Constructing A Byzantine Augusta A Gree PDF

Constructing a Byzantine "Augusta:" A Greek Book for a French Bride
Author(s): Cecily J. Hilsdale

Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 87, No. 3 (Sep., 2005), pp. 458-483
Published by: College Art Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25067191
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Constructing a Byzantine Augusta: A Greek Book for a
French Bride
CecilyJ. Hilsdale
between outsiders is a social advance (because it selves. This gift, its ritual narration, mediates the
Marriage through
wider It is also a venture.?Claude introduction of a French bride to the court.
integrates groups). Byzantine
L?vi-Strauss1 The surviving pages of Vat. gr. 1851 are divided into three
main narrative sections, each one a
featuring topographic
In 1179 Agnes, the nine-year-old daughter of Louis VII of scene of water and land. The first section concerns the be
France, embarked on a Genoese that took her to Con trothal here betrothal and an
ship negotiation: arrangements
the of the emperor of the Romans. Here she nouncements occur within a marked of
stantinople, city setting by trappings
would wed his son, Alexios, and prepare for her The Western betrothed as
purple-born empire. young emerges protago
new role as At some the nist of the second section of the where she is repre
Byzantine augusta. point during book,
ceremonies her arrival in the she was sented in and the Eastern
marking imperial city, arriving Constantinople becoming
with a book a written in vernac In the is intro
presented containing poem augusta. last section, the betrothed
surviving
ular Greek and illustrated in such a way that, even to and enters new
lavishly duced her Such
Byzantine family. clearly
without the she could its transitions from outside to relate to the
knowing language, comprehend delineated inside
and message. This book, modest in scale yet highly
plot of the intended reader, the bride-to-be herself,
experience
and bound in the incorrect folio order, a rite de
sumptuous currently the The anthro
evoking progression through passage.
survives in form as Vatican Greek
fragmentary Manuscript structure of such a rite, Arnold van Gen
pological following
1851 (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana).2 As a and Victor the formation of com
nep Turner, promotes
present, its of the role
welcoming imagery speaks eloquently and social cohesion.5 Ceremonies
munity accompanying
in the court brides were to
Byzantine foreign expected play. a rite of therefore, stress
marriage, prime passage, generally
The book is also deeply embedded within a structure of as the of the ritual.
integration goal
ritual and of behavior inter
reciprocity, categories fruitfully The Vatican such a
manuscript, however, problematizes
Scholars of medieval art have in
preted by anthropology. as this article rit
straightforward reading because, contends,
embraced theories of and mutual
creasingly gift exchange ualized is not the same as ritual itself. The book's
depiction
made famous Mauss and
indebtedness by Marcel subsequent ritualized in other exceeds
pictorial schema, words, mimesis,
of Art historians have culled
generations anthropologists.3 as the rather than a ritual as
sources to demonstrate images, depicting preexisting
textual the of
primary significance out in and a set of
acted produce organize social
to medieval and Islamic socie reality,
largesse European, Byzantine, status
relations. This distinction is crucial, for it underlies the
ties.4 These anthropological studies highlight the modalities
of the book?as a endowed with a
of power in force at moments of object?the gift specific
gift exchange. Incorporating
social function. Moreover, this distinction sort
precludes any
the anthropology of gift giving, for example, Brigitte Buett of ritual an endeavor most called
reconstruction, recently
ner has examined the of visual in
recently centrality display
into question by Philippe Buc. Distinguishing between tex
ceremonial at the Valois court even in the absence
exchanges
tual of ceremonies and their actual
of art The of medieval descriptions perfor
surviving objects. paucity surviving
mances, Buc has shown how medieval authors wrote ritual for
in contrast to the abundance of their textual attesta
gifts,
For Buc, "texts were forces
has for the most dictated the somewhat limited contemporary political purposes.6
tions, part
in the of power" whose authors to
of the practice "sought impact
parameters anthropological inquiry.
the Buc's formulation suggests the poten
For the world, rich textual sources for directly present."7
Byzantine imperial
tial of the narration of ritual. In the case of the Vatican codex,
protocol adumbrate what kind of gifts are appropriate for
its visual and verbal articulations function as a tool
ambassadors both at court in Constantinople and political
foreign
that masks fracture as much as it creates cohesion. More
abroad, and rituals of and
they emphasize reciprocity display.
Buc's allows us to how certain art
Yet in stark contrast to these elaborate abstract tax broadly, theory recognize
though
survive that can be located within attain Gifts in constitute active
onomies of gifts, few objects objects agency.8 particular
an identifiable and fewer still that were agents of social change that mediate broader relations among
exchange context,
custom-made for that circumstance. Vat. 1851 is excep individuals and parties through the binding and solidifying of
gr.
tional as a illustrated book created for a The relation between visual and verbal compo
surviving particular allegiances.
on a certain occasion: a to welcome a nents of the Vatican evokes a ritual that
recipient present young manuscript pattern
French bride in Constantinople to marry the heir to The book does not a
arriving promotes integration. merely represent
the throne. The entire of the manu rite of passage; it facilitates full of a newcomer
Byzantine organization incorporation
script speaks to this purpose. the specificity of into the group, which is the of the ritual process.
Emphasizing larger goal
circumstance and of the manuscript shifts the focus The present therefore, the spe
imagery interpretation, interrogates
from the context and structures of that cific relation between an art and its potential for social
exchange generosity, object
is, concerns, to the of them agency.
anthropological efficacy gifts
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 459
Komnenian Kinship and Allegiance

