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2024, Niš & Byzantium XXII
This essay explores portrayals of female wielders of power in Byzantium in order to analyze usage of regalia in context of the cases of regency. Research of the vast material of wall paintings, miniatures, coinage and seals reveals that different groups of female royals shared various insignia among which some were usually met on images of emperors. The conclusion can be drawn that imperial consorts, regents, empress mothers and empresses-regnant were depicted with various regalia with no particular item alone being decisive in displaying prominent Byzantine feminine and their crucial roles or outstanding impact as mothers of heirs, co-rulers of their sons emperors, regents, rulers of their own, and also providers of legitimacy for new emperors.
2019 •
Literary and artistic, as well as material evidences, represent the dramatic evolution of the feminine imperial power and its consolidation from the Constantinian age until the fall of Constantinople. This symposium aims to analyse, from a multi-angled perspective, how the imperial women came to assume power and the means of their dynastical propaganda, by means of which a definitive establishment of the female political role within the imperial government was shaped. In their widest perspective, Patristic sources constitute the textual support of this development, as they essentially outline the gradual development in the construction of the Augusta’s political and religious figure, as well as the conceptualization of a court propaganda from the Late Antiquity to Byzantium. The workshop will present, with an introductory lecture, how a basilikos logos, namely Gregory of Nyssa’s paramythetikos logos dedicated to the empress Flaccilla, established firm canons of representing the feminine consort as a royal figure highlighting, in particular, the empress’ evergetism (philantropia) and her advocacy against heresies (orthodoxia). Flaccilla, Eudocia, Eudoxia, Euphemia, Irene, Zoe (some of the leading figures to be analysed in this symposium) begin to wield progressively the same power prerogatives of their masculine consort, as mostly material evidences attested. Utterly remarkable is, within the visual display, to perceive in detail this evolution forged on coins, ivories, bas-reliefs and statues which portray the Augustae in full imperial attire (with insignia and tituli) bearing noteworthy resemblances to the emperors’ portraits onto the same material supports. This momentous change, therefore, made imperial women to lose their peculiar connotations as mothers and spouses and, as a result, be distinguished not only as a mere members of the imperial family but also as βασιλίσσαι καὶ δεσποίναι (queens and regents),namely representatives of the ruling power.
2020 •
2019 •
Mattia C . Chiriatti, Mar Marcos, Jaime De Miguel López, Ernest Marcos Hierro, Anja Busch, Nicola Bergamo
Buschhausen Erforschen Erkennen Weitergeben
Imperial Insignia and Iconography of Independent Dignitaries and Princes in Late Byzantium and Medieval Serbia2021 •
The article deals with the imperial insignia worn by various medieval dignitaries and princes in late Byzantium and medieval Serbia, as portrayed in the visual arts The conclusion is drawn that some actually sovereign dignitaries, regardless of their official title, usurped the right to wear the imperial insignia in order to present themselves, more or less, as independent rulers In addition, for the same purpose, they used the specific iconographic formulas befitting imperial portraits to define the iconography of their own representations Key words: imperial insignia, portraits of medieval dignitaries, imperial iconography, Late Byzantine Epirus, medieval Serbia
Rosetta -- Papers of the Department of Classics, Ancient History and Archaeology at the University of Birmingham (peer-reviewed)
Reconstructing the Image of an Empress in Middle Byzantine Constantinople: Gender in Byzantium, Psellos’ Empress Zoe and the Chapel of Christ Antiphonites2007 •
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.
This short analysis of the origins of late antique empresses aims to identify specifi c features of imperial power exercised by women. Many wives of emperors found themselves widowed and thus in a position to infl uence the education of their young sons, the 'child emperors' of the fi fth century. Contrasting the eastern and western courts at Constantinople and Ravenna, it's possible to trace patterns of preparation for imperial rule, how daughters of rulers were trained, later celebrated as augoustai, commemorated in statues and on coins. After comparing Pulcheria and Galla Placidia, the surprising career of Verina is contrasted with that of Ariadne, linking all four in the emerging phenomenon of the 'imperial feminine'. Among the many innovations introduced by Emperor Diocletian (284– 305), the new system of government, the tetrarchy, or rule of four, was one of the transformative developments of late antiquity. The plan to set up two senior emperors, each with a junior, called caesar, who would assist his rule and inherit his authority after a fi xed term, provided a certain stability from 293 to 305 when Diocletian abdicated. During that period the number of imperial cities multiplied, with Milan and Nikomedeia becoming the principal residences of the emperors and a range of other centres, including Trier, Serdica, Arles and Antioch used by the caesars. Rome remained the home of the Senate and leading aristocratic families, while Constantinople, dedicated in 330, was established as New Rome, partly to replace the older capital of empire. In some of the new centres of government the ruler's wife might hold a notable position, depending not only on her individual ambition but also on the relative importance and rank of the particular court. And from the early fourth century onwards as the number of imperial centres increased in both East and West, a rivalry between these " leading ladies " developed in step with the intense competition between their husbands, who campaigned to dominate the empire as a whole. Although this meant that the tetrarchy did not survive for long, the movement of courts between so many diff erent imperial cities persisted and generated competitive issues in which the wives of rulers began to play an essential role. Long after the imperial court was moved from its fi xed position in Rome, Theodosius I died in Milan in 395, having decreed that his two young sons were to succeed him as joint rulers in East and West. This signifi cant division of imperial authority into two equal spheres also had the eff ect of restricting the
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Recent work by various scholars on the political make-up of the Byzantine Empire has highlighted the fragility of the emperor’s position and his dependence on popular support to keep his office. This thesis looks at the use of ceremony by Byzantine emperors to advertise their qualifications to rule according to medieval Roman sensibilities. The crux of this thesis is the tenth-century Byzantine text known as the De cerimoniis, or The Book of Ceremonies, an imperial handbook detailing the procedures regarding numerous imperial processions, feasts, and other ceremonies compiled on the order of Emperor Konstantinos VII Porphyrogennetos (r.~ 913-959). With this text and supplementary historical narratives, this thesis examines how history, space, and symbolism came together to associate Byzantine emperors with the ancient virtues of rulership as defined by Menander Rhetor (c. second/third century A.D.) – justice, temperance, bravery, and wisdom – essential for any legitimate Basileus.
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Gender and History
The Gender of Money: Byzantine Empresses on Coins (324–802)2000 •
The Graduate History Review
Perspectives of Power: Byzantine Imperial Women2009 •
Byzantinoslavica
"Great Is The Imperial Dignity. Voices, Adventus, and Power of the First Macedonian Empresses", Byzantinoslavica 75 (2017), 99-1152017 •
2019 •
Вестник СПбГУ. Искусствоведение.
Stephano Torelli's "Coronation Portrait of Catherine II": Crowns as a Visual Formula of the Lands of the Russian Empire2020 •
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Depictions of Women in the Works of Early Byzantine Historians and Chroniclers2017 •
Studia Ceranea. Journal of the Waldemar Ceran Research Centre for the History and Culture of the Mediterranean Area and South-East Europe
The Emperor in the Byzantine World. Papers from the Forty-Seventh Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, ed. Shaun Tougher, Routledge, New York–London 2019 [= Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies Publications, 21], 32 figures, index, pp. XXIII, 378.2020 •
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2017 •
Tekstilna industrija
CLOTHING AS AN IMAGE OF PERSONAL NOTABILITY -PORTRAITS OF NOBLEWOMEN IN THE CHURCH IN DONJA KAMENICA2022 •
Glas ASSA. Classe des sciences historiques
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