their relationship to the Virgin Mary
have been discussed by Robin Corm ack and Ju d ith H errin.
O th er im portant articles on the lives o f Byzantine women cannot
be categorised into strict them es, bu t each add inform ation which
is crucial. Speeches o r artefacts can be used to explore the role of
women: R obert Browning’s article on the funeral oration o f Anna
K om nene is one exam ple,8 Ioli Kalavrezou-Maxeiner’s discussion of
the place o f the em press Eudokia from an ivory from the m id
eleventh century is another.9 Some work has b een done on the
question o f wom en and power. For instance, Averil C am eron has
shown th at the fifth-century em press Sophia was the power behind
h e r sick husband, and M argaret M ullett has revealed the changing
political role o f the ex-empress Maria o f Alania. Steven Runcim an
has chronicled the career o f the famous empress Eirene the Athenian
in the eighth century and has also written m ore widespread articles
attem pting to define the role o f aristocratic wom en in general and
the em press in particular. For the later period, Alice-Mary Talbot
has exam ined the role o f the empress regent T heodora Palaeologina
in all areas o f h er life.10
7. A-M. Talbot, ‘Blue-stocking nuns: intellectual life in the convents of late

Byzantium’, Okeanos: Essays presented to Ihor Sevcenko (Cambridge, Mass., 1984), pp. 6 0 4 -
18.
8. R. Browning, ‘An unpublished funeral oration o n A nna C om nena’, Proceedings
of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, 188 (ns 8) (Cam bridge, 1962), pp. 1—12.
9. I. Kalavrezou-Maxeiner, ‘Eudocia M akrembolitissa and the Rom anos ivory’,
D O P 31 (1977), pp. 305-28.
10. A-M. Talbot, ‘Em press T h eo d o ra Palaiologina, wife o f M ichael VUI’, DOP 46
(1992), pp. 295-304.
Recent scholarship
Since the 1980s analytical overview studies have been published
by Laiou11 and H errin ,12 which are arguably the m ost accessible
an d useful secondary sources for wom en in Byzantium. These two
are contiguous with the great explosion o f interest in ancient and
medieval wom en at the beginning o f the 1980s. They take different
approaches: Laiou analyses clearly dem arcated areas while H errin
chooses three avenues which are less clear-cut. They concur in the
usefulness o f law as evidence and in the im portance they attach
to property and its m anagem ent, as well as in the explicit aim of
differentiating reality and ideals. Laiou ignores the church but
explores attitudes to women. H errin investigates Christian beliefs
and their effect, bu t is concerned to illum inate practical reality
rather than an ideal. Laiou is interested in aristocratic and im perial
wom en because o f their im portance for property m anagem ent and
transference and sees the em ergence o f aristocratic wom en as a
class into society and politics. H errin would prefer to concentrate
on wom en o th er than im perial o r aristocratic, bu t eventually has to
com e to term s with their role since the property evidence leads that
way. H errin in particular notices the increased freedom and privi
leged position o f widows. Despite their differing approaches, both
Laiou and H errin conclude that in Byzantium women were sub
ordinate to m en, being subject to limitations which affected all
wom en from the aristocrat to the peasant, despite som e loosening
of attitudes in the eleventh an d twelfth centuries. Most recently,
Laiou has published a detailed treatm ent o f m arriage, love and
relationship in Byzantium in the eleventh to thirteenth centuries.13
This book no t only explores the developm ent o f civil an d canon
law in relation to im pedim ents to m arriage, and the econom ic con
sequences o f m arriage alliances for the succession and m anagem ent
of property, bu t also discusses the em otional side o f m arriage, love
and desire. From a thorough exam ination o f all cases o f disputed
m arriages, Laiou shows th at the aristocracy and the em p ero r were
highly concerned to control the organisation o f m arriage, an activity
which placed them in direct conflict with the church, which was
11. A. Laiou, ‘T h e role o f wom en in Byzantine society’, JOB 3 1/1 (1981),

pp. 233-60.
12. J. H errin, ‘In search o f Byzantine women: three avenues o f ap p ro ac h ’, in
Averil C am eron a n d A. K uhrt (eds), Images of Women in Antiquity (L ondon, 1983),
pp. 167-89.
13. A. Laiou, Manage, amour et parente a Byzance aux Xle - Xllle si'ecles (Paris, 1992).
Introduction 7
equally determ ined to exercise ultim ate jurisdiction. A certain gap

betw een law and practice is exposed, spawning the num erous court
cases dealing with the dissolution o f unions as the aristocracy sought
to m anipulate m arriage alliances for their own social, political and
econom ic advancem ent. Laiou dem onstrates the circular nature
o f the problem : the aristocracy found their m atrim onial strategies
influenced by legal im pedim ents to m arriage, bu t in their attem pts
to carry out their plans through the legal process they contributed
to the developm ent o f these im pedim ents.
Keith H olum ’s Theodosian Empresses was also published in the 1980s,
and deals with the m other, wives an d sister of the fourth-century
em p ero r Theodosios II. Despite H olum ’s stated aim that he is writ
ing about female *basileia, the im perial dom inion of women, the tide
ties these wom en down firmly in their place aro u n d a m an. The
book proceeds on a narrative basis from the beginning of the period
to the end. A lthough it does m ake available the evidence on the
wom en o f the fourth century with some critical analysis o f sources,
it does n o t start from the point o f view o f the women, n o r are they
the focus o f investigation throughout.
T he m ost interesting discussion o f attitudes to wom en in the
eleventh and twelfth centuries is found in an article by Catia
Galatariotou on the ideas o f a twelfth-century Byzantine m onk,
Neophytos the Recluse, titled ‘Holy wom en an d witches: aspects of
Byzantine concepts o f g en d e r’.14 As the title suggests, this article
uses fem inist and anthropological theory explicitly. Neophytos was
a m onk on the island o f Cyprus and his individual concepts cannot
be taken as a general com m ent on the attitudes o f all Byzantine
males o r even all monks, b u t they do dem onstrate one extrem e
view o f the evil in women. To Neophytos, all wom en were created
in the image o f Eve, a tem ptress by nature who would lead m en
away from God and from righteousness. W om an was universally
bad. G alatariotou’s discussion is convincing an d points to the rich
ness o f the m aterial on women. O th er males in o th er parts o f the
em pire, notably the court, h ad different views, o r at least did n o t
express themselves as stridendy as Neophytos.
Lasdy, the work of Lynda G arland on im perial wom en and sexual
morality in the eleventh an d twelfth centuries explores the differ
ence between ideology and reality for wom en in Byzantium. H er
‘Life and ideology of Byzantine w om en’ attem pts to illum inate the
14. C. G alatariotou, ‘Holy w om en and witches: aspects o f Byzantine concepts of

g e n d e r’, BMGS 9 (1 9 8 4 /5 ), pp. 55-94.
reality o f w om en’s lives behind the ideology in Byzantium, using

the ideology to highlight the reality by contrasting what the sources
claim is correct and what we see happening in them . G arland sees
ideology contributing to the freedom o f women by covering them
with a protective veil which allowed them to do very m uch what
they wanted. She concludes that imperial women in Byzantium could
be ‘in their own right the obvious and unchallenged em bodim ent
o f Byzantine im perialism ’,13 with a range o f power options which
included ruling from behind the scenes and m otherhood. I dis
agree with this conclusion on grounds which will appear throughout
this book. Briefly, G arland conflates sovereign empresses with con
sorts in h er ju d g em en t o f what im perial women could do and tends
towards a narrative account w ithout m uch theoretical analysis. As a
literary scholar, she also tends to ju d g e historical sources as literat
ure first an d forem ost, failing to seek the historical reasons for the
opinions advanced by Byzantine historians. N otwithstanding these
criticisms, G arland pulls together many sources an d presents argu
m ents to stimulate discussion.
Sources
T he original source m aterial for the eleventh and twelfth centuries
is rich. T here are many histories written by contem poraries which
have been edited and in some cases translated into English. The
most accessible is Michael Psellos’s Chronographia, published in trans
lation as Fourteen Byzantine Rulers, written by a ju rist and a courtier
in the eleventh century about his own times. M uch o f it is taken
from his own personal experience, and he knew many o f the rulers
he describes personally. T he same is true o f Jo h n Skylitzes, who was
a ju rist during the reign o f Alexios I Komnenos. T he third historian
o f the eleventh century is Michael Attaleiates, also a jurist, who
was active during the reign o f N ikephoros Botaneiates. Several
m em bers o f the Kom nenos family wrote history also: m ost famously
A nna K om nene in the Alexiad, b u t also h er husband, the Caesar
N ikephoros Bryennios, who wrote at the request o f his m other-in-
law, Eirene Doukaina. A nna K om nene’s history is the only book
written by a wom an throughout the history o f Byzantium. It has of
course been used extensively by historians searching for historical
15. L. G arland, ‘T he life and ideology o f Byzantine women: a fu rth er note on
conventions o f behaviour a n d social reality as reflected in eleventh- an d twelfth-
century historical sources’, B 58 (1988), pp. 361-93, p. 393.
Introduction 9
women, for wom en authors and for the views o f an im perial woman
about h er life and society. This book is no exception to that rule.
In the twelfth century the history o f Jo h n and M anuel Kom nenos
was written by J o h n Kinnamos and Niketas Choniates. Kinnamos
was o f the court, b u t Choniates was writing after the fall o f Con
stantinople to the Fourth Crusade an d m ust be taken with a pinch
o f salt, since he was, by his own admission, searching for the faults
in the rulers which had led to the worst disaster in Byzantine history
to date. The bishop Eustathios o f Thessalonike set down his thoughts
after the fall of Thessalonike in 1180, describing with contem por
ary knowledge the state o f affairs at court. H e is im portant for his
account o f the regency o f Maria o f Antioch. A nother au th o r is Jo h n
Zonaras, whose chronicle o f the world uses Psellos, Attaleiates and
Skylitzes for the events o f the eleventh century. Zonaras was in a
position to know the events of the twelfth century at first hand,
since he was an official at court before becom ing a monk.
Some care m ust be taken when reading these histories. Attaleiates
clearly was writing as an adm irer o f N ikephoros Botaneiates, Psellos
was a Doukas supporter, Bryennios was m arried to a Kom nene,
Zonaras was in monastic retirem ent during the reign o f M anuel
Kom nenos and Choniates was searching for the explanation o f 1204.
All were educated and all were using literary rules in the construction
o f their work. All were also the products o f their society, both reflect
ing an d reproducing what they considered norm al an d correct.
O th er prim ary sources are legal com pilations and monastic docu
m ents, including lists o f attendants at church synods. Byzantine law
was based on the Institutes o f Justinian, but new laws were passed by
successive em perors which were collected into various com pilations
by jurists eager to im pose o rd er on a vast body o f law, some of
which was contradictory. T here are also collections o f case law, like
the Peira, used by G eorgina Buckler. Byzantium h ad a system of
church law as well as im perial law: some o f these laws have been
collected by V. G rum el into a volume entitled Regestes des actes du
Patriarchate de Constantinople. T he synodal lists show who was con
sidered an indispensable part o f policy-making and who accompanied
the em p ero r at such functions. These are all-male lists. T here is
also a rich body o f m onastic acts o f em perors, granting property
to various m onasteries, an d m any *typika, or rules drawn u p for
m onasteries and nunneries by founders, which often give detailed
descriptions o f the fo u n d e r’s family. These allow insight into one of
the m ost p opular eleventh-century activities, founding a monastery,
often for retirem ent purposes. They equally usefully plot patterns
of property m anagem ent and show property in the hands of women.