Vat. 1851 makes visible some of the
gr. problems confronting
the policy of middle Byzantine dynastic consolidation and
at the end of the twelfth The Komnenoi,
expansion century.
ruling family of Byzantium from 1081 until 1185, had estab

lished imperial dominance through intermarriage with both
Byzantine and foreign aristocratic families. Under Alexios I
Komnenos (r. 1081-1118), the court titular was radi
system
cally transformed: new titles were invented and distributed to

family members, resulting in an imperial dynastic structure
whose organization is often described as clanlike.9 Study of
Vat. 1851 must be seen within this context of Komnenian
gr.
where an of
dynastic politics, unprecedented manipulation
marriage alliances and titles helped both to maintain family

cohesion and to further imperial agendas. Through what has
been described as a "new blood policy" of the later-twelfth
Komnenian were absorbed into
century emperors, spouses
the imperial family for political advancement.10 The Vatican
manuscript, however, does not simply reflect this policy but
also a on it, affording an to
provides commentary opportunity
consider and among the Komnenoi.
foreignness allegiance
The however, is not universally as a
manuscript, accepted
product of the late twelfth century. Owing to its exceptional

status as an made to be to a young bride,
object presented
Vat. 1851 a for art histo
gr. poses methodological problem
rians, and historians alike. Its text and illumina
philologists,
tions, unique in both style and subject matter, elude literary
and art historical categorization. The date of the codex is
highly disputed not only because the surviving folios preserve
no names but also because there are few
proper comparanda
for the images.11 Although the historical variables of the 1 Manuel I Komnenos and Marie of Antioch. Vatican City,
text?including titles and epithets employed?indicate that Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana Vat. gr. 1176, fol. 2r (photo:
the codex should be associated with the late-twelfth-century
? Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana)
diplomatic marriage alliance arranged between Louis VII of
France and the emperor Manuel I Komnenos,
Byzantine
many scholars, primarily
art historians, hold open the possi tistic production is provided by the suppedia, or imperial
bility of a later date.12 It is hard to deny that the story fits well cushions, on which members of the imperial family
stand.
within the historical context, but at first of these cushions differ be

late-twelfth-century Representations dramatically
glance the images look nothing like Komnenian artistic pro tween the Komnenian and the late Byzantine (Palaiologan)
duction in either style or iconography. Thus, in 1923 Jean periods.18 A lower jeweled edge is characteristic of suppedia
Ebersolt rejected the late-twelfth-century date based on the illustrated in the middle Byzantine period. In the Palaiologan
of dress that, he claimed, do not resemble other however, are with a clean lower
depictions period, suppedia represented
visual or textual from the middle instead of an ornamented band.19 two im
representations Byzantine edge Comparing
period.13 Stylistic discrepancies have led another scholar to perial portraits?one of Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143-80),
propose that the poem was

composed
for the late-twelfth the other of Manuel II Palaiologos (r. 1391-1425)?makes
century wedding but that the illuminations, which are the distinction evident. A mid-twelfth-century manuscript
in
claimed to be of a inferior to other late-twelfth-cen the Vatican, Vat. 1176, the Komnenian
quality gr. portrays imperial
tury paintings,
must date to the fourteenth
century.14
The
couple atop suppedia with clearly delineated lower bands
underlying assumption is that lesser quality
must be associ punctuated at regular intervals by square gems (Fig. 1 ) .20By
ated with later or provincial workshops. While the story, the contrast, in a
portrait
of a
Palaiologan emperor in an early
script, and the five ornate zoomorphic initials15 accord well fifteenth-century manuscript
in Paris, the smooth lower hem
with our
expectations of the elite Komnenian book culture, of the suppedion displays no separate ornamental band (Fig.
the images
seem
incongruous. 2).21 On the imperial cushions depicted throughout the
Despite Ebersolt's objection, which has been echoed more pages of Vat. gr. 1851, a lower hemline is visible, articulated
recently by Antonio Iacobini,16 various details throughout the with dabs of white to suggest pearls
or
gems.22
Vatican codex are consistent with middle Byzantine imagery. Beyond the details of imperial dress and suppedia, which
For the elaborate female and male headdresses can are much better situated within the twelfth than the four
example,
also be found in middle Byzantine imagery, in both religious teenth century, the style
of the miniatures has vexed art
and contemporary evidence historians who often describe it as "crude."23 how

iconography portraits.17 Strong Ultimately,
for a middle date consistent with Komnenian ar ever, the of the illuminations may more to
Byzantine style correspond
ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 3
460
pivotal to late Komnenian dynastic politics.25 The choice of a

French bride for his son is consistent with Manuel's pro-Latin
policy, often described as Latinophilia.26 Unlike his father
and grandfather, Manuel favored foreign marriages with the
Latin world.27 When Manuel's first wife, the German-born
Bertha of Sulzbach, arrived in Constantinople in 1142, the
court Theodore Pr?dromos delivered a ad
poet welcoming
dress that in many ways lays bare the ideological implications
of Bertha's German father, he
foreign marriages. Addressing
writes: "O great of the ancient and older Rome . . .
king glo
rious Conrad . . . now have risen in honour, now
you you
have been ennobled still further, because you have been
grafted into the Comnenian family and have been held to be
the heir of so an The rhetoric of horti
mighty Emperor."28
culture continues when Pr?dromos turns to the Western
bride and groom, the emperor
Byzantine congratulating
"who has a beautiful vine from the West, and has
transplanted
established it in the imperial gardens so that you [Bertha]
may embrace and with his own stock."29 En
grow together
in an address a bride, such
tirely appropriate welcoming
that new and new are
imagery suggests planting identity
central to Nominal further
dynastic solidarity.30 practices
underscore this Manuel's first wife, like most
ideology. Byz
antine imperial brides of foreign origin, changed her name
as a of full within her new
sign incorporation Greek-speaking
of Sulzbach took the name Irene,
community?Bertha
"Peace," the most common name brides.
adopted by foreign
The young of France, of the Vatican co
Agnes protagonist
dex, was also renamed on her arrival, she took a
although
name, Anna, that the first letter of her birth
preserved
si
name.
Both Angeliki Laiou and Paul Magdalino have explored

