Thematic Session of Free Communications: THE PORTRAIT IN BYZANTIUM AND IN THE BYZANTINE WORLD: ITS POLITICAL, SYMBOLICAL AND CEREMONIAL CONTEXTS (original) (raw)
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The present paper explores the ways in which the social memory of the mother of Constantine the Great was reconstructed, judged, and appreciated between the late fourth and ninth centuries, in an effort either to qualify or challenge commonly held perceptions of her. My evaluation of the symbolic significance that clergy and laity accorded to Helena broadens our understanding of the official position of empresses in the world of Byzantine politics: both empress and emperor mattered in terms of power, without suggesting that the former was of equal importance to the latter. The portrayals of Helena involve their own paradoxical and subversive qualities. This article is an expanded version of a communication paper read at the 43rd Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies on Byzantium behind the Scenes: Power and Subversion, held at the University of Birmingham in March 2010. I am indebted to Leslie Brubaker (University of Birmingham) and Neil McLynn (Corpus Christi College, Oxford) for their meticulous assessment, constructive criticism, illuminating questions, and suggestions for improvement. A special word of thanks goes also to Stavroula Constantinou (University of Cyprus) and Jan Willem Drijvers (University of Groningen), who have kindly helped me solve specific riddles. Obviously any errors, mistakes, or inaccuracies in this work are solely my responsibility.
Rosetta -- Papers of the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Birmingham (peer-reviewed), 2007
Abstract: In Byzantium the choice of a specific site for imperial patronage represented a means for the emperor and empress to make visible their own conceptions of rulership and the religious values that they wished to promote. However, in the case of female ruler, the issue is more complex, raising issues of gender with regard to the significance and the visibility of a woman’s ‘matronage’. From this perspective, this paper analyses the case of the chapel dedicated to Christ Antiphonetes which the empress Zoe (AD 1028 – ca. 1050), belonging to the last generation of the Macedonian dynasty, chose as her personal burial place. This study considers and discusses the most important sources which allow us to understand the significance of these expressions of imperial display and the meanings they convey.
The Column of Constantine at Constantinople: A Cultural History (330-1453 C.E.)
2017
This thesis discusses the cultural history of the Column of Constantine at Constantinople, exploring its changing function and meaning from Late Antiquity to the end of the Byzantine era. Originally erected as a pagan triumphal column in celebration of Constantine's re-foundation of Byzantium as Constantinople in 330 C.E., this monument was soon reinterpreted within a Christian context and acquired its own relic tradition, most significantly relics from Christ's Passion. In addition, as the centuries passed, this relic tradition increased to include objects significant not only to Biblical history but also Constantinopolitan history. Because of this, in the middle Byzantine period, the column became a significant imperial and ecclesiastical station along the main street or Mese of Constantinople and was incorporated into the military triumphs of the period. Here, through close proximity with the column, the current emperor could link himself to Christ through Constantine the Great. Ultimately, at the conclusion of the Byzantine era, the column continued to retain significance as a monument of Byzantium's future and v revival. Therefore, with this in mind, we will study the Column of Constantine as a monument of layered meaning that sustained its significance in each Byzantine epoch as a microcosm of the history of Constantinople that was tied directly to its wellbeing by its citizens.
Speculum, 2002
In this second volume of the Dumbarton Oaks series Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation, as in the first, Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation, Alice-Mary Talbot capitalizes on the benefits of a unifying theme to produce a wonderfully useful volume. The eight saints' lives in this volume are divided evenly between the first period of iconoclasm (726-87), inaugurated by the Byzantine emperor Leo III, and the second (815-43), inaugurated by Leo V the Armenian. The contents of the two parts are very disparate in length and nature, however. Four brief notices from the Synaxarion of Constantinople (24 pages) represent the four saints of the first period: Theodosia of Constantinople (synaxarion for 18 July, Bibliotheca hagiographica Graeca [BHG] 1774e); Stephen the Younger (28 November); Anthousa of Mantineon (27 July, BHG Auctarium 2029h); and Anthousa, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine V (12 April). By contrast, the second period is represented by extensive documents of diverse character: the life of Patriarch Nikephoros I by the repentant Ignatios, deacon and skeuophylax of the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople (BHG 1335, 102 pages); the anonymous life of Sts. David, Symeon, and George of Lesbos, in fact a composite of multiple sources about historically unrelated figures (BHG 2163, 102 pages); the life of Ioannikios by the monk Peter (BHG 936, 97 pages); and the life with encomium of Empress Theodora (BHG 1731, 22 pages). The editor attributes this imbalance to the paucity of hagiographical sources about the first period, the fact that no accounts were actually written in the first period, and the fact that a new edition of the Vita of St. Stephen the Younger, the major extensive hagiographical text pertaining to the first period of iconoclasm, is currently in press. The four short pieces from the Constantinopolitan synaxarion representing the first period of iconoclasm capture the retrospective assessment of the controversy that prevailed in the capital in the tenth century. They introduce the reader to the iconodule traditions that sustained the opposition to iconoclasm in the documents from the second period, while their editors' introductions place those later documents in perspective. The historical material provided in the introductions and notes are rich in reference to current research, bringing out the role that women played in resistance to iconoclasm and providing critical perspective on such issues as double monasteries and the persistent tensions between monastic leaders and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The four pieces representing the second period of iconoclasm offer very different contributions to this volume. Elizabeth Fisher's introduction to the Vita of Patriarch Nikephoros I (758-828) is a little gem of historiography, accounting for the bitter hostility evidenced in the Vita between Nikephoros and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, on the one hand, and, on the other, the Stoudite monks, who ought to have been his allies in their common opposition to iconoclasm. Fisher steers us through a labyrinth of political issues, including the elevation of Nikephoros, a layman, through a series of rapid ordinations to the patriarchate at the behest of Emperor Nikephoros I and over the objections of the Constantinopolitan Stoudios monastery; revocation of the earlier excommunication of a loyal courtier who had divorced and remarried contrary to canon law, again over the objections of the Stoudite monks; the emperor's exile of the Stoudite leader, Theodore, in the fourth year of Nikephoros's patriarchate; and Nikephoros's opposition to double monasteries. On the literary side, Fisher relates the remarkable overview of the Byzantine curriculum in higher education and the Socratic dialogue between the patriarch and the iconoclast emperor Leo V, both embedded in the Vita, to the ornate and archaic literary style of this work, preparing the reader for the Homeric allusions and vocabulary scattered through the text.