These typika will be used extensively in C hapter 6. O th er original
source m aterials are coins featuring K om nenian wom en and seals
belonging to them , as well as pictures and objects which depict them
o r were possibly com m issioned by them . These objects also reveal
patterns o f patronage and the image o f herself which the im perial
wom an wished to present.
A nother form of com m unication which reveals patterns o f friend
ship, or at least acquaintance, is letters. A lthough an art form in
Byzantium, replete with rules and conventions, letters can reveal
how a correspondent dealt with the situations facing him. U nfortun
ately w om en’s letter collections are fewer in nu m b er an d less often
published than those o f em perors or bishops. Im perial wom en in
particular m ust have received letters and one or two from the large
letter collections o f Michael Psellos and Theophylact o f O chrid are
addressed to empresses. T he *sebastokratorissa Eirene wrote and re
ceived letters from the m onk Iakobos. Several substantial letter col
lections survive: those o f T heophylact o f O chrid, who had contacts
at court, an d Michael Italikos, who knew several im perial ladies well.
N ot only letters were conventional in Byzantium. Since Byzantine
culture was form al and cerem onial there were m any opportunities
for delivering speeches and orations at court. T he recom m ended
layout for orations was presented by M enander R hetor in the fourth
century. Many o f these orations survive precisely because they were
often delivered in praise of im perial o r rich people by well-known
figures whose work was adm ired and therefore preserved. Theophy
lact o f O chrid and Michael Italikos gave speeches at court in h o n o u r
of im perial women. O th er famous orations are those o f Jo h n the
Oxite, who criticised the im perial system u n d er Alexios Komnenos,
and o f T heodore Prodrom os, the m ost prolific speech-writer for
occasions such as birthdays, weddings and funerals. A long funeral
oration survives for Bertha-Eirene from the pen o f the bishop Basil
o f O chrid, and an equally long one for Anna K om nene by Tornikes.
These same im perial people also received laudatory poetry on
various occasions which again reveals contacts am ong those who
lived at court. These speeches and poem s are particularly useful for
discovering the ideology o f the period.
Feminism, sex and gender

This book takes a fem inist approach to im perial women. Feminism
and fem inist are difficult to define and should no t be narrowly
Introduction 11
defined.16 T he whole point about feminist criticism is that m en

have defined m eanings and values, excluding anything th at is out
side th eir im m ediate experience.17 To be true to feminist aims,
feminists should always endeavour n o t to exclude, which implies a
wide-ranging definition o f what feminism is and does.18 The Dictionary
of Feminist Theory attem pts to explain various aspects o f feminism.
Feminism ‘incorporates both a doctrine o f equal rights for women
. . . and an ideology o f social transform ation aim ing to create a
world for wom en beyond simple social equality.’ T he root belief of
feminism is ‘th at wom en suffer injustice because o f [their] sex’. It
is n o t necessary that all feminists should agree on the causes, or
agents, of female oppression. Marxist feminists see the sexual division
o f labour as a ro o t cause: sexuality is seen by o ther feminists as the
prim ary social sphere o f male power. Feminism is interdisciplinary
by its very nature. Scholars in all disciplines can be feminists and
use feminism in their work. Anthropology has sprinted ahead, closely
followed by sociology, b u t history, literary studies, psychology, art
history and social work are all following.19
Fem inist anthropology provided the starting point o f fem inist
theory which is that sex and gender are two different things.
M argaret M ead was the pioneer who dem onstrated from cross-
cultural examples th at sexual division o f labour is n o t the same in
all societies, therefore does n o t have a biological basis, and there
fore is not ‘n atu ral’. G ender is a cultural construction which can be
deconstructed in o rd er to understand and analyse a society, which
is the theoretical aim o f feminism, or changed, which is fem inism ’s
political goal. In other words, sex is the biological differences between
women and men; gender is what society does with these differences,
building them into a social system. In Oakley’s catch-phrase, sex is
biological, gen d er is cultural. T he relationship between the two is
16. For the difficulties o f defining feminism and a discussion on w hether it is viable
o r useful see R. D elm ar, ‘W hat is fem inism ?’, in A. Oakley and J. M itchell (eds),
What is Feminism? (O xford, 1980), pp. 8—33; D. Spender, Women of Ideas (L ondon,
1982), p. 8, n.2.
17. Spender, Women of Ideas, p. 8, ‘fem inism refers to the alternative m eanings p u t
forward by fem inists.’
18. See G. L ern er in ‘Politics and culture in w om en’s history: a sym posium ’,
J. Walkowitz et al (eds), Feminist Studies 6 (1980) pp. 49-54, esp. p. 49, ‘Feminism
m eans a) a doctrine advocating social a n d political rights o f w om en equal to those
o f m en; b) an organised m ovem ent for the attainm ent o f those rights; c) the asser
tion of the claims o f wom en as a group a n d d) belief in the necessity o f large-scale
social change to increase the power o f w om en.’
19. To the extent that books are now being published ab o u t the effect o f fem in
ism on academ ic disciplines, e.g. K. Cam pbell (ed.), Critical Feminism: Argument in the
Disciplines (Oxford, 1992).
o f crucial interest for feminists because what are actually gender

rules are presented and justified as sex rules, in o th er words, natural,
unchangeable, right. Elizabeth Fox-Genovese in h e r sem inal ‘Plac
ing w om en’s history in history’ summarises the relationship as
follows: ‘Fem inist scholarship has correctly insisted upon the social
construction o f gender. It is now widely accepted th at all societies
prom ote identities and roles taken to be appropriate to the gen
ders and, normally, present those identities and roles as natural
em anations o f sexual difference.’20 Feminists perceive that women
are oppressed by g en d er systems, which always value m ale attributes
and activities as superior. Mead saw an d understood that in society
it was n o t the actual activity perform ed by a person, bu t the sex
o f the perform er, which determ ined w hether the activity would be
valued o r not. This held even when the same activities were per
form ed by both sexes. W hatever was done by m en, w hether it was
childm inding o r hunting, was valued in the society and whatever
was done by women, w hether hun tin g o r childm inding, was not. In
some societies, w hen both sexes perform ed the same activities, only
m en derived h o n o u r from such perform ance. In R osaldo’s words,
‘But what is m ost striking and surprising is the fact that male, as
opposed to female, activities are always recognised as predom inandy
im portant, and cultural systems give authority and value to the roles
and activities o f m e n ’.21 T he same tendency is perceived today by
feminists confronted, even if m ore subtly, by the prevailing prestige
systems22 in twentieth-century western culture.
Sim one de Beauvoir coined the phrase ‘the second sex’. U nder
standing h e r society an d how it worked enabled h er to feel free of
its constraints.23 Ever since, feminists have been trying to discover
if wom en are the second sex and explore why. De Beauvoir also
was the first to enunciate the notion o f wom en as ‘o th e r’ in the
view o f society, with m en as the ‘n o rm ’, the universal, the hum an,
20. A. Oakley, Sex, Gender and Society (L ondon, 1972); E. Fox-Genovese, ‘Placing
w om en’s history in history’ New Left Review, 138 (1982), pp. 5—29, p. 14.
21. M. Rosaldo, ‘W omen, culture and society: a theoretical overview’, in M. Rosaldo
and L. L am phere (eds), Women, Culture and Society (Stanford, 1974), pp. 17—42,
p. 19.
22. S. O rtn e r a n d H. W hitehead, ‘Introduction: accounting for sexual m eanings’,
in S. O rtn e r a n d H. W hitehead (eds), Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction of
Gender and Sexuality (Cam bridge, 1981), pp. 1-27, p. 13 ‘Prestige - o r ‘social h o n o r’
o r ‘social value’ - assumes slightly different qualities a n d falls in different quantities
on different persons a n d groups within any society.’
23. S. de Beauvoir, The Second Sex (New York, 1953): see D. Spender, Women of
Ideas (L ondon, 1982) o n de Beauvoir.
Introduction 13
the standard against which wom en were tested and found lacking.
She understood such a system as a cultural construct, with no basis
in nature, an d further, she dem onstrated one o f the ways in which
it was constructed. This is through the control o f knowledge. W hat
women know comes through m en an d in that knowledge m en are
portrayed positively and wom en negatively. This point is taken up
by anthropologists Rosaldo and L am phere in Women, Culture and
Society, a volume of essays challenging traditional anthropology and
traditional assum ptions by taking the w om an’s perspective. At the
very beginning Rosaldo and L am phere rem ind us that a first step
in fighting inequities is recognising that ‘in learning to be women
in o u r own society, we have accepted, and even internalised, what is
all too often a derogatory and constraining image o f ourselves’.24
T he prospects of escaping this im age are a m atter o f debate am ong
feminists. Spender, while adm iring de Beauvoir’s ability to feel free
once she had understood h er constraints, thinks it is m ore likely
that feminists will agree with Mary Daly’s p oint o f view that while
feminists struggle to escape the m indset o f patriarchy, it still exerts
a firm hold over o u r consciousness.2” Consciousness is an im portant
concept in feminism. Becom ing conscious o f w om en’s unfavourable
place in society is the first step, consciousness-raising is the m ethod
em ployed to achieve it.26
Let it n o t be thought that only gender is in n eed o f definition
an d study. ‘Sex’ is not a straightforward, biological entity either, at
least n o t when it leads the parade to determ ine the roles o f m en
an d women in society. H ere gender is m asquerading as sex, natural,
biological an d unalterable. A nthropology has again led the field in
exploring sexual m eanings. Sexual Meanings: The Cultural Construction
of Gender and Sexuality, edited by O rtn e r and W hitehead, sets ou t to
question the assum ption th at scholars know what women and m en
are, the ‘bias th at often underlies studies o f both sex roles an d male
d o m inance’.27 A lthough few anthropologists today use an explicit
m odel o f biological determ inism , by neglect o f the subject o r by
referring to biologically-grounded psychological theory, the natural
istic bias has dom inated anthropology. N ot only anthropologists are
interested in sex. T he historian Thom as Laqueur, searching for the
history o f female sexual gratification, found him self writing a book
about the body and its m eanings th ro u g h o u t history. He discovered
24. Rosaldo a n d L am phere, ‘In tro d u ctio n ’, Women, Culture and Society, p. 1.
25. Spender, Women of Ideas, p. 715.
26. D elm ar, ‘W hat is fem inism ?’, p. 12.
27. O rtn e r a n d W hitehead, ‘Introduction: accounting for sexual m eanings’, p. 1.
n o t only that the body, a ‘n atu ral’ form if ever there was one, had
changed in its occupiers’ perceptions over time, b u t th at attem pt
ing to use the body as any sort o f determ inant was fruidess. In sum
‘the m ore the body was pressed into service as the foundation for sex,
the less solid the boundaries becam e.’28 An insistence on regarding
sex as merely biology has other consequences: it prevents researchers
from understanding how sex works in society.29
It is no easier to define ‘fem inist’ than feminism. A rem ark by
Rebecca West expresses the difficulty. She said ‘I myself have never
been able to find out precisely what feminism is. I only know that
people call m e a feminist whenever I express sentim ents that differ
entiate m e from a doorm at.’30 Dale S pender feels obliged to ‘give
some indication’ o f h er use o f the term an d explains herself as
follows: ‘a fem inist is a woman who does no t accept m an ’s socially
sanctioned view o f h erself’.31 Feminists have many differing affinit
ies, o f race, class, and sexual preference, so a single definition can
never be com plete. The Dictionary of Feminist Theory defines a feminist
as a woman who recognises herself, and is recognised by others, as
a feminist. At the m ost basic level o f definition, ‘all feminists share
a com m itm ent to, and enjoym ent of, a woman-centred perspective.’32
Women in Byzantium: an introduction