the and aristocratic controls, even of
imperial manipulations,
marital unions for advancement.32 Manuel I
sociopolitical
Komnenos was active in the and
2 Manuel II Palaiologos. Paris, Biblioth?que Nationale de particularly organization
France, 309, fol. 6r orchestration of aristocratic In 1166 the emperor
suppl. gr. marriages.
presided over a church council on marital policy and issued
an edict confirming the patriarchal decision to tighten the
restrictions on internal out this
marriages. Magdalino points
the kind of book it is and the particular circumstances of its policy made more Byzantine brides available for export, thus
creation. The Vatican codex does not exhibit the level of promoting exogamy.33 Strategic foreign marriages under the
quality associated with Komnenian book production both Komnenoi furthered dynastic or familial supremacy in an
because it is a different kind of commission?a special gift to unprecedented way: by incorporating outsiders, emperors
a young French bride?and because it is the unique surviving relied on marriage to integrate wider groups and facilitate
example of such an intimate illustrated book. Thus, if visual social advancement.
evidence
points
to a
twelfth-century date but the
images look In addition to officially legislating on marriage, Manuel
"crude," it may be more fruitful to the than also exercised over individual
explain imagery imperial regulatory authority
to redate the The narrative unfolds writes of the of
manuscript. manuscript's marriages. Magdalino perilous consequences
on a number of levels, the visual. Certain features a not authorized the "it could the
including marriage by emperor: upset
of the codex, including those that have been most
problem
new hierarchy of nobility, lead to the growth of factions,
atic for its dating, enable a viewer unfamiliar with Byzantine deplete the stock of imperial relatives available for making
court culture and the Greek language to follow its plot of new alliances or
rewarding loyal service, and, in general,
transformation and weaken the very basis of Comnenian
incorporation. power."34 Accordingly,
If the date is for the codex, then as threats to cohe
twelfth-century accepted unapproved marriages, perceived dynastic
the protagonists of the story can be inferred from the epithets sion, were often dissolved by the emperor and the parties
and titles that appear
on the pages and the contemporaneous involved punished. Eustathios of Thessaloniki recounts a
historicalcontext.24 Agnes the daughter was
of Ad?le of vivid episode in which one of Manuel's ministers had his nose
Champagne and Louis VII of France. Her betrothal to Alex cut off for attempting
to marry above his station.35
ios, son of Manuel I Komnenos and his second Manuel himself was married twice, both times to women
purple-born
wife, Marie of Antioch, who are also depicted in the book, was from prominent royal families of Germany and France, and
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 45I
he Western matches for his children as well. His ... Iwas [it/the matter] and Iwas divided
arranged considering
first German wife, Bertha-Irene, addressee of Pr?dromos's within myself,
bore the a Maria and of unbearable, fearful,
poem, emperor daughter, Porphyrogenita, pains
but no son.36 With no male heir in Maria a great and intolerable anxieties consumed my heart.
sight, occupied
central in Manuel's the emperor first
position foreign policy:
offered her hand to B?la of Hungary, who would I said: the one who is indissoluble from
presumably inseparable,
then have succeeded him as the next emperor. me,
Byzantine
After Bertha-Irene Manuel wed Marie of An she who is my eyes and soul, breath, heart,
died, however,
tioch in 1169, and she bore him a long-awaited male heir, the sustenance, comfort, release from pain,
future Alexios II. It then became crucial for Manuel's alleviation of my grief, increase of my life,
daugh
ter to marry someone who would no threat to the and sustenance of my breath?how shall I let her
pose go?
succession of his son. Thus, Manuel dissolved the betrothal of How would I be able to see the loss of my daughter?
B?la to Maria and instead for Renier of Montferrat How would I be able to endure such a bitterness?
arranged
to travel to Constantinople in 1179 to marry her.37 At the [and] how shall I tolerate such an unendurable grief?
time of the wedding, Maria was It is very difficult to accomplish and I shall not attempt
Porphyrogenita nearing thirty,
was a it.
whereas Renier still teenager.
Within a month of the of Maria and Renier,
wedding
But then, I turned my mind to the O Mon
of France, for whom the Vatican manu greatness,
nine-year-old Agnes
arch, of your
was married Alexios, who was to succeed his empire,
script produced,
to the fear of your to the of your deeds
father as emperor. The took in 1180, as power, glory
weddings place early
and the of your throne,
it the same Manuel died.38 Because of the splendor
happens, year
I did not wish at all to disregard your letter.
concerns for succession, he left
emperor's dynastic imperial
And lo and behold I send you [as] bride my much
power in the hands of his foreign-born widow, Marie of
beloved daughter,
Antioch, as for their son, who was wed to another
regent
from me, O ruler,
of France. This inseparable powerful
Westerner, Agnes arrangement precluded
that another second father she may discover,
Maria from substantial or hoping
Porphyrogenita exercising any legit
the great autokrator and father-in-law in you.
imate power. the death, latent tensions
Following emperor's
between Latin and native factions into
Byzantine erupted are a
These words in the form of letter to the
presented
open revolt, headed by Maria Porphryogenita; this was followed and make reference to earlier from
emperor correspondence
violent
by suppression.39 the same Eastern autokrator have constituted at
(which may
The incorporation of a French princess into the imperial
least part of the missing preceding folia) ,42The language of
as the wife of the future suited Manuel's
family emperor the Western is His
response words of la
king's significant.
dynastic logic, and while the Franco-Byzantine union inspired ment the inalienable relation of father to daugh
it should not be
emphasize
the creation of the Vatican read
manuscript, ter or bride to homeland. The the voice of the
poet, assuming
as a wholehearted endorsement of Komnenian marital pol describes her as indissoluble." She is
father, "inseparable,
of exogamy was not
icy. Manuel's strategy universally popular, of being unbraided or disentangled
literally incapable (anek
and Maria as rival of newcomer exer
Porphyrogenita, Agnes, lutoton or Yet the greatness of the Byzantine
anekplokon).
cised influence at court. The book made for
significant Agnes is strong to break this bond.
emperor enough
to these court tensions. It is altogether
responds appropriate After this lamentation from the Western father,
epistolary
that the book, as an of a series of rituals de
integral part the narrator's voice switches to the first person of the poet
to welcome the aural accla
signed foreign bride?including the (fol. 2r) :
directly addressing princess
mations, recitations of and the ex
processions, panegyric,
of The greatly powerful
change gifts?should emphasize incorporation, especially and fearful king,43
on a visual level, as she most did not know any
purely likely your ruler and father, after these with
revealing things
Greek when she arrived. The of the Vatican tears
organization many
codex a visual from to tran to my awesome
presents progression separation ruler, the emperor of the Romans,
sition to basic structural features of a rite he kissed and bade you farewell.
incorporation?the
of would facilitate into the And immediately he sends forth a light sea-faring vessel
passage?that Agnes's integration
At the same time, the masks with a to the with
imperial family. program signif congratulator porphyrogenitos great
icant voices of contestation.
speed.
Below these words, a framed miniature, lines of text tall,