Alice-Mary Talbot, ed., Byzantine Defenders of Images. Eight Saints' Lives in English Translation
Speculum, 2002
In this second volume of the Dumbarton Oaks series Byzantine Saints' Lives in Translation, as in the first, Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation, Alice-Mary Talbot capitalizes on the benefits of a unifying theme to produce a wonderfully useful volume. The eight saints' lives in this volume are divided evenly between the first period of iconoclasm (726-87), inaugurated by the Byzantine emperor Leo III, and the second (815-43), inaugurated by Leo V the Armenian. The contents of the two parts are very disparate in length and nature, however. Four brief notices from the Synaxarion of Constantinople (24 pages) represent the four saints of the first period: Theodosia of Constantinople (synaxarion for 18 July, Bibliotheca hagiographica Graeca [BHG] 1774e); Stephen the Younger (28 November); Anthousa of Mantineon (27 July, BHG Auctarium 2029h); and Anthousa, daughter of the Byzantine emperor Constantine V (12 April). By contrast, the second period is represented by extensive documents of diverse character: the life of Patriarch Nikephoros I by the repentant Ignatios, deacon and skeuophylax of the Church of St. Sophia in Constantinople (BHG 1335, 102 pages); the anonymous life of Sts. David, Symeon, and George of Lesbos, in fact a composite of multiple sources about historically unrelated figures (BHG 2163, 102 pages); the life of Ioannikios by the monk Peter (BHG 936, 97 pages); and the life with encomium of Empress Theodora (BHG 1731, 22 pages). The editor attributes this imbalance to the paucity of hagiographical sources about the first period, the fact that no accounts were actually written in the first period, and the fact that a new edition of the Vita of St. Stephen the Younger, the major extensive hagiographical text pertaining to the first period of iconoclasm, is currently in press. The four short pieces from the Constantinopolitan synaxarion representing the first period of iconoclasm capture the retrospective assessment of the controversy that prevailed in the capital in the tenth century. They introduce the reader to the iconodule traditions that sustained the opposition to iconoclasm in the documents from the second period, while their editors' introductions place those later documents in perspective. The historical material provided in the introductions and notes are rich in reference to current research, bringing out the role that women played in resistance to iconoclasm and providing critical perspective on such issues as double monasteries and the persistent tensions between monastic leaders and the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The four pieces representing the second period of iconoclasm offer very different contributions to this volume. Elizabeth Fisher's introduction to the Vita of Patriarch Nikephoros I (758-828) is a little gem of historiography, accounting for the bitter hostility evidenced in the Vita between Nikephoros and the ecclesiastical hierarchy, on the one hand, and, on the other, the Stoudite monks, who ought to have been his allies in their common opposition to iconoclasm. Fisher steers us through a labyrinth of political issues, including the elevation of Nikephoros, a layman, through a series of rapid ordinations to the patriarchate at the behest of Emperor Nikephoros I and over the objections of the Constantinopolitan Stoudios monastery; revocation of the earlier excommunication of a loyal courtier who had divorced and remarried contrary to canon law, again over the objections of the Stoudite monks; the emperor's exile of the Stoudite leader, Theodore, in the fourth year of Nikephoros's patriarchate; and Nikephoros's opposition to double monasteries. On the literary side, Fisher relates the remarkable overview of the Byzantine curriculum in higher education and the Socratic dialogue between the patriarch and the iconoclast emperor Leo V, both embedded in the Vita, to the ornate and archaic literary style of this work, preparing the reader for the Homeric allusions and vocabulary scattered through the text.