Byzantium has a reputation for misogyny and is often dubbed a
patriarchal state. Certainly there were misogynists in Byzantium and
they were in a position to be heard at the time an d to leave behind
evidence o f their opinions. As m em bers o f the educated clergy or
literate ascetics, they were respected for their holiness by th eir con
tem poraries and their writings were collected and copied for the
benefit o f the next generation. They survive for historians to study
because they were im portant in their own time. But the prevalence
o f unflattering opinions or prescriptive denouncem ents on women
signals several things. As in the case o f all frequently voiced material,
28. T. L aqueur, Making Sex (L ondon, 1990), p. ix. For a fuller analysis o f the body
as m ore than biology, see C. Shilling, The Body in Social Theory (L ondon, 1993).
29. J. Revel, ‘M asculine a n d fem inine: T he historiographical use o f sexual roles’,
in Perrot, Writing Women’s History, pp. 90-105.
30. R. West, The Clarion, 14 N ovem ber 1913, qu o ted in A. H um m , The Dictionary
of Feminist Theory (L ondon, 1989), pp. 7 5 -6 a n d C. Kram arie a n d P. T reichler (eds),
A Feminist Dictionary (L ondon, 1985), sv. ‘fem inist’, p. 160.
31. D. Spender, Women of Ideas, p. 8.
32. Dictionary of Feminist Theory, sv. feminist, p. 76.
Introduction 15
w hether it is a law o r a serm on, its very frequency often betrays that
its dem ands are n o t being obeyed. It has been said that the perennial
problem o f a patriarchal society is that wom en are absolutely crucial
to its continuance but they m ust never be allowed to realise their
im portance or act on it. Byzantium recognised the im portance of
wom en in econom ic term s and in term s of their function as child-
bearers, particularly in law.
Divorce by consent was perm itted until the sixth century. T here
after there was a list of reasons for which divorce was allowed:
adultery, im potence, madness, and treason. T he church saw m ar
riage as a union o f two people intended by God to last until the
death o f one o f the parties. T he consequences o f this developm ent
for wom en can be argued two ways. In one way, easy divorce dis
advantaged women because their husbands could legally dispose of
them in favour o f a younger o r prettier woman; alternatively, they
themselves could also escape an unhappy m arriage m ore easily. O n
the o th er hand, the church, while insisting that the union was indis
soluble, also advocated choice in m arriage, a novel developm ent
for a culture which had no t previously consulted a w om an’s prefer
ences. However, the list o f possible reasons for divorce was m ore
com prehensive for m en, including in some ages a wife displeasing
h e r husband by staying out of the house for too long. A nother new
developm ent was the licence allowed by the church if one o f the
parties wished to en ter the monastic life. E ither a husband or a wife
could divorce their spouse to take holy vows: som etimes a virtuous
couple separated to live in different m onasteries after their children
were grown up.
A w om an’s rights over h er dowry, the property a woman took
from h er family to a m arriage, were vigorously defended. Because
so m uch property was tied up in m arriage, property disputes are
one o f the m ost com m on areas in which to see the law applied to
women. T he dowry belonged to the wife, although h er husband
could adm inister it. If he allowed it to dim inish, the wife could
adm inister it herself. T he wife also had the full ownership and use
o f the nuptial gift from h er husband, which was given at m arriage
and which was set at a percentage o f the dowry. O f course both
dowry and nuptial gift were intended to benefit the children o f the
m arriage ultimately, an d should the wife die before h e r husband,
the children were next in line to in h erit it before their father.
W hen the m an o f the family died, his widow was the natural guard
ian o f their children and the estate. As head o f the family, she had
all the responsibilities o f a m an and the legal authority to carry
them out. O n h e r shoulders rested estate adm inistration, and the

education, dowering an d m arriage o f the children. This included
the adm inistration o f the em pire if the widow was an empress.
W idowhood was the m ost powerful position that a woman could
hold as far as legal rights went. O n rem arriage, the widow norm ally
lost all control over h er first family, and o f the property o f the
family, except for h er nuptial gift.
Rem arriage was therefore a disabling option for women. This
was n o t the only restriction on their activity. T he em pero r Leo
VI (886-912) had forbidden wom en to appear as witnesses or to
give testimony in court. H e felt that it violated the natural o rd er
o f things. Despite this law, many wom en did appear on th eir own
behalf, especially well-born o r rich women. T here were other strange
assum ptions enshrined in the law which do no t shine a favourable
light on the m orals o f Byzantine m en o r the expected intelligence
o f Byzantine women. For exam ple, wom en were unpunished in
m any cases because they could n o t be expected to understand the
law o r to know the difference between right an d wrong, since they
were women. T he only crimes for which a wom an was normally
convicted were m u rd er and adultery.
Byzantine wom en were no t cloistered and they were n o t subject
to constricting dress codes. But it was n o t usual to see many women
on the streets, and it was usual for them to wear a veil. O ften a
contem porary historian will m ake a point o f describing women
in the streets o r tearing their veils to em phasise how shocking
an event was. T he eleventh-century m um blings o f the old general
Kekaum enos about the wisdom o f keeping your wom enfolk from
m eeting strange m en in your own house and the dangers th at could
result show that norm ally wom en were at large in their own homes.
A lthough the em press had ‘w om en’s quarters’ in the palace these
were only curtained off from the m ain receiving room s and m en
were certainly allowed into them . T here was a separate room,
covered in purple, in which the em press spent h er last days of
pregnancy an d gave birth. This gave rise to the epithet ‘purple-
b o rn ’ o r *porphyrogennitos which designated the legitim ate children
o f the em peror. In these quarters in h er last days o f pregnancy she
probably sewed clothes for the forthcom ing child. Clothes-making
was one o f the m ost im portant activities o f wom en o f all social
levels, although it was by no m eans their only com m ercial activity.
Docum ents survive revealing w om en’s activities in retail trade, group
exploitation o f mines, production an d sale o f food, and investm ent
in long-distance trade. T he aristocratic widows m entioned above
Introduction 17
often m anaged the fortune o f the family directly, no t only the day-
to-day ru n n in g o f the estate. This com m ercial activity necessitated
contact with the world o f m en to an extent which seems at odds
with the dom inant ideology o f female submission p ro p o u n d ed by
the early church fathers o f Byzantium.
T he ideology o f the eleventh century with regard to wom en will
be discussed in C hapters S and 7. A lthough Byzantines themselves
were resistant to change o r to adm itting change, the attitudes towards
wom en in the eleventh and twelfth centuries would have been
unrecognisable to a Rom an, with his conception o f women as a
possession inside their father o r husband’s *potestas or absolute power.
T he fourth-century church fathers, whose writings were the basis
for so m uch o f Byzantine culture, were o f the opinion th at wom en
were the offspring prim arily of Eve and would lead a m an astray
eith er intentionally or by their nature alone. T he fourth-century
p reach er Jo h n Chrysostom in particular regarded wom en as ‘a
necessary evil’ and the ascetic saints o f the desert who fled from
the tem ptation o f their lusts characterised wom en as the enemy.
T he m ost praiseworthy state for a wom an in the early centuries
o f the em pire until the seventh century was virginal. This was no t
an easy position to m aintain given the need for marriages to transm it
property, build alliances an d perpetuate the population. Some girls
fled to m onasteries, disguising themselves as m en, others retired to
the desert to becom e ascetics and lose their fem inine traits with
th eir sins. From the seventh century there was a change in ideology
an d the m arried, fertile wom an was seen as sanctified. This sanctity
was easier to achieve and opened great vistas o f influence to women.
T he em press had a privileged position in Byzantium. She was
crowned on h er m arriage to the em peror and after that was re
garded as a transm itter o f im perial legitimacy. She took part in the
cerem onies and rituals already m entioned, dressed in h er own elabor
ate robes and attended by h er own women. She had a table at
banquets with h e r own m anager. In the event o f the em p ero r’s
death it was customary from the earliest centuries o f the em pire to
appeal to the em press to choose o r m arry the successor. A lthough
Byzantium was n o t a hereditary society it still appreciated some link
betw een ruling families. T he m arriage o f the form er em press to the
new em peror achieved this link in the m ost econom ical way. The
actual choice o f the new em peror m ight also be on the initiative of
th e empress, d ep ending on h e r personality and the particular situ
ation o f the em pire at the time. Many empresses were regents for
their underage sons, m ost notably Eirene the A thenian in the eighth
century and T heodora in the ninth. However, the political power

of the wom en of the eleventh century and their eclipse in the
twelfth is no t merely a function o f individual com petence or a lack
th ereo f b u t also a phen o m en o n which requires explanation.
Towards a fem inist history of Byzantium

As a feminist I enjoy, and am com m itted to, a ‘wom an-centred
perspective’ and therefore my overall aim in this book is to recover
Byzantine wom en from the vacuum into which traditional history
has thrust them . W om en are invisible in historical accounts, by and
large, because scholars o f so-called m ainstream history tend to dis
believe that wom en can be im portant to the correct understanding
o f their subject.33 P art o f my task therefore is to m ake Byzantine
women visible. Recovery o f wom en is a basic fem inist goal, albeit
a lim ited one. Mere recovery is insufficient, although in the face
o f the invisibility o f wom en in history any inclusion o f them is
welcomed.34 T he invisibility of wom en is a problem that women have
to contend with: it is equally a problem for history as a discipline.
Besides the serious accusation th at historians have been guilty of
ignoring over h alf o f their subject m atter, the hum an race, the
im plication o f such a practice is th at the record itself is distorted
and inaccurate. At best, the result is partial and one-sided, one that
the actors themselves would n o t recognise were they to read it. At
worst, in the words o f one anthropologist ‘by ignoring wom en as
social actors the social sciences have seriously im paired their u n d er
standing o f total social reality’.35 T he anthropologists’ reaction has
been strong: history m ust n o t lag behind.
So how do we p u t the wom en back in? T here is concern th at the
pendulum will swing the o th er way and that only wom en will be
considered as social actors, the very practice for which feminists
criticise traditionalists.36 O ne solution is to treat gender as a category
33. See the re ce n t volum e m aking the sam e point, J. Kleinberg (ed.), Retrieving
Women's History (O xford, 1992).
34. O n e work o f recovery, albeit flawed, is B. A nderson a n d J. Zinsser, A History of
Their Own (H arm ondsw orth, 1988).
35. L. D ube, ‘In tro d u ctio n ’, in L. D ube, E. Leacock and S. A rdener (eds), Visibility
and Power (O xford, 1986), p. xi.
36. Spender, ‘I know th at I am the p ro d u ct of a particular group in a particular
culture a n d th at I am being critical o f a n o th e r group th at has presum ed to treat its
p articular and lim ited experience as the whole. I would n o t wish to m ake the same
m istake as those o f whom I am critical. I do n o t assume th at my experience o f the
world is all th at there is.’ Women of Ideas, p. 18.
Introduction 19
o f historical analysis.37 In anthropologist M ichelle Rosaldo’s words