eight
Separation a domed structure surrounded walls sur
depicts by city
The first section of the extant codex focuses on the mounted in turn surrounded water. In the
negotia by turrets, by
tions for the marital alliance and is dominated by the voice upper right corner of the miniature, the Greek letters H
and action of the two fathers. The story begins with text alone nOAIS, "the city," are legible, and in the upper left corner
on both recto and verso (fol. The narrative starts another refers to Con
8).40 inscription, though badly damaged,
abruptly in the middle of a speech by the unnamed Western stantinople (Fig. 3).44 Even without the inscription, the city
king, father of the bride-to-be:41 can be identified as the Byzantine capital not only by com
462
3 View of Constantinople. Vatican
City, BAV Vat. gr. 1851, fol. 2r (photo:

parison with other depictions of the imperial city but also on golden gate to the viewer below. The manuscript illumina
the basis of the textual narrative that precedes it and the tion situates the church
within the city walls, providing a
visual one that follows it. single image denoting the most salient and famed topo
Though the text does not explicitly mention Constanti graphic features of the Eastern imperial capital, its "high
nople by name, the illumination supplements and completes walls and lofty towers" as described by the French Crusader
the text by displaying a visualization of the princess's desti Geoffroy Villehardouin in 1203.46
nation. The artist a of the famed walls Both and mosaic adhere to tradi
paints picture city Byzantine manuscript
surrounded by water and the Great Church with its detailed tional medieval pictorial conventions for rendering cities
tympanum, dome, and cross. Iacobini aptly draws a compar from a slightly elevated perspective.47 And yet the Vatican
ison between the representation of this church and that in illuminator has attenuated this perspectival tradition to em
the lunette mosaic of the southwest vestibule of Hagia Sophia phasize specific architectural features. Although the domed
4).45 In this monumental church, dominates the manuscript's view,
(Fig. tenth-century image, Justinian Hagia Sophia, city
holds a model of Hagia Sophia while Constantine carries a the gate to the city constitutes the focal point. The image
model of the city itself, displaying its walls and illustrious combines a frontal
perspective that stresses the gate with a
4 Enthroned Virgin and Child

between Constantine and Justinian.
Istanbul, Hagia south vestibule
Sophia,
(photo: Alinari / Art Resource, NY)
more elevated view. The combination The combination of gestures that the
cartographic bird's-eye upper register. signifies
leads the viewer's gaze from a
vantage point detached and messenger gives the scroll to the figure before him but that its
outside the city straight
to the
city's
entrance. At the same final destination is one level above. On either side of this
time, the composition offers a glimpse of what lies behind central act of transmission stand more
Byzantine courtiers,
the gate through
a
mysterious open window that draws dressed on the right in purple, and on the far left, behind the
the curious eye farther in.48 Ultimately, this movement messenger, in a lighter color and further distinguished by a
from outside (via the slightly elevated cartographic angle) white hat that projects upward, breaking the ground line into
to inside (through doors and windows) expands visually the upper register.49
The same distinctive headdress is also
with the turn of the page. The full-page miniatures that faced worn
by
a
group of courtiers in the far upper right
corner of
each other in the original foliation (now fols. 2v and 7r) the page. Worn by figures facing to the left, the pointed
the arrival of the sent West create a
by the
represent headdresses the and
"congratulator" diagonal, framing beginning
ern to the as was recounted in the text a the end of the narrative In this way, subtleties of
king porphyrogenitos, registers.
earlier. dress, a central of the formal idiom,
page component Byzantine
The on the verso, divided into three un function as for the viewer,
image registers, signposts facilitating recognition
folds from bottom to top and from left to right (Fig. 5). Amid and comprehension of the story.
large waves, a dark ship sails toward land located on the right As distinctive as the headdresses are, it is the scroll that
of the lowest zone. Six passengers dressed in red and both and advances the narrative. In the
edge formally thematically
are seated in the boat, and a seventh in the scroll?the manifestation of the
green figure, larger upper register, physical
scale than the rest and dressed in red but with no headdress, message from the Western that had been narrated ver
king
disembarks on the right with the help of a figure in blue and bally
two folios earlier?is presented
to the enthroned em
gold (whose upper half is rendered illegible by paint loss). peror by the purple-clad courtier who received it on the level
These two characters bridge the bottom two
registers,
for below. Dignitaries flank the emperor along with his son, the
mally breaking the ground line that separates them. In the porphyrogenitos
whom the message concerns and who, like his
middle level, the same messenger, or

"congratulator,"
as father, wears the imperial crown and long jeweled scarf or
described in the text, still recognizable by his bright red stole called the loros.With imperial cushions at their feet and
garment and lack of headdress, kneels before a figure clad in large haloes around their crowned heads, father and son turn
who wears a white conical headdress that toward each other as the scroll is placed in the
purple, designates emperor's
him a member of the court. Their interaction hand.
Byzantine
constitutes the focal point of the central register: the messen The action
continues on the facing folio (7r), another
ger offers a white letter to the imperial courtier with one full-page miniature, this time divided into two registers (Fig.
hand while with the other (and with his gaze) he gestures 6). In the lower zone, the emperor, holding the white scroll,
to the enthroned at the center of the and his son, a cruciform staff, toward the
upward personage carrying proceed
464
1"^?x^i
5 Arrival of Messengers. Vat. gr. 1851,

fol. 2v (photo: ? Biblioteca Apost?lica
Vaticana)
and to ascend a staircase. Above, the with the news that a messenger was sent to con
right begin prominent concluding
family stands together firmly and solemnly atop gratulate the porphyrogenitos but making no mention of the
imperial
lavish suppedia,
the emperor in the center and the crowned message's reception. The images then pick up the story by
prince on the left; both look at the empress on the right, who detailing the specific
scenes that move toward a culmination
returns her husband's