‘what we know is constrained by the interpretative frameworks which
. . . limit o u r thinking. W hat we can know is determ ined by the
kinds o f questions we learn to ask.’38 T he questions m ust engage
with g en d er if we are ever to relate the experiences o f women and
m en into one reality which will at least m ake an attem pt accurately
to describe a world in which both sexes live together. O n the o ther
hand, it m ust be realised that gender is n o t always the dom inant
identity factor, and its intersections with o ther factors such as race
or class m ust be investigated.39
G ender is perhaps especially relevant to Byzantium as a society
in which race an d class were n o t present in the same way in which
they are now. O th er identity factors in Byzantium were religion and
taxis, the system o f ord er in society which was felt to be a reflection
o f the divine order.40 T he usefulness o f gen d er as a category of
analysis has recently b een challenged by post-m odern theory,41 bu t
the prevailing opinion is that feminists m ust n o t abandon it until
it no longer functions as a category o f discrim ination.42 Scholar
ship since the late 1980s has inevitably becom e m ore sophisticated
u n d er the influence o f time, fu rth er study and criticism. O nce the
m ere separation o f sex an d gen d er was enough: now it is necessary
to use the insights of theories such as deconstruction to a certain
exten t to refine the tool. Jan e Flax calls for m ore deconstruction of
the m eanings attached to biology, sex, gender and nature, for a
m ore self-critical use o f these terms. Such deconstruction is neither
com plete n o r easy, but m ust be carried ou t to retain the usefulness
o f gen d er as a category.43
T he results o f treating gender as a category to analyse Byzantine
society on a large scale would be revolutionary. T he present study
37. Fox-Genovese, ‘Placing w om en’s history in history’, pp. 14-15; J. Scott, ‘Gender:
a useful category o f historical analysis’, A H R 91 (1986), pp. 1053-75.
38. M. Rosaldo, ‘T he use a n d abuse o f anthropology: reflections o n fem inism and
cross cultural u n d erstan d in g ’, Signs 5 (1980), pp. 389—417, p. 390.
39. R. Perry, ‘Review o f Chodorow , Flax, a n d Yaeger’, Signs 16.3 (1991), p. 600;
cf. A. Laiou, ‘A ddendum to the re p o rt on the role o f w om en in Byzantine society’,
JOB 3 2/1 (1982), pp. 198-204.
40. For a consideration o f how the Byzantines defined ‘others’, see D. Smythe,
Perceptions of the Outsider (unpublished PhD thesis, St Andrews, 1993).
41. S. Bordo, ‘Feminism, postm odernism , a n d gender-scepticism ’, in L. Nicholson
(ed.), Feminism/Postmodernism (New York, 1990), pp. 133—56.
42. Perry, ‘Review’, p. 603.
43. J. Flax, ‘Postm odernism a n d gen d er relations in fem inist theory’, Signs 12
(1987), pp. 621-43. O n fem inism and deconstruction see M. Poovey, ‘Fem inism and
d econstruction’, Feminist Studies 14.1 (1988), pp. 51—65.
has a rath er m ore lim ited focus. In so far as the evidence allows,
it is in line with Fox-Genovese’s insistence th at ‘historians m ust
accept the gen d er identities and roles that different societies assign
to males and females are historical facts that require historical ana
lysis’.44 T he group o f wom en included is coherent in several im port
ant ways. They are all im perial. They are all visible in the sources,
appearing in the contem porary histories o f Michael Attaleiates,
Michael Psellos, J o h n Kinnamos, Jo h n Zonaras and Niketas
Choniates. They have never before been exam ined in detail as a
group at the top o f the social ladder, with specific privileges such
as m oney and education. T here is no attem pt to claim that their
experience was a com m on o r representative one, for it is very clear
that it was not, even perhaps am ong imperial women. However, there
is sufficient evidence to attem pt a detailed analysis for a specific
historical period, which is what is needed to make possible an un d er
standing o f how the Byzantine sex /g en d e r system operated.
These general considerations are integral to this book and form
the foundation principles on which it is based. O th er analytical
m odels m ight have been chosen. O ne divides the social world which
encompasses both women an d m en into two spheres, one public,
the o th er private. At first sight this alternative is tem pting to a
Byzantinist because Byzantium, quite falsely, has a reputation for
secluding its women. It m ight appear th at by interpreting the evid
ence along public/private lines two purposes could be served, show
ing what place im perial wom en did hold in relation to em perors
and disproving the popular notion o f seclusion. T he theoretical
groundw ork was done by Rosaldo who used the dichotom y in 1973
as the ‘basis o f a structural fram ework necessary to identify and
explore the place o f m ale and fem ale in psychological, cultural,
social an d econom ic aspects o f hum an life’.43 But by 1980 Rosaldo
was thinking again. T he public/private dichotom y now appeared
to be too universal, too structural, capable o f m aking sense in
rough term s o f the place o f wom en in society, but o f no use when
it came to explaining why. T he m odel ‘based on the opposition
o f the two spheres assumes - where it should rath er help illum in
ate and explain - too m uch about how gen d er really works.’46 O n
o th er grounds the m odel is untenable because o f the clear inter
connectedness o f the two spheres in what could be characterised as
44. Fox-Genovese, ‘W om en’s history in history’, p. 14.

45. Rosaldo, ‘T heoretical overview’, pp. 17-42.
46. Rosaldo, ‘Use a n d abuse’, p. 399.
Introduction 21
the m ost private o f areas: sexuality and procreation. T he state has

often seen the public good as depending on control o f these private
areas and has interfered accordingly. A m odel which relates the
spheres o f wom en an d m en is m ore useful.
A second alternative was a division o f the sexes into ‘n atu ral’
o r cultural categories, best articulated by Sherry O rtn er.47 This
approach is b u rd en ed by the same disadvantages as public/private,
to which it corresponds. It is too universal, too structural, assumes
the m eanings of nature an d culture to be already defined and
separates the two rath er than attem pting to integrate them . It can
perhaps describe what a researcher would see on the ground, but
carries no explanatory power.48 So-called ‘natu ral’ differences are
im mediately suspect and open to investigation.
T he third possible alternative was an analysis o f wom en and m en
according to w hether they exercised power o r authority. This has
been a fruitful m odel o f analysis, since it is clear th at wom en every
where have influence, o r power, but that, at the same time, this
power is n o t the same, n o r as visible, as m ale power.49 T he first step
is one of definition. N either power n o r authority are absolute truths,
and discussions on wom en o r m en ’s power, o r the am ount, the
exercise, o r the lack, often achieve nothing because the term s have
n o t been defined. Feminist anthropologists have used W eber’s defini
tions as a starting point for understanding o f power an d authority.
Louise Lam phere,30 for example, as an ‘alternative perspective’ to
the family o r m arriage practices, neither o f which actually concen
trates on women, examines the distribution o f power and authority
in the family, and w om en’s relationship to their allocation. By
necessity she explores the difference between power and authority.
Power was defined by W eber as ‘the probability that one actor within
a social relationship will be in a position to carry ou t his own will,
despite resistance, regardless o f the basis on which this probability
rests’.31 T herefore it can be used to describe the result o f a wide
47. S. O rtner, ‘Is female to male as nature is to culture?’, in Rosaldo and Lam phere,
Women, Culture and Society, pp. 67-88.
48. For a criticism of O rtn e r a n d a com parison o f h e r work to th at o f Bachofen,
see K. Sacks, Sisters and Wives: The Future and Past of Sexual Equality (W estport, 1979),
ch. 1, pp. 57-61; for the lim itations of the n a tu re /c u ltu re division, see D ube, ‘Intro
d u ctio n ’, p. xvi.
49. E. Leacock, ‘W om en, power and authority’, in D ube, Leacock and A rdener,
Visibility and Power, pp. 107-35.
50. L. L am phere, ‘Strategies, co-operation and conflict am ong wom en in dom estic
groups’, in Rosaldo and L am phere, Women, Culture and Society, pp. 97-112.
51. M. W eber, The Theory of Social and Economic Organisation (New York, 1947),
p. 152; q uoted in L am phere, ‘Dom estic groups’, p. 99.
range o f m ethods, many o f which are open to women. Authority is

the nam e given to power which rests on legitimacy, and is exercised
within a hierarchy o f roles. It is m uch m ore circum scribed and
precise. It is the general understanding that female power has usu
ally existed in a fram ework o f male authority, an d that the balance
o f power in society lies with m en. Many sources o f power have been
located, am ong them consciousness, language and sexuality.
However, the question is com plex, and particularly so when ap
plied to a historical society. T here are m any analyses o f power b u t
m ost refer to m odern, capitalist, industrialised societies, and are of
litde help to Byzantinists. T here are studies o f m odern Greece,
which are of considerably m ore help, especially the excellent volume
edited by Jill Dubisch, Gender and Power in Rural Greece,°2 In h er intro
duction, Dubisch highlights some o f the complexities o f gender
and its analysis, no t least of which is the inevitable cultural bias of
the observer. Even a feminist, alert to androcentric models, may
miss the tell-tale signs o f w om en’s power because it is n o t what she
is expecting to see, o r because the informants, both m en and women,
play it down. Dubisch believes th at a search for spheres o f w om en’s
power may be o f m ore use than an attem pt to differentiate between
the related concepts o f power and influence. T he best way forward
is to assume that wom en have goals, which they work to reach, often
in culturally acceptable ways, such as fulfilling the expectations of
the ideal female, sometimes by tactics like nagging o r quarrels.”3 The
im portant question for Dubisch is n o t w hether wom en have power,
for she assumes th at they do, b u t in what spheres it is exercised.
Power is always social, always exercised over som eone else, and it
is merely o u r androcentric bias which propels us to search for and
value political or m aterial power rath er than, o r above, power in
the dom estic sphere. This tendency survives despite m ost p eo p le’s
opinion that the family is m ore im portant than the m arketplace,
dem onstrating the strength o f the male world-view. T he roots of
power, ideological and m aterial, may reinforce one another, or
they may diverge, leaving the observer unsure o f what the ‘real’
status o f wom en is. D eterm ining how a w om an’s status should be
calculated, let alone what it is, is a central problem for historians.
This is so because there is no single criterion which can be applied,
like political power o r econom ic success o r overt decision-making
for m en, which results in a satisfactory answer. W om en’s status is
52. J. Dubisch (ed.), Gender and Power in Rural Greece (Princeton, 1986).
53. J. Collier, ‘W om en in politics’, in Rosaldo and L am phere, Women, Culture and
Society, pp. 89-96.
Introduction 23
h ard to grasp, a slippery concept, because society is predicated on

and aro u n d m en and m ale values. M en are the positive members:
wom en are the O ther. It is easier to say what wom en are no t o r have
not, than what they are o r have. Ideology and social reality may
relate to each o th er in startling ways or a society may have a conflict
ing m ixture o f ideologies, which some anthropologists have claimed
is true of Greece.34 W omen may obtain their social and their personal
identities from different sources, and ideology may n o t be talking
ab out gender roles at all, bu t about wider issues like social ideals.35
All these angles can provide fascinating and im portant approaches
to wom en in Byzantium, m aking us aware o f the com plexities in
trying to u n derstand ideology and gender in a society, and attem pt
to make every allowance for the belittling or criticism o f w om en’s
influence where it is visible. Leacock’s m ethod speaks to the same
concerns. In o rd er to assess power and authority in a given society,
it is necessary to survey all the im portant decisions to be m ade in
th at society and to ascertain, as far as possible, how they are made.
She is aware o f o ur tendency to search for ‘politics’ in the sphere
which is familiar to us and warns th at the stereotyped lum p which is
‘dom estic’ to us varies in significance from society to society; it may
be the m ost im portant decision-making forum in an o th er society.36
O n the o th er hand, it m ust n o t o f course be assumed that women
do n o t have authority: any historical search m ust pose the question
and answer it. But the distinction pow er/authority may no t even
be particularly helpful as a tool of analysis for m ost o f this study,
when the intense family atm osphere o f the adm inistration entailed
a blurring o f the divide between power and authority. Searching
for spheres o f power is perhaps m ore helpful, bu t only if w om en’s
spheres are constantly related to those of m en, for it seems that
the two were interrelated in highly com plicated ways u n d er the
K om nenian system.
T herefore this book examines the evidence for im perial women,
asking constantly how m uch power they were able to exercise in
what spheres. Sometimes they will have authority, som etimes it will
be by way of influence that they achieve their goals. But their goals
will be a m atter of investigation and it will be assum ed that they did
have goals an d an interest in achieving them . These wom en did not
54. M. Herzfeld, ‘W ithin a n d w ithout: the category o f “fem ale” in the ethnography
o f m odern G reece’, in Dubisch, Gender and Power, pp. 215-33.
55. Dubisch, ‘In tro d u ctio n ’, Gender and Power, pp. 3-4 1 .
56. Leacock, ‘W om en, pow er a n d authority’, in D ube, Leacock a n d A rdener,
Visibility and Power, p. 110.
sit on the sidelines o f their society, uninterested in anything except

their dom estic circumstances. This disclaimer in itself is problem
atic: their dom estic circum stances occasionally were the very centre
o f social issues, n o t the sidelines at all.
A related question concerns patriarchy, which is a concept that
has ‘plagued all attem pts to describe the persistence o f male dom in
ance over wom en and children’.57 It was first used in an overtly
fem inist sense to m ean a system which oppresses women. Thus
used ‘patriarchy’ neatly encapsulates the standard fem inist defini
tion o f ‘a system o f social ord er in which power and the m eans of
acquiring and perpetuating it (economic, political, ideological) have
been assum ed by the male sex’”8 into one word.59 This has obvious
advantages: feminists understand the point o f o th er fem inists’ ana
lyses without tedious explanations. For polemical use it has few rivals.
But history is no t polem ic, and ‘patriarchy’ as a tool o f historical
analysis has a great disadvantage: it is ahistorical. Feminists proclaim
that m ale authority is universal, radical feminists accuse all societies
everywhere at all times o f oppressing wom en u n d e r the cloak of
patriarchy.60 Twentieth-century western society is characterised as
patriarchal, with all its choices for women. Flow then can the same
word be used profitably to describe past societies in which most
m odern choices were n o t open to women? If patriarchy merely
shifts its ground, what is the p oint in talking about it at all? Fem in
ists have expressed concern over this p oint already. Patriarchy ‘is
treated at a level o f abstraction that obfuscates ra th e r than reveals
the intim ate in n er workings of culturally and historically distinct
arrangem ents between the genders.’61 A nother disadvantage of this
ahistoricity is that patriarchy implies a structure which is fixed and
n eith er provides any notion o f how wom en may act to transform
their situation, n o r any sense o f how wom en have m anaged to
achieve a b etter position for themselves in the past. Using the word
also allows the biological determ inists to e n ter the debate, for one
57. Fox-Genovese, ‘W om en’s history in history’, p. 22.

58. G alatariotou, ‘Holy wom en a n d witches’, p. 56.
59. A nother m ore detailed definition o f patriarchy defines it as m e n ’s control
over w om en’s sexuality a n d fertility. S. Rowbotham, ‘T he trouble with “patriarchy” ’,
in R. Sam uel (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory (L ondon, 1981), pp. 363—9.
60. C hief am ong these is medievalist Ju d ith B ennett in h e r articles ‘ “History
th at stands still”: w om en’s work in the E uropean past’, Feminist Studies 14 (1987);
‘Fem inism and history’, Gender and History 1 (1989); ‘W om en’s history: a study in
continuity and ch an g e’, Women's History Review 2 (1993).
61. D. Kandiyoti, ‘B argaining with patriarchy’, in J. L orber a n d S. Farrell (eds),
The Social Construction of Gender (L ondon, 1991), pp. 104-18, p. 104.
Introduction 25
way o f explaining the universalism o f patriarchy is to appeal to

innate, unchangeable, sexual differences. And what about the atti
tude o f wom en themselves to m en and o ther women, for it has
been noticed th at wom en som etimes fight against changes that
outsiders understand as liberating? Deniz Kandiyoti discusses the
problem o f w om en’s acceptance o f their prescribed roles, and
hostility to change, which is som etimes understood as a ‘false con
sciousness’ on the p art o f women. She makes the sapient point that
women see themselves losing the benefits they have suffered to
gain, w ithout any em powering alternative o r consequent com pensa
tion.62 ‘Patriarchy’ has no room for such subtleties. It is clear that
what is n eed ed is an approach which can ‘encom pass both conflict
and com plem entary association between the sexes’.63
To conclude that Byzantine women were the victims of patriarchy
says n o th in g at all. O n a cursory glance, Byzantium undoubtedly
seems to be patriarchal, bu t there were im portant differences with
the contem porary west and with the Islamic east which deserve to
be highlighted: the whole o f the world in the eleventh and twelfth
centuries surely should no t be tarred with the same broad patriarchal
brush. Male dom inance may be universal (although this is open to
debate) b u t the specific form it takes is not.64 An exam ination of
Byzantium’s particular form o f patriarchy will advance historians’
knowledge o f it, b u t it will still m ean nothing in comparative term s
because it is n o t sufficiently subtle.
Deniz Kandiyoti has shown that in order to make sense of wom en’s
attitudes to th eir society the view from the ground m ust always
be taken into account. U nfortunately this view is the m ost elusive
area o f evidence about im perial wom en between 1025 and 1204.
Few wom en in any historical society have left evidence of their
im pressions o f what it felt like to be a woman, and Byzantium is no
different. Only A nna K om nene’s Alexiad with all its atten d an t prob
lems gives a clue to the experience o f being an im perial woman in
the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Unlike m odern anthropologists
who can ask women how they understand their society and what
62. Kandiyoti, ‘B argaining with patriarchy’, p. 111.

63. Rowbotham, ‘T ro u b le’, p. 366.
64. Fox-Genovese, ‘W om en’s history in history’, p. 15; R.W. Connell, Gender and
Power: Society, the Person and Sexual Politics (O xford, 1987), p. 58 ‘It is possible to
com bine a clear recognition o f the exploitation and subordination o f wom en, and
the fundam ental character o f the social changes n eed e d to correct it, with an equally
strong recognition o f the specific ways in which subordination is em bedded in
different cultures, the different form s it takes a n d the different strategies therefore
re q u ire d .’
they feel about m en, the historian is handicapped in this area. So

although this book is com m itted to a w om an-centred approach
which assumes that wom en had goals which they pursued, actually
finding the goals is difficult.
If one m ethod of determ ining w om en’s power is to survey the
range o f im portant decisions o f the time and assess w om en’s part
in them , then a consideration o f w om en’s involvement in the most
significant areas o f K om nenian theory and activity should reveal the
extent o f their power. Influence is no t in question. It is accepted
that all wom en have influence over the people they are close to,
bu t influence by its private and unrecorded nature cannot be quan
tified. T he criterion for this book is visibility. W om en who appear
in official docum ents o r are credited in the sources with ind ep en d
en t action will be viewed as m ore powerful than those who are not.
This is an arbitrary division, bu t it is the only way to m ake sense of
the evidence o f w om en’s lives which, as we are all aware, is far from
com plete. T he wom en included in A nna K om nene’s Alexiad are
obviously privileged, and the accidents o f survival may have distorted
the picture because o f the loss o f personal seals o r letters belonging
to these imperial women which could have shown the part they played
in the court an d how they were regarded by the m en aroun d them .
T he question o f power is approached from four angles, chosen
because they were of great im portance to the society of the time.
These four areas are the titles by m eans o f which people o f the
im perial court were arranged into a hierarchy; the kinship system,
which was the basis o f that nom enclature; patronage, which was the
way to get on in life; and ideology, which is at the base of every
society’s rules for living.
T itulature defines the range of wom en included in this book;
only those included am ong the *basilissai appear. T he titles of im per
ial women, even o f the empress, are neglected in com parison to
the wealth o f scholarly interest in the titles o f the em peror. To my
knowledge only one full-length article is devoted to the em press.63
Em presses’ titles may n o t reveal as m uch as those o f the em peror,
since they are essentially derivative, but I suspect that this is not
the reason they have been ignored. In particular, the study o f the
coronation cerem ony and the granting o f the title o f *augousta to
the em press will help in determ ining how autom atic this grant was
and on what basis it was awarded. Titulature also sets the scene in
65. E. Bensam m ar, ‘La titulature de l ’im peratrice et sa signification’, B 46 (1976),

pp. 243-91.
Introduction 27
which these im perial wom en moved, in a court where tides were the
basis o f prestige. This section dem onstrates that Alexios K om nenos’s
system privileged the male on the basis o f sex, which was his way of
instituting patriarchy, and asks w hether a wom an derived any power
from h er title alone. It also includes a case study o f A nna Dalassene,
who was given a title by Alexios to express h e r authority. Since a
seal o f A nna’s and a docum ent issued by h er survive, the historian
can perhaps discover how she saw herself.
T he second area is kinship, a key phen o m en o n o f this period
which was first highlighted by Stiernon and who has been followed
by Lem erle, Macrides and M agdalino66 am ong others. An an th ro
pological analysis of Byzantium shows how its kinship structures
affected women. Traditional anthropologists have always found room
for women in their analyses of kinship and m arriage systems. Indeed,
these are usually the only areas where wom en have been included.
Fem inist anthropologists have no t abandoned interest in kinship
for this reason, b u t have looked again with fresh insights gained
from their view that gender is a cultural construction. This has
enabled them to assess the p art that kin systems play in the cultural
construction of gender. Most analyses o f kin systems concentrate
on so-called simple societies, so their use for Byzantium, a very com
plex society, is limited. Nevertheless, they can be used as a starting
place and for com parison. This is one area where wom en can be
seen pursuing their own goals by m eans of the m anipulation of
m arriage alliances, and it therefore deserves a full treatm ent.
T he third area is patronage. All o f the women u n d er consideration
are credited as personal o r literary patrons by Byzantinists, which
makes it especially im portant to consider their activities in this field.
P atronage was the basis o f life in Byzantium in the absence o f any
system o f im personal prom otion, where all authority em anated from
the em peror. No works so far have grouped these wom en together
as a co h eren t whole to highlight the connections o r differences
between them , and this approach is long overdue. T here is a wealth
of theory, b oth anthropological and sociological, which declares
th at patronage is a kind of power. Therefore, although there are
n o explicit goals stated by these wom en who were all patrons, it is
im p o rtan t to gauge what part they played in extending patronage.
66. P. Lem erle, Cinq etudes sur le Xle siecle byzantin (Paris, 1977), pp. 294-9.
R. Macrides, ‘T he Byzantine god fath er’, BMGS 11 (1987), pp. 139-62; ‘Kinship by
a rran g em en t’, DOP 44 (1990), pp. 109—18. P. M agdalino, The Empire of Manuel
Komnenos, 1143-1180 (Cam bridge, 1993).
Finally, a consideration of ideology. From exam ining areas of

w om en’s experience, the analysis moves to the underlying u n d er
standing o f the world to deconstruct the ideal im perial wom an as
she appears in Byzantine thought an d to show the roles that women
could play. This chapter draws heavily on fem inist theory, which
contends th at there is a cultural construct of expectations built up
around women in society, which can be deconstructed because it is
n o t natural. M uch has been written on the ideal em peror, from at
least the third century AD by M enander R hetor, to Kazhdan and
Epstein in the twentieth, b u t there is little on the ideal empress.
This is not due to lack o f contem porary source m aterial, bu t to lack
o f scholarly interest. Ideology is concerned not with what a woman
does or is, bu t with what she ought to do and be. Discovering what
power the Byzantine im perial woman was supposed to exercise is
one step forward. No society is a m onolith: discovering if the women
themselves agreed with the ideal is an o th er step forward. Reality
and ideology are related in com plicated ways, and actual behaviour
is usually m ore varied than the ideal stereotype allows: discovering
what real power ideology conferred on im perial wom en between
1080 and 1180 is the last step this chapter takes.
Before em barking on these lines o f research, it is worth pausing
briefly to introduce the social and political history o f the em pire,
and to introduce briefly the wom en on whom this study focuses.
Byzantium: an introduction
T he Byzantine em pire, as a political entity, exists only in m odern
textbooks.67 T he inhabitants o f the em pire which stretched from
the Adriatic Straits in the west to the Tigres and Euphrates Rivers
in the east called themselves Romans and referred to th eir city,
Constantinople, as the New Rome. Developm ent is no t a term found
in Byzantine thought: the em phasis there is on continuity and tradi
tion. But to believe that the em pire saw no developm ent is to fall
into a trap o f the em pire’s own making. T he changes ap p aren t in
the eleventh an d twelfth centuries are the subject o f this book.
T here are two popular and useful ways o f characterising the
em pire. O ne is that it was a b lend o f Greek culture, Rom an law and
Christianity. T he o th er is that it stood on two pillars, the church
67. M. Aiigold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025-1204. A Political History (2nd ed., L ondon,
1997).
Introduction 29
and the im perial power. T he form er encapsulates the mix o f the

three m ost basic com ponents o f any civilisation. T he rich literat
u re o f the Greeks, encom passing philosophy, language, rhetoric,
poetry, myth and m edicine com prised the educational curriculum
o f Byzantium. T he continual copying o f m anuscripts in Byzantine
m onasteries an d courts ensured their survival. Rom an law was and
continued to be the basis for Byzantine law, codified and added to
by several em perors. In Byzantium, the em pero r m ade the laws or
gave ju d gem ents which were then com piled. T he laws were influ
enced by Christianity to a certain extent, as was the culture o f the
em pire. Christianity becam e the official religion o f the em pire in
378. T here were also several branches of Christianity to which one
could adhere. T he growth o f heresies necessitated the gathering o f
oecum enical councils an d facilitated both the creation o f church
law and the participation of the em peror. Such heresies as Arianism,
Nestorianism and Monophysitism were m ore than religious debates
alone and in the context of the em pire carried political connotations.
This leads to the second characterisation o f the em pire - that
it stood on the two pillars o f the church and the im perial power.
Because the em perors becam e involved in church disputes very
early in the history both o f Byzantium and Christianity the two grew
together into a norm ally mutually supporting relationship. The
balance o f power varied from age to age since in the absolutist
regim e o f the em pire the personality o f the em peror was crucial.
Given a strong head o f the church, o r patriarch, an d a weak or
young em peror, the church could grow rich and privileged. Ever
since the creation o f a body o f church, o r canon, law, there was a
constant battle for control o f justice. Patriarchs could be removed
from office by the em peror, o r the office could be left vacant if the
em peror wished. Generally however, the em peror preferred to either
gain the support o f the patriarch o r appoint som eone favourable to
himself. Byzantine history is full o f patriarchs who defied or criti
cised em perors, often achieving their own aims by m aking them
the price of their resignation. In many other situations, the patriarchs
were left in control of the city o r o f offspring by the em peror. Con
stantine X in the eleventh century m ade his em press swear an oath
to the patriarch that she would n o t m arry again as a safeguard for
his young sons for whom she was regent.
Both the im perial court and the church were run by a hierarch
ical bureaucracy. Byzantine governm ent is often regarded as an
exam ple o f tortuous complexity, b u t it was very sophisticated for its
time and it worked. For the administrative m achinery o f the em pire
the best evidence survives for the ninth and tenth centuries, although
certain changes to it can be detailed for later periods. D uring these
centuries there were eighteen ranks o f titles, which did n o t imply
any office bu t did confer prestige and reward. T he three highest
were Caesar, nobilissimos and curopalate. T he only rank granted to
wom en in their own right was that o f the zoste patrika, the belted
patrician. T hen there were m any offices, all o f which conferred a
rank and a salary. Although there were instances o f nepotism , these
offices and titles were open to any talented male, for Byzantium was
n o t a classed society. T he lists o f officials for the n inth and tenth
centuries gives a total o f sixty officials, all reporting to the em peror
as their superior. They were all personally appointed by him and
could be dismissed at his will. T he military officials tended to be
m ore im portant, and b etter paid, bu t the same official could move
from a civil post to a military one if the em peror wished. The
church had its own hierarchy through which one could rise to
becom e patriarch. For the im perial th ro n e itself, the best avenue of
approach was via the military, since a successful general won vast
support. T he frontiers of the em pire were so wide and the enemies
so num erous that military success was highly feted. T here was a set
of virtues an d qualities which the ideal em peror was supposed to
display, explained best by the fourth-century orator M enander
Rhetor. A lthough good birth was included in the list, M enander’s
advice was to ignore the topic if nothing good could be said. The
pre-em inence o f military victory in Byzantine thought was m ade
m anifest as a stum bling block for women in the eleventh century
who sought to hold im perial power.
T he ideal im perial virtues given voice by M enander R hetor form
p art o f a speech o f praise to the em peror. C ourt life was regulated
by ritual o f which speeches form ed a large part. N ot only were
encomia, o r laudatory speeches, given in front o f the em peror, but
also wedding speeches, funeral speeches, and epitaphs. T here was a
schedule o f religious festivals when processions took place around
the city and also cerem onies o f prom otion to office o r games at the
H ippodrom e which punctuated the life o f the court. In all proces
sions, banquets o r cerem onies the o rd er of rank was rigidly adhered
to, led by the im perial couple, followed by the Caesar, nobilissimos
an d curopalate. All these titles and offices were allocated insignia
denoting their rank. T he em p ero r wore a bright purple-red colour
exclusive to him self and he wrote in purple ink. O th er colours near
to purple were designated to those ranks nearest the em peror. The
im portance o f these rules becom es clear when one considers the
Introduction 31
personal n ature of absolute rule in which access to the em peror is

param ount.
T he eleventh century is characterised in textbooks as a century
o f crisis. Begun brilliantly by one o f the m ost spectacular of soldier
em perors, Basil II, the em pire proceeded thereafter to lose vast
tracts o f territory during the century in both east and west and
to spend a vast am ount o f m oney which had been accum ulated
by the tight-fisted Basil. Coincidentally, this is also the century in
which women are m ost conspicuous in the Byzantine histories of
the time and where this study o f im perial wom en commences. Three
em presses’ nam es appear as sole rulers. Many theories have been
advanced to explain the ‘crisis’; the over-expansion by Basil II, the
growth o f the great families and the ‘aristocratic principle’ which
un d erm in ed the edifice o f the state, infighting between civil and
military cliques which ignored the real problem s, o r the appearance
o f individualism. R ecent scholarship has suggested that in econom ic
and m onetary term s the em pire was healthy. However, there is no
do u b t that there was a crisis o f leadership which encouraged a great
outlay of m oney to buy support and which tended to focus the eyes
o f leaders on their own survival rath er than the good o f the em pire.
Basil II died in 1025, having m ade no real provision for the
succession. His b ro th er Constantine becam e em peror in his old age,
having never h ad any share in o r experience of ruling an em pire.
Extravagant to a fault, he began the spending of the vast treasury
th at Basil h ad built up. H e died in 1028, also having m ade m inim al
provision for the em pire’s future. H e was succeeded by his second
dau g h ter Zoe and h er husband Rom anos Argyros. Zoe was around
fifty years old at the time and Rom anos was even older. Between
1028 and 1050 Zoe ruled as em press with two husbands, an adopted
son and h e r sister Theodora, who ruled for one year, 1056, until
she too died. Z oe’s life was spent mainly in the palace, apart from
one stint in a m onastery through the jealousy o f h er adopted son.
She was famous for generosity, h er devotion to the church and the
m aking o f perfum es.
Zoe’s sister T h eodora spent m ost of h er life in a monastery.
Banished there by either Zoe o r h er second husband, she becam e
em press briefly during a riot in 1042 and then in h er own right
after the death o f Zoe and Zoe’s third husband in 1056. T heodora
was taller and m ore practical than Zoe and was famous mainly for
h er parsim ony and h er refusal to m arry on h er accession.
Zoe and T heodora were the last of the house of M acedonia, a
dynasty which had been ruling since 867, when Basil I took the
throne. A lthough this dynasty ruled for so long, there was no h ered
itary principle in operation in Byzantium, which still subscribed in
theory to the Rom an ideal o f the best m an. W hen the M acedonian
house was gone, there was a great scram ble am ong all the possible
claimants to the throne. A lthough between 1025 and 1056 there
h ad been no spectacular victories for the em pire, after the en d of
the M acedonian house there was no clear legitimacy either an d the
pace o f change o f em perors increased with all the instability which
th at im plied in an absolutist regime.
An old civil servant was raised to the th ro n e on T h eo d o ra’s death
to give the potential claimants a breathing space, bu t on his death
the next year, the first o f the ‘family nam es’ which were to becom e
such a feature o f the last centuries o f the em pire succeeded in gain
ing the throne. Isaac Kom nenos was a general who had experience
on the battlefield bu t he did n o t have the political savoir-faire to
survive m ore than two years on the throne. In 1059 he was forced
to resign as the en d result o f a contretem ps with his patriarch the
year before. H e abdicated the throne, assumed the habit o f a monk,
and died soon after. His form er friend and eventual rival Constantine
Doukas becam e em peror. H e was m arried to K eroularios’s niece,
Eudokia Makrembolitissa, who would later be regent for their young
sons when C onstantine died in 1067. She was very well educated:
some o f h e r letters have survived, b u t she dem onstrated the diffi
culties o f reigning alone which assailed every woman in power. She
needed a general to fight the em pire’s enem ies who were closing
in on the em pire, sensing the internal uncertainty. Breaking the
oath she had sworn to C onstantine n o t to m arry again, she elevated
the general Romanos Diogenes to the throne. His military record
is besm irched by the defeat at M antzikurt against the Turks in
1071; this defeat is cited as one o f the worst military disasters in
the history o f the em pire. B rought about partly by treachery by the
em press’s in-laws, it was exacerbated by lack o f com m and after the
first n o t very decisive batde. T he Turks were able to ravage some of
the heardand o f the em pire and advance far into Byzantine territory
due m ore to lack o f any opposition than a military victory. Romanos
was captured and although he struck a deal with the sultan and was
on his way back to the capital, he found that the same internal
enem ies had deposed him and elevated Eudokia and C onstantine’s
young son to the throne. Eudokia, meanwhile, was betrayed by h er
brother-in-law and forced to flee to a monastery, after being threatened
with violence by the soldiers. She never regained the thron e b u t
rem ained a powerful influence for the n ext twenty years.
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
SORROW-SINGING
ONE BRIGHT SUMMER’S NIGHT A NUMBER OF

FAERIES FLEW INTO THE ROOM
THERE was once a poor woman who lived in a little village many,
many years ago, when the world was much younger than it is now,
and when the destinies of mortals were often controlled by the
faeries. This woman, whose name was Eldina, had lost her husband,
who had fallen in a great battle while fighting the enemies of his king,
and a month after she heard of his death, Eldina became the mother
of a beautiful little son, which event was a great comfort to her.
The truth was that, seeing she was so miserable and lonely since the
death of her husband, the kind faeries had given her this little baby
to cheer her heart, and when it was born they took it under their own
special protection. It was necessary to inform Eldina of this, so one
bright summer’s night a number of faeries flew into the room where
the child was lying and stood in a circle round the cradle.
Eldina was engaged in some household work, but having faery blood
in her veins, she had a very delicate sense of hearing, and
immediately knew by the rustle of the faeries’ wings that they had
arrived. She made herself neat and clean to do honour to her
illustrious visitors, and went into the room to hear what they had to
say about the child.
The cradle was quite covered with the most lovely flowers, which the
enchantments of the faeries had caused to bloom on the brick floor
of the cottage, and in the centre of the exquisite blossoms slept the
smiling baby, on whose face shone a bright moonbeam.
“Eldina,” said the Faery Titania, who is Queen
of the Faeries, “we have come to bestow our
gifts upon your child, whom we have taken
under our special protection—is there any gift
you would like him to possess?”
“Yes, your Majesty,” cried Eldina eagerly; “the
gift of happiness.”
All the faeries looked grave at this request, and a sigh sounded
through the room, while Titania gazed sadly on the child.
“We cannot give happiness,” she said sorrowfully. “Every mortal can
only find happiness in his own actions, but we will do the best we
can—I will give the child the gift of song, which is the greatest of all
gifts.”
So saying, she touched the child’s lips with her wand, and retired,
while the Faery Laurina stepped forward with a wreath of laurel
leaves.
“I give this child the gift of fame,” she said, placing the laurel wreath
on the baby’s head; “his songs will make him famous throughout the
world.”
“From me he receives the gift of beauty,” cried another faery, whose
name was Venusina.
“From me the gift of wisdom,” said the Faery Minervetta.
“From me the gift of a kind heart,” observed a smiling fay, who had
kind blue eyes.
Then all the other faeries bestowed their gifts in turn—wealth,
honour, grandeur, cleverness, strength. Everything that human
beings most desire was given to this lucky baby, on whom the name
of Lanis was now bestowed by the universal voice of all the faeries
present.
“All these are beautiful gifts,” said Eldina, weeping, although she half
smiled through her tears, “but they do not bring happiness.”
“They bring happiness if wisely used,” cried Titania.
“Then give him the power to use them wisely,” pleaded the poor
mother.
“We cannot—we cannot,” sighed the faeries; “the power rests with
himself.”
“Will he never find happiness?” cried Eldina in despair.
“Yes, when he arrives at the Kingdom of Shadows, and enters it
through the golden gate.”
“But how will he find the golden gate?”
“By being a good man. If he misuses his gifts and becomes wicked,
he will go through the iron gate into the Kingdom of Fire.”
Then the beams of the moon grew brighter, until the whole chamber
glowed with silver light, and the faeries commenced to dance
gracefully round the cradle, singing this song, while the baby Lanis
slept peacefully, with the crown of green laurel leaves on his head:
“Great blessings on thy head will fall,
In this thy natal hour;
But ah! the greatest gift of all,
We have not in our power.
We give thee wealth, we give thee fame,

We give thee hate of wrong,
The splendour of an honoured name,
The mighty power of song.
These gifts are idle as the wind,

Tho’ by them thou art blest,
Unless thro’ seeking thou canst find
The gift we deem the best.”
Then all the faeries melted away in the thin moonshine, the blooming
flowers vanished through the floor, the laurel wreath disappeared
from the baby’s head, and Eldina almost thought that she had been
dreaming.
She had not been dreaming, however, as she soon found out, for, as
the years rolled by, and Lanis grew up into a tall, handsome boy, he
became the wonder of the countryside, owing to his beautiful voice
and his marvellous songs. Eldina had found a golden lyre left by the
faeries when Lanis grew old enough to play it, and with this in his
hand he was accustomed to wander about the country singing his
lovely melodies. All the country folk used to make Lanis sing to them
at their merrymakings, but when he lifted up his voice, the dancers
would cease to dance, the talkers to chatter, and they would sit with
awestruck faces listening to the wonderful stories he told them.
It was a curious thing that, in spite of what the faeries had said about
not giving him the gift of happiness, the lad’s songs were of the most
joyous description, and made the hearts of all rejoice. Eldina was
delighted at this, as she thought Lanis would now be happy, in spite
of the prophecy of the faeries, when at one merrymaking she heard
an old man say,—
“Ah, he sings fine, no doubt; but he’ll sing better when his heart is
broken.”
“What do you mean?” she asked in great dread.
“Joy-singing is beautiful,” replied the old man, “but sorrow-singing is
better; your lad knows nothing of the bitterness of life, and sings like
a delighted child. Wait till he breaks his heart, and he will be a
famous singer indeed.”
“But will he be happy?” she asked quickly, as the old man turned to
go.
“No: genius is the gift of heaven, but it always brings sorrow to its
possessor; the laurel wreath is a sign of honour, but the leaves are
bitter.”
Eldina looked steadily into the eyes of the old man, and saw that he
was a faery who had come to warn her of approaching sorrow. She
strove to detain him and learn more, but the faery had vanished, and
her hands only grasped the rags of a scarecrow which stood in the
fields.
That night she died, and Lanis, who was deeply attached to her,
wept bitterly as they buried her under the cool green turf. Before she
died, Eldina called him to her bedside, and told him all about the
faeries, bidding him wander through the world and seek the one gift
which they could not bestow. Lanis wept, and although he could not
understand what she meant, still a vague idea of her real meaning
came to him as he sat by her grave under the silent stars and sang a
farewell. There was a note in his voice which had not been there
before, and the simple people in the village awoke at midnight to
hear his sad voice float through the still air of the summer’s night.
“It is sorrow-singing,” they said to one another. “Lanis will never be
happy again.”
And they were right, for Lanis now started to wander through the
world and find out how cruel and hard it can be to those who have
sensitive souls and childlike faith. He was full of belief in human
goodness and kindness of heart, for he had received nothing else
but kindness in his country home; but now his mother was dead, the
spell was broken, and he set forth to find the gift of happiness.
Many months he wandered, singing his songs, sometimes sad,
sometimes joyful, but in all there sounded the weary note of longing
for what he was seeking.
“Where can I find happiness?” he asked an old beggar who lay by
the wayside.
“In the Kingdom of Shadows,” replied the old man, without raising his
eyes.
So Lanis pursued his weary way over mountains, plains, and seas,
always asking his one question, and always receiving the same
answer.
Once he came to a great city, and sang in the streets so beautifully
of the green country and silver moonlight, that all the tired citizens
crowded around to hear. A man who was among the crowd came up
to him as he ceased his song and touched him on the sleeve.
“Come with me,” he said eagerly, “and I will make you rich.”
“I don’t want to be rich,” replied Lanis.
“That is a foolish thing to say,” said the man, who had a crafty face;
“gold is the finest thing in the world.”
So oily was his speech that he persuaded Lanis to come with him,
and took him to a great hall to sing, where he stood at the door
himself, making the people pay broad gold pieces to hear this
wonderful poet who sang about such noble things. Lanis felt a
longing for wealth in his heart, and sang about the power of gold to
make or mar life, of the good it could do, of the evil that arose
through its misuse; and all the people in the hall, mostly fat, wealthy
merchants, chuckled with delight.
“Ah! this is a sensible fellow,” they said to each other; “he sings
about sensible things.”
“I think his song about the beautiful green woods was finer,” sighed a
poor boy who listened outside, but then no one took any notice of
such a silly observation.
When Lanis had done singing, he came out of the hall, and found the
man who had tempted him with wealth sitting before a table heaped
high with gold.
“Is all that mine?” asked Lanis in a breathless tone.
“All that yours!” echoed the man in an indignant voice; “no, indeed—
it’s my money—here is your share,” and he pushed two pieces of
gold towards Lanis out of the great heap.
“But I earned it,” said Lanis indignantly; “I earned it with my voice.”
“And did I do nothing?” cried the man angrily. “Do you think I can
give my time and services to you for nothing? I should think not. If I
hadn’t put you into this hall to sing, and charged for people to hear
you, why, you would have been singing for nothing in the streets,
instead of getting two gold pieces.”
“But you have a hundred gold pieces.”
“Of course—that’s my share.”
“I did half the work, and I ought to have half the money.”
“Not at all,” replied the man, putting the gold in his pocket; “if you
wanted half you should have said so before you sang.”
“But I trusted you,” cried Lanis.
“More fool you,” retorted the man carelessly; “but I saw you were a
fool when you sang.”
“You are doing a wicked thing.”
“It’s only business,” shrieked the man; “you ought to be pleased at
my giving a beggarly poet like you anything, instead of trying to steal
the money I’ve worked for so hard.”
Then the man ran about the city telling all the people that he had
done a great kindness to Lanis, and been shamefully treated for
doing so. All the citizens, who quite agreed with the man’s way of
doing business, fell upon Lanis, and, driving him out of the city, shut
their gates against him.
In this way, therefore, did Lanis gain his first experience of the
world’s unkindness when there is any question between right and
might. Picking up his lyre, he walked on, leaving the city wherein he
had been so cruelly deceived far behind him, and as he went he
sang sadly:
“In the school of life
Is the lesson taught,
That with harshest strife
Is our knowledge bought.
We are bought and sold

In our joy and grief;
I have lost my gold,
I have lost belief.
Ah, by cruel Fate

We are onward led;
I have learned to hate,
And my faith is dead.”
Lanis certainly should not have sung so bitterly when such a

beautiful world bloomed around him; after all, being deceived by one
man does not mean that every one else is as cruel; but then Lanis
was very sensitive, and the unjust way in which he had been treated
made him very sad, so that all his songs now spoke but of the
sorrows of life and the sadness of despair.
As he wandered on for many months in this dismal mood, he met
with many adventures, but, alas! nothing which could give him back
his former childlike belief in human kindness, and he was very
anxious to get to the Kingdom of Shadows and find once more his
lost happiness.
Once he came to a great city which was the capital of a very rich
kingdom, and here found the citizens in a state of great dismay, for
their King, whom every one loved, had gone out of his mind. No one
could cure him of his madness, so it had been proclaimed that
whomsoever should do so would become the husband of the lovely
Princess Iris, who was the King’s daughter. Lanis saw the Princess,
and she was so beautiful that he at once fell deeply in love with her,
and, forgetting all his former experience of ingratitude, he thought
that if he cured her father, she would grow to love him, and he would
thus discover his happiness without looking any more for the
Kingdom of Shadows.
With this idea he went to the royal palace of
the King, and there told the Lord High
Chamberlain that he would cure the mad
monarch by the power of song. The Lord High
Chamberlain did not believe much in what
Lanis said, still he was anxious that every
means should be tried to cure the King, so let
Lanis go into the dark room where he was
sitting.
The King was a noble-looking old man, who
looked very sad and sorrowful, but Lanis saw
at once that he was not really mad, but sad
and despondent, owing to the treachery and unkindness he had
found upon every hand. His dearest friends had betrayed him, his
subjects were rebellious, and the poor King so despaired of ever
making his people wise and noble that he had thus fallen into this
deeply sorrowful state which the Lord High Chamberlain mistook for
madness.
Lanis ordered the curtains of the great window to be drawn aside,
and, when the bright sunlight streamed in through the painted glass,
he sat down in the centre of all the gorgeous colours, and, taking his
lyre, began to sing of noble deeds in order to rouse the despairing
King from his lethargy:
“The world is fair
With beauty rare,
Then why despair,
Oh monarch great?
He is not wise
Who never tries
Sublime to rise
O’er adverse Fate.
The summer flowers

Re-bloom in bowers,
Tho’ winter’s hours
May kill with frost.
Beneath the sun
As quick years run;
All thou hast done
Is never lost.”
The King lifted up his head as he heard these comforting words, and
looked at the noble face of the minstrel, for the silvery song bade him
not despair, although no good appeared to come of all his work; and
Lanis, seeing a ray of hope beam in the King’s eyes, went on singing
joyfully:
“Put on thy crown,
And boldly frown
Thy sadness down,
Tho’ keen the smart.
Thy burden take

Of office great,
And rule the State
With dauntless heart.
A coward he
Who thus would flee
Despairingly,
In time of need.
Tho’ evils lurk
In darkness murk,
Resume thy work—
Thou wilt succeed.”
Then the King, whose face now was shining with hope and strong
resolve, put on his royal crown, took his golden sceptre in his hand,
and went forth to take his seat upon the throne to do justice to his
subjects.
“Thou art a wise youth,” said he to Lanis, “and thy words are noble. It
is foolish to desert one’s post when there is work to be done, and I
will not forget thy rebuke. Now, thou wilt stay with me and marry my
daughter.”
Lanis was only too glad to do so, for he now
loved the Princess with all his might, but,
seeing her leave the great feast which the
King had given in honour of his recovery, he
followed her secretly, and found her weeping.
“Why do you weep, beautiful Princess?” he
asked.
“Because I have to marry you,” said Iris sadly,
“and I love another.”
Lanis felt a pang at his heart as she said this,
and on turning round saw a handsome young man holding the
beautiful Princess in his arms.
“Do you love one another?” asked Lanis, with tears in his eyes.
“Yes; it would be death for us to part,” they both replied.
Then Lanis saw that once more he had failed to find happiness, but
still it was in his power to bestow it upon others, so he took the
Princess and her lover to the old King, and obtained his consent to
their marriage. The lovers thanked him heartily, and after Lanis saw
them married, he once more started away to wander through the
world. The King offered him gold and jewels to stay, but Lanis
refused.
“Gold and jewels are good things,” he said sadly; “but happiness is
better, therefore I go to find it.”
“And where will you find it?” asked the King.
“In the Kingdom of Shadows,” answered Lanis, and he departed,
singing his sorrow-song:
“Ah me, what treasure
To taste the pleasure
Of love’s caress.
Oh, idle lover,
Wilt thou discover
Heart’s happiness.
Nay! folly this is;

I gain no kisses
From sweet Princess.
Of him she’s fonder,
So forth I wander
In sad distress.”
It would take a long time to tell how many adventures Lanis met with
in his wanderings through the world. The years rolled by, and he
travelled onward, never pausing, always hoping to find happiness,
but, alas! no one could tell him where to look for the Kingdom of
Shadows, and he seemed farther off his object than when he set
forth. He freed many princesses from the durance of cruel
magicians, but though they all thanked him for his kindness, they
loved some one else, and he found no one in the world who cared at
all about him. He was honoured far and wide for his gift of song, and
did much good in all lands, but no one loved him for himself, and
although he was the cause of happiness to others, he never felt
happiness in his own heart.
At last, after many years of weary travel, when he had grown a
white-haired old man, with bent form and sad heart, he found himself
on the shore of a great sea, beyond which he knew lay the most
wonderful countries. A boat was rocking on the waves near the
shore, so Lanis determined to sail over this mysterious ocean, and
thought that perhaps far away in the darkness he might find the
Kingdom of Shadows, for which he had sought so long and ardently.
He knew that if he once sailed over this ocean, he would never be
able to return to earth again, so he sang a last farewell to the
beautiful world wherein he had done so much good, and then
stepped into the boat.
It was a fairy boat, and moved rapidly onward over the waves
without sails or oars. The mists gathered thickly round him and hid
the green shore from his view, so sitting in the boat he saw nothing
but the grey sky above, the grey mists around, and beneath him the
cruel black waters. He was not afraid, however, for he knew he had
done no harm, and, seizing his harp, sang his last sorrow-song:
“Grey mist around me,
Grey sky above me;
Sorrow hath crowned me—
No one will love me.
Brave spirit, quail not;

All will be bright yet.
At thy fate rail not;
God will make right yet.
Still do thy duty,

Tho’ all deceive thee,
Splendour and beauty
Now will receive thee.”
As he sang the last words, the strings of his lyre snapped with a loud
crash, and, leaping out of his nerveless hands, it fell into the grey
waves of the sea. Lanis did not grieve, for he now knew he was done
with his sorrow-singing for evermore, and as the boat sailed onward
he saw a red glow to the left.
“That is the gate of iron,” he whispered to himself, “it leads to the
Kingdom of Fire. Ah! I would never find any happiness there.”
The waves were foaming angrily round the little boat, and the red
glare from the open portals of the iron gate looked like an angry
sunset, but still Lanis felt no fear. After a time the red glare died
away, and now on every side of him was a soft golden light, while the
waves beneath the boat were of a delicate blue, and the sky above
of the same soft tint. Lanis looked around, and saw a soft green
shore, to which his boat drifted gently, and he sprang out on to the
yellow sand of the beach. As he did so, his travel-worn clothes fell off
him, and he found himself arrayed in a long white robe.
A tall man, also in a white robe, approached, and, smiling gently on
Lanis, gave him a golden harp.
“Is this my old harp?” asked Lanis, taking it.
“No; it is better than the old harp.”
“Is it for sorrow-singing?”
“Nay; it is for songs of joy.”
“And is this Faeryland?”
“Nay; it is a nobler place than Faeryland.”
“Is it The Kingdom of Shadows?”
“So we called it on earth, but now we know it as the Kingdom of
Eternal Light.”
Lanis looked at the tall man as he said this, and saw it was the old
king he had helped—now no longer old and frail, but in the prime of
life.
“You are the King!” he cried gladly.
“Yes, I was the King. You pointed out my duty to me, and I did it;
otherwise I never would have reached here.”
“And the Princess?”
“Is quite happy,” replied the King. “She rules my realm with her
husband, and both are wise.”
“Have you found happiness?” asked Lanis.
“Yes!—and so will you, when you strike your harp,” answered the
King.
Lanis struck the golden strings of his harp, and immediately all his
weariness and sorrow passed away, and he felt glad and joyful. At
the sound of the music, he changed from an old man into a noble-
looking youth—the same Lanis who had sung to the King.
“Ah, I have indeed found happiness,” he cried; “but still, I feel I want
something more.”
“I know what you want,” said the King. “Look!”
And Lanis, looking up, saw his mother, with a calm expression of joy
upon her face, coming towards him, with outstretched arms. All the
white-robed spirits around struck their golden harps and sang the
most beautiful songs that were ever heard, while mother and son
embraced, and far off the palace of the great King shone like a bright
star.
Lanis also struck his harp, and, with the earthly monarch and his
mother, went singing onward through the lovely fields, to kneel
before the King, who had thus drawn him onward, through sorrow
and sadness, to find his happiness at length in the land which we
mortals call the Kingdom of Shadows but which wise men know as
the Kingdom of Eternal Light.
THE GOLDEN GOBLIN
I.
RING MAGIC.
KELCH was a handsome young man who lived in a little village

which was near a great black forest, and he thought himself the most
miserable being in the world. It was very curious that he should do
so, for he was young, good-looking, and healthy, but he did not value
any of these gifts, because he was in love with Filina, the prettiest
girl in the whole country, and her father wanted her to marry a very
rich man called Hocky, for whom she did not in the least care.
Now Filina was also in love with Kelch, and hated the idea of
marrying ugly old Hocky, but, as he was rich and Kelch poor, her
father would not let her wed as she wished. Kelch had a little cottage
near the wood, which had been left to him by his mother, and earned
his livelihood by cutting firewood, which, to be sure, was not a very
aristocratic occupation. Still, in those days people did not care much
for rank, and pretty Filina loved Kelch tenderly in spite of his humble
calling. She nearly wept her eyes out when her father said she was
to become the bride of Hocky. He was an avaricious old dwarf who
only cared for gold, and wanted to marry Filina, not for her beauty,
but because he knew she would some day be left money when her
father died. When Kelch heard of the proposed marriage, he went to
Filina’s father and told of his love, but the cruel parent laughed at his
request.
“You marry my daughter!” he said mockingly. “What an idea!—you
can give her no money.”
“But I can give her love,” said Kelch sturdily, “and that is much better
than money.”
“I don’t think so,” retorted Filina’s father. “Any one can make love, but
few can make money, so go back to your wood-cutting, and don’t
come to me with such silly requests.”
“Is there no chance for me?” cried Kelch in despair.
“Yes—one,” answered the old man mockingly. “Become as rich as
Hocky, and you shall marry my daughter.”
Poor Kelch went away with tears in his eyes, because old Hocky was
known to be very wealthy, and how could an unknown youth hope to
become rich when he had no one to help him? It was no good feeling
sad, however, for sorrow would not help him to win Filina, so Kelch
determined to go to the castle of the Wicked Baron who lived in the
centre of the forest, and ask him to make him a present of some
gold.
The Wicked Baron was a famous miser, and his castle was said to
be full of gold, so, in spite of his bad character, Kelch thought he
would not refuse to give him a little out of his plenty. So early one
morning, after saying good-bye to Filina, he went into the forest to
search for the Wicked Baron’s castle, and ask its owner to give him
some gold.
Kelch wandered deeper and deeper into the forest, which became
wilder and more savage as he advanced, but still he did not come
across the looked-for castle. Night was coming on, and the wood
was full of sombre shadows, while behind the trees flushed the fierce
red light of the setting sun. It was a faery forest, and all the ground
was covered with soft grass, and strange flowers which only
bloomed at night-time; while overhead the nightingales sang most
deliciously in the trees, and at intervals the wise owls hooted in the
most unexpected manner.
As it was now quite dark, Kelch thought he would sleep under a
great oak tree until the morning, and then once more set out upon
his travels; so he ate some food he had brought with him, drank from
a stream which sparkled by, and after saying his prayers,—for he
was a good lad,—rested his head upon his knapsack and went fast
asleep.
In the middle of the night, however, he woke suddenly under the
influence of enchantment, for the whole of the forest was flooded
with the silver moonlight, and on every side the faeries were holding
their revels. Having drank of the waters of the brook, Kelch had
come under the charm of faery power, and, to his surprise, was able
to understand the talk of two elves who sat chattering to one another
on the broad white cup of a lily.
“Who is this youth lying asleep?” asked the first elf, never thinking for
a moment Kelch was awake, and only kept his eyes closed in order
to hear what they had to say.
“He is called Kelch,” said the other elf, “and loves Filina, who is to
marry old Hocky. He is now searching for the castle of the Wicked
Baron, to ask for gold.”
“He’ll never find it,” observed the first faery, “unless he asks the Owl
who lives in the oak tree under which he sleeps.”
“Then I will ask the Owl,” cried Kelch, sitting up, whereupon both
faeries flew away in great alarm, much to his regret, as he wanted to
make inquiries about the Owl.
He looked up at the tree, but could see nothing save the branches
interlaced against the clear sky, and now and then a gleam of
moonlight on the rough bark of the trunk. As Kelch had often heard
that song was the only way to invoke faeries, he thought he would try
the same means with the owl. So, springing to his feet, he began to
sing, making up the words as he went along:
“Fairy Owl,
Clever fowl,
Please tell me
Where to see
The castle old,
Where Baron bold
Hoards up his gold.”
The words were not very good, but they told exactly what he wanted
to know, and the Owl put her head out of a hole in the tree with a
wild hoot, her eyes glowing red like burning coals.
“Go away, boy,” croaked the Owl angrily, “and do not disturb me in
my grief. The Baron is dead, and I am in mourning for him.”
“The Baron dead!” cried Kelch in dismay. “Oh dear! then I won’t be
able to get any gold. I don’t know, though—he can’t have taken his
gold with him, so it must be there still. Owl!—Owl!—where’s the
castle?”
The Owl hooted crossly, and then replied:
“Follow the brook
To open ground,
Then upward look,
And all around.
Jump water cold,
Then you will see
The castle old
Frown o’er the lea.”
The Owl drew back her head into the hole, and Kelch, taking her
advice, followed the windings of the brook through the forest. There

Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025 1204 Power Patronage and Ideology Barbara Hill Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025 1204 Power Patronage and Ideology Barbara Hill Full Chapter

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Imperial Women in Byzantium

1025-1204: Power, Patronage and

Published 2013 by Routledge

Routledge is an im print o f the Taylor & Francis Group, an inform a business

Copyright © 1999, Taylor & Francis.

The right o f Barbara Hill to be identified as author o f this Work has

ISBN 13: 978-0-582-30352-2 (pbk)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Library o f Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

List of maps, figures and family trees vii

Figure 1 T he hierarchy o f titles devised by Alexios 101

1. T he en d o f the House o f M acedon 220

AHR Am erican Historical Review

W ords defined in the Glossary are asterisked on their first appear­

affines: persons related by m arriage

philanthropia: generosity to those poorer than

T he study o f wom en is currently fashionable during this second

3. J. H ow ard-Johnston, ‘A nna K om nene and the Alexiad’, in M.E. M ullett and

th at m uch w om en’s history is written by fem ale historians has no t

and equality in monasticism. Patlagean’s work on transvestite nuns,

7. A-M. Talbot, ‘Blue-stocking nuns: intellectual life in the convents of late

11. A. Laiou, ‘T h e role o f wom en in Byzantine society’, JOB 3 1/1 (1981),

equally determ ined to exercise ultim ate jurisdiction. A certain gap

14. C. G alatariotou, ‘Holy w om en and witches: aspects o f Byzantine concepts of

reality o f w om en’s lives behind the ideology in Byzantium, using

of property m anagem ent and show property in the hands of women.

Feminism, sex and gender

defined.16 T he whole point about feminist criticism is that m en

o f crucial interest for feminists because what are actually gender

Women in Byzantium: an introduction

them out. O n h e r shoulders rested estate adm inistration, and the

century and T heodora in the ninth. However, the political power

Towards a fem inist history of Byzantium

o f historical analysis.37 In anthropologist M ichelle Rosaldo’s words

44. Fox-Genovese, ‘W om en’s history in history’, p. 14.

the m ost private o f areas: sexuality and procreation. T he state has

range o f m ethods, many o f which are open to women. Authority is

h ard to grasp, a slippery concept, because society is predicated on

sit on the sidelines o f their society, uninterested in anything except

57. Fox-Genovese, ‘W om en’s history in history’, p. 22.

way o f explaining the universalism o f patriarchy is to appeal to

62. Kandiyoti, ‘B argaining with patriarchy’, p. 111.

they feel about m en, the historian is handicapped in this area. So

65. E. Bensam m ar, ‘La titulature de l ’im peratrice et sa signification’, B 46 (1976),

Finally, a consideration of ideology. From exam ining areas of

and the im perial power. T he form er encapsulates the mix o f the

personal n ature of absolute rule in which access to the em peror is

ONE BRIGHT SUMMER’S NIGHT A NUMBER OF

We give thee wealth, we give thee fame,

These gifts are idle as the wind,

We are bought and sold

Ah, by cruel Fate

Lanis certainly should not have sung so bitterly when such a

The summer flowers

Thy burden take

Nay! folly this is;

Brave spirit, quail not;

Still do thy duty,

KELCH was a handsome young man who lived in a little village

You might also like

W ords defined in the Glossary are asterisked on their first appear