gaze.50
In front of the two male
impe
in the upper register of folio 7r: first Constantinople is seen
rial figures a diminutive courtier or herald holds open the from a distance
(Fig. 3), then the foreign ambassador arrives
scroll, presumably reading aloud the announcement of the by boat (Fig. 5); next the rolled scroll, the text itself, is passed
betrothal. This message has taken several forms: the words of from hand to hand until its logical end, where it is unrolled
the Western father-to-be spelled
out in Greek vernacular; the in the upper register of folio 7r and read aloud by the herald.
same words converted into a scroll delivered to the court The text establishes an expectation that is fulfilled visually. It
(Fig. 5); and finally the words unrolled and returned to is significant that the narration shifts from verbal to visual
spoken voice (Fig. 6). precisely where the letter and the reader enter Constanti
Read as must be,51 these two illu

together they full-page nople.
minations establish an innovative relationship
between text The verso of folio 7 describes the reaction inspired by the
and the visual advances the narrative betrothal. Rather than the forward, or describ
image whereby beyond moving story
the textual. The text the words of the father, what we have seen the next page,
emphasizes ing textually visually, again
6 Announcement of the Betrothal.

Vat. gr. 1851, fol. 7r (photo:
in the voice of the poet, relates the emotions aroused the This does not the movement of the betrothal
by speech report
announcement of the nuptials (Fig. 7) : message, from
kingly words recounted, to messenger, to
scroll, to herald's voice. Instead, it describes the universal

When such a came to the ruler, sentiments of joy that result from the announcement of the
message
who has the strength to recount the joy of his heart, betrothal. Although the book opens with an expression of
the delight of the people and of all his faithful [sub pain
at
potential separation (fol. 8r-v), the sentiment here
jects], has turned to elation at the implied promise of the bride's

of well-born kin high and low, arrival. And between these emotive textual passages, the im
of the senate, and of citizens within and without [the agery presents
a different narrative of movement and ex
city]? change of information.

It can be said simply, in so short and brief a word, In terms of narrative time, however, text and image
come
that from the emperor to any chance individual, on folio 7. The on the verso constitutes a
together speech
the announcement incited in all of them, moment of
stillness and reflection as the rhythm of the
one exultation and
expectation
and acceptance in their
preceding images comes to a halt in front of the imperial
hearts.
family in the upper register of folio 7r while the message is
This joy and anticipation existed in everyone. read aloud. This interplay between physical delivery of the
466 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 3
7 Arrival of a Vat. gr.

Messenger.
1851, fol. Ir (photo: ? Biblioteca
Apost?lica Vaticana)
letter, its
being read aloud, and then its content being ab platform hidden from view by a curtain that was pulled open
sorbed establishes a that is sustained both at the moment, indicated sound and to
tempo textually appropriate by lights,
and visually
in the subsequent pages of the codex. Such a reveal the imperial family standing immobile, surrounded by
creates
the ritualistic or ceremonial until the curtain was closed. the emperor's
performative exchange lights Replacing
that permeates the book. The pattern of appearance to his at the this new cere
rhythm alternating people hippodrome,
and arrests recalls ceremonial as monial form of presentation obviated the distraction of char
progressions processions
described in texts, distinguished by the alternation of move iot races or
games and allowed a much more
stringent reg
ment and stillness and punctuated by the roar of the crowd's ulation of the imperial image.53 This ritual restriction trans
acclamation or the silence of its visual reflection. The first few formed the act of beholding the emperor into the equivalent
images of the Vatican manuscript unfold with a sense of rapid of being granted a privilege or gift. Although the audience
movement only to halt in the upper register of folio 7r in an for a
prokypsis ceremony was
large and public,
as
opposed
to
imperial tableau vivant that has been described as the picto the intimate and even
solitary experience of reading
the
rial equivalent to the Byzantine prokypsis ceremony.52 Taking Vatican

manuscript,
a sense of stasis characterizes the culmi
its name from the stage
on which it was performed, the nation of both the ceremonial performance and the pictorial
prokypsis ceremony enacted a ritualized imperial epiphany. sequence. They share a similar strategy of
managing
and
The emperor and his family ascended a special stage or exhibiting imperial presence.
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA
467
as the of the Vatican codex with textual Hail of Rome, monarch,

Just poet plays emperor unconquered
with direct and in among all the dynasts in the universe,
genres?interspersing epistolary speeches unparalleled
direct the artist combines two distinct all rulers on the earth.
speech?so pictorial surpassing
conventions to a visual and momentum that From now on, the one whom you wanted and
produce rhythm yearned
bear ritualistic overtones. Continuous narration, in which to
gain,
indicate a in time, builds toward the noble, the beauty of the West,
repeated figures progression ripe maiden, entirely
the image of stasis that draws on officiai
portraiture trends, the fame of the East and of all the inhabited world,
exemplified by the likenesses of Manuel I Komnenos and with the help of God, you may see her in a few days.
Marie of Antioch in Vat. gr. 1176 (Fig. I).54 This slightly Let
everything for her
reception be prepared.
earlier of the same their I the son of my
portrait imperial couple emphasizes congratulate porphyrogenitos emperor,
immobile
majesty
as Manuel and Marie stare out of the page because he was fortunate and acquired [a bride] at a
as living icons of imperium. In the upper register of folio 7r tender age.
of Vat. 1851, the artist a austere
gr. stages similarly imperial
but inserts allusions to time and narrative: the future events, this letter announces that the
presentation Foreshadowing
herald reads aloud the announcement while the gazes of the Western bride, who at the of the codex was said to
beginning
are interlocked. Even the format of the double be from her father, would be soon. At
protagonists inseparable arriving
register precludes seeing the upper scene in isolation from this point, it is clear that, both thematically and formally, the
the ascending staircase below, evocative of the ascent of information constitutes a central theme of the
perhaps delivery
to the prokypsis platform. codex and is articulated
through the rhythmic alternation of
Through the alternation of modes of speech and visual text and

image that sets the pace for the narration. Margaret
genres, the first section of Vat. gr. 1851 evokes a ritual sepa Mullett a similar emphasis in the illustrated copy of
has noted
ration. It begins in the middle of an epistolary lament from Skylitzes' Synopsis historiarum inMadrid (Bibl. Nac. vitr. 26-2)
the father of the bride and ends with a subtle allusion to a "on ceremony, on the transaction, on the
public
nature of
ceremony whose is to make on the social and of

express purpose Byzantine impe letter-exchange, political importance
rial presence more real. The bride does not appear in communication."57 In it, communication is both
young emphasized
visual form in these first pages; her absence establishes the and The miniature on folio 75v, for exam
textually visually.
distance for a to be constructed. an of letters between a em
necessary Byzantine augusta ple, depicts exchange Byzantine
peror and a in which, between the two rulers in their
caliph
tents, three of the messenger, each with
Transition respective depictions
a pause in the narrative, the text continues on the slightly different body language, represent three separate
Following
se moments in the exchange (Fig. 8).58 On the left, the envoy
succeeding folio (fol. Ir), briefly ushering in the next
stands erect, the scroll from the Byzantine emperor;
of events. The describes the for the receiving
quence poet preparations
on the right, in a slightly bowed posture of respect, he offers
arrival of the bride-to-be:
it to the caliph; and in the center, he strides back toward the
on the left. In the Vatican codex, the of
emperor delivery
As the was the
emperor preparing wedding arrange information the narrative: the initial words of the
propels
ments, father are as a letter to the emperor to be
presented textually
another message from the ambassadors
again read the viewer; are then transformed into the visual
by they
came to the full of
emperor great joy. marker of the scroll and pictorially delivered to the court of
And the words of the were these:
golden proclamation to be read aloud. Then a second
Constantinople message,
from the Western to the Eastern ruler, also arrives as a
again
A framed miniature, below these verses, oc scroll, whose text on the verso, the next
badly damaged appears inaugurating
cupies more than half the page (Fig. 7) .55At first glance the sequence of events. Whereas the first segment of the book
appears similar to the earlier scene of opens with a farewell in the form of a lament,59 the
composition strikingly painful
a message being delivered (Fig. 5): the enthroned emperor, next section begins with a
joyous proclamation?voiced
at the center of the composition,
receives a
message in the
through letters of the father of the betrothed, speech acts
form of a scroll. The the both and recorded as letters.
general arrangement replicates imagined
earlier scene but with details to the new circum The Western father's announcement that in
particular provoked joy
stance of the narrative. all who it initiates, as his letter a narrative
Here, unaccompanied by his son, the heard earlier did,
emperor is flanked on both sides by court dignitaries who sequence that is amplified visually on the next surviving page
wear the same distinctive as those in Figure 5.56 The of the book. a lacuna in the the text
headgear Following manuscript,60
letter is delivered not by a court intermediary but by aWest resumes on the recto of folio 3 with a description of the
ern who is his red Western in territories,
representative again recognizable by garb princess's reception Byzantine begin
and lack of headdress. As in the earlier scene, the scroll, with a letter, an and a
ning zoomorphic eagle-shaped my,
passing from the hand of the Western messenger to the full-page

miniature on the verso. The poet, textually,
and the
Eastern emperor,
serves as the focal point. painter, visually, address the bride directly and elaborate the
The content of this message, the is details of her
"golden proclamation," reception:
in verbal form on the verso. Here the poet
given again
assumes the voice of the Western father and After these, he sent all the female relatives,
congratulates
the Eastern emperor: up to and I believe,
seventy beyond,
8 The of Correspondence
Exchange
f between the Byzantine Emperor and
the Caliph, from Chronicle ofJohn
Skylitzes. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional,
vitr. 26-2, fol. 75v
they
were all descendants of caesars and sebastokrators Other textual accounts of the arrival of a foreign bride
and crown-bearing despots, purple-sprung. similarly describe the donning of appropriate attire.62 Dress,
The emperor sent ahead one of the selected women, in station, and are all in John Kin
recognition emphasized
whom namos's of the arrival of Bertha of Sulzbach in
description
he had much confidence, so that she might receive 1142 to marry Manuel I Komnenos. According to the histo
[you] before the rest rian, Bertha was met
by
a
specific group of noblewomen, and
and she alone might

see you on his behalf, in a more one, distinguished by her close familial relation to the impe
affectionate manner, rial "wore a of linen and for the rest was
family, garment
. . . the dark
and
change you into Roman despoina garb,
adorned in gold and purple purple of the linen
along with all the other accessories/insignia suitable for caused her to be noticed by the newcomer."&2> Just
as Kinnamos
the augusta. stresses that dress may have helped a young bride arriving in
And in such a way, everyone could see you and venerate members of her future so in the
Byzantium recognize family,
you. Vatican manuscript do depictions of dress help the viewer
identify the people depicted and grasp their importance.
To emphasize the prestige of the event, the poet enumerates The full-page illumination on the verso of folio 3 visually
the high echelons into which the princess will be welcomed, depicts the bride's arrival and transformation (Fig. 9). The
attention to titles as one would miniature, divided into three advances the
paying special courtly expect separate registers,
from a period in which titles were increasingly created and narrative in a manner
distinctly different from the previous
granted. Titles clearly distinguished social rank in Byzantium. scenes. Within an ornate crimson border, upper and lower
were certain colors and of are set apart a surmounted by small
They accompanied by patterns by white
registers bridge
dress, as well as inclusion or exclusion from ceremo crosses and over houses and other build
physical statuary, stretching
nies, which demarcated hierarchy.
In a late-ninth- or
early ings. The landscape, despite its dissimilarities with the earlier
tenth-century description of a
procession
in
Constantinople, image of Constantinople (Fig. 3), shares with it the fact that
for describes how ten thousand it is surrounded seawalls and water.64 Whereas the formal
Harun-ibn-Yahya, example, by
people dressed in one color followed another ten thousand
imperial spaces of the first few images of the codex were
dressed in another color to convey a striped effect. While the demarcated by clear ground lines, here a
bridge, the entry
numbers are the nonetheless into marks and divisions.
surely exaggerated, report Constantinople, spatial temporal
evokes a sense of the visual of court strata, where rare in Byzantine art, are rich with associ
color-coding Extremely bridges
ranking individuals are orchestrated according
to proces ations of liminal transformation particularly well suited to the
sional bands of color.61 The Vatican manuscript likewise depiction of the arrival of a bride, and topographical accu
suggests this correlation of color and dress to station when racy would take second place to the charged symbolism of
the poet
announces that, after the bride was
initially wel such a motif denoting transition.65 It dominates the full-page
comed on a small scale, she changed into
clothing appropri illumination in which the protagonist sheds the clothing of
ate for her new rank of augusta before being presented to all. her homeland and adopts attire befitting her new identity as
9 Arrival and of the Princess. Vat. gr. 1851, fol. 3v ? Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana)
Reception (photo:
470
augusta, thus in a social system where station was into dress and are seen and venerated.67 These
participating augusta "you"
visually marked by dress. verbal deictic clues parallel
the frontal gaze of the princess.
The action on this page unfolds from top to bottom in two This static pose arrests the momentum of the narrative and
distinct manners: on the the narrative from left allows the viewer, who was the bride
top proceeds simultaneously originally
to as if the were across the while herself, to with the on the After travers
right, figures moving bridge, identify image page.
information in the lower area is conveyed in an iconic or
ing the bridge, the symbolic threshold of Byzantium, and
frontal manner. We first encounter the in the upper attire, the outward manifestation of her
princess changing identity,
left corner where, in front of a small of the new looks out from the iden
standing group augusta page, encouraging
Western women, she is welcomed several tification and Here the viewer would
by Byzantine participation. recognize
women, in a scale. Costume mo herself in the her own while at the
significantly depicted larger pages, returning gaze,
tifs also distinguish the two groups: the members of the same time see herself
visually
transformed. For
emphasis,
a
are dressed in solid red and blue, the small crimson cross the border of the
princess's entourage surmounting upper
outer layer of their mantles pulled up to cover their heads. In miniature at the exact center of the page is
vertically aligned
contrast, the Byzantine
women wear elaborate headdresses, with the white cross at the center of the bridge and the
with or veils and frontal of the whose halo is outlined in crim
replete dangling earrings jewel-encrusted gaze princess,
pearl-fringed purple and gold cloaks reminiscent of Kin son. Such clues render the narrative
intelligible
on a
purely
namos's of Bertha of Sulzbach's arrival. The visual level.
description prin
cess, like her wears a red tunic, but her
companions, simple
head is bare and surrounded by a halo outlined in red. In the Incorporation
corner of the on the other side of the another lacuna,68 the announces the next
upper right page, Following poet
she appears now dressed in event for the bride-to-be (fol. 5r-v). The text be
bridge, again, Byzantine garb. significant
Here she wears a and dress with sleeves, midsentence and continues with an
gold purple long gins enlarged marginal
elaborately outlined with pearls, and stands atop
an ex letter kappa on line 3:
tremely abstracted dais or suppedion while two Byzantine
women as . . . and
ladies-in-waiting (or Western dressed Byzantines) the indescribable grace and the
exceptional
attend to her. In a sense, she has arrived once she
truly only j?y
has crossed the bridge and changed into the dress that visu
ally
asserts her new role as a
Byzantine augusta. And this [is my account] of your male and female
The lower zone the culmination of the transfor relatives,
represents
mation process: the a third time, the nobles of land, all the ones,
princess appears recogniz your great
able by her halo and new dress, sitting enthroned and bejew who with indescribable joy
eled, surrounded by appropriately garbed Byzantine ladies and an imperial procession befitting your majesty
Not are we shown the solemn come with to the Ausonian ruler.69
in-waiting.66 only augusta you
marked as of veneration or as is After this awesome encounter, I think,
visually worthy proskynesis,
stated in the text, but the image, presented indescribable and horrible, I come to another
commanding meeting,
seems to cause the narrative to come to a halt. In more fearful and more indescribable,
frontally, entirely
this sense, this lower, static scene of presentation formally and I tremble lest from the indescribability of that
parallels that of the imperial family on folio 7r with its allu meeting,
sion to ceremonial stasis 6). Where the action on folio heart break and tear and be torn from me,
(Fig. my may
7r proceeds in the lower register from left to right toward the or some
great pain may occur after.
stilled scene of above, the action in folio 3v But from the ones,
presentation despite grave danger great
progresses from left to right in the upper register toward the and though an agonizing death may lie before me
stilled action below. The artist used the same narrative for because of this
mulation but changed the action that stopped forward mo and Imay be lost completely and inexorably from this
tion: movement is arrested in (fol. world,
sequential proclamation
7r) on the one hand and in presentation (fol. 3v) on the I will dare, my augusta, all matters of your honor,
other. But in folio 3v the narrative is driven not by the scroll, and I will write in detail, whatever may befall me.
the father's words recorded textually, but by the very body of
the betrothed herself. The document of the betrothal was The implies the majesty of her
poet reception, which pre
transformed from emotional words of
separation (fol. 8r-v) sumably would have been recounted in the preceding lost
to or (fol. lv), and but seems more concerned with the next event or at
joyous promise "golden proclamation" pages,
here, pictorially, the subject of the betrothal, the bride-to-be, least with the anxiety that it provokes in him. Although the
undergoes
a similar transition
resulting
in her own
golden poet describes his emotional state, he omits all details about
adornment and veneration. what next or where it might occur. The sub
might happen
Significantly, the lowest zone of folio 3v is the only surviv sequent miniatures provide these details. Another framed
scene in the codex in which the confronts of a structures turrets
city with
young domed and surrounded
ing princess image
the viewer's gaze, staring
out from the page in an attitude of by water lies below the text on folio 5v (Fig. 10). Although the
deixis. In earlier textual the hails the reader illumination bears no the must refer to Con
passages, poet inscription, city
explicitly
in the second-person singular:
on folio 2r "your" stantinople, not only because of its formal similarity with the
father bids "you" farewell; on folio 3v, "you" have changed
earlier cityscape (Fig. 3) but also because of what happens
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 47J
"nhDfiarilfa**Sr
enow.
l?ilifglMi apttajrosps*
'* ' ""

^W^MNf^?^
?4*?**?:
10 View of Constantinople. Vat. gr. 4%'

1851, fol. 5v (photo: ? Biblioteca
Apost?lica Vaticana)
next in the narrative. as the other view sets the "near the walls outside the ..." (fol. 6r, lines
Just city stage page, great city.
for the dramatic events that unfold in pictorial form on the 1-2). In
preparation
for the next
important
narrative segment,
next page, this scene, too, contains the context this relocates the and reorients the viewer.
topographic cityscape setting
for the facing page, which represents in a large miniature the Throughout
the codex, topography is a central concern. In
meeting of the Byzantine and foreign princesses outside the addition to the bridge that spans a coastal landscape lined
walls of the city. with seawalls, the city is circumscribed
by walls and water. For
The small city view gives a schematic indication of the a foreign princess arriving in the Byzantine capital by sea,
setting of this meeting, emphasizing the aspects of the city these images
stress the naval character of her new home and
that are most

important for
understanding
the narrative. the new ties that will be created through her. The signifi
Whereas the first city view drew the eye in and offered a cance of the topographic scenes is heightened by the fact that
glimpse of the interior where the events of the following page they allude to views of Constantinople, visual depictions of
would take place, the less elevated vantage point of the which are
extremely
rare in
Byzantine art.70 Certain topo
second cityscape
accentuates the exterior of the city, espe graphic features highlighted by the artist may carry weightier
cially its seawalls. As a sign, this emphasis anticipates the associations for the intended viewer as
they may evoke, even
corresponding
words in the same
position
on the
facing trigger, the memory of the bride's arrival. While difficult if
472
not to determine where the Genoese saints so as to serve as a At its most basic,
impossible exactly ship portable chapel.78
carrying Agnes would have docked in 1179, it most likely the tent constitutes a moveable shelter, an intermediate space
sailed along the Golden Horn toward the Blachernai Palace somewhere between permanent masonry and an encamp
and docked in that vicinity, outside the city walls, as detailed ment in the open. For men either at war or on a hunt, a tent
in the text.71 an extension of the For a be

provides palace. Byzantine
to a number of other accounts, the arrival of a trothed it signifies an interior space for her
According princess, private
foreign bride was accomplished in stages: the first included use in a foreign land and an intermediate space of intimacy
an informal docking and reception by female representatives before
entering the palace. Precisely such a motif structures
of the
royal
house and a
changing
of garments; the second the setting of the "indescribable" meeting that inspired terror
was the formal and solemn ceremonial in the At this moment of emotive terror, the text falls
procession replete poet.
with acclamations.72 A similar is enacted in the mute and the take up the narrative thread. In other
progression images
Vatican three scenes that anchor words, the on the continues the
manuscript's topographic painter, facing page, project
the narrative. The first of the city views on folio 2r emphasizes started the poet who claims to be unable to describe the
by
the most prominent features of the imperial city: her high encounter.
walls and towers, on the one hand, and Within the tent, and time are further subdi
Hagia Sophia, spiri larger space
tual center of the empire,
on the other (Fig. 3). The elevated vided between foreground and background. In the upper
uses the as a focal to attract the to area, at the of the tent, two women embrace: are
perspective gate point eye apex they
the great church. The at the center allude to one of each with halo, elaborate dress, and hair ar
gate may depicted long
the two the route in a on
by boat
gates braid that reaches the floor, the
imperial along processional ranged single nearly
between the Blachernai Palace, primary residence of the left blond and on the right dark brown. The long blond plait
Komnenoi since the late eleventh and is discernible a few back, where the Western
century, Hagia pages princess
The bridge dominates the second topographic arrives and changes into Byzantine dress (Fig. 9). Such a
Sophia.73
scene on folio 3v, but the over which it stretches visual clue allows the viewer to the Western
landscape identify princess
may be equally significant (Fig. 9). The domed church at the and her soon-to-be Eastern sister-in-law, who is described on
far left, a reference to indicate a the The same are at the base
likely Hagia Sophia, may following page. figures repeated
of time and new orientation to the Unlike of the tent, sit to
progression city. indicating temporal progression: they
the first view, which entices the the second, on folio in conversation, at the lower left in
city eye, gether, presumably deep
5v (and the third topographic scene; Fig. 10), with its stress a
canopied pavilion demarcated by intricate patterns of red
on the external and towers, reorients the viewer with a silk brocade, whose red foliate circles echo the
gates symmetrical
position still outside the great city. These topographic im women's red haloes. To the right, outside the enclosure,
therefore, echo in visual terms the of the bride's three women, each with a different ornate headdress,
ages, stages pre
arrival. They orient the viewer to narrative shifts that may in
sumably ladies of the Byzantine court, stand and watch the
some have resonated with the conventions for the ritu
way exchange.
alized arrivals of brides in Consistent with the relation between text and
foreign Byzantium. image
the third scene, the miniature on folio the here the verbal means of trans
Facing topographic throughout manuscript,
6r, above four lines of text, sets forth the location of the mission shifts to the visual. The poet, melodramatic
despite
"indescribable" meeting in exquisite detail (Fig. 11). In the exclamations of fear, states that he will record their meeting,
upper left corner,
against
a flat
gold background
and framed but in fact he does not. Only the pictures depict the meeting
a dark foliate hovers a closed crimson tent orna of the two the same visual strategy here
by hedge, princesses. Employing
mented with a tree motif on its two outer It is partially as elsewhere to facilitate the artist intro
flaps. comprehension,
obstructed another lavish tent, most the same duces the general with the small on
by probably topography cityscape
one later in time, which dominates the
composition.
Its
flaps
folio 5v (Fig. 10), then delineates the exterior space of the
are open to reveal the drama occurring
within. Extending
tent in the upper left corner of folio 6r (Fig. 11), which is
the borders of the miniature frame, the of the in the main space of the page to expose the events
beyond flaps opened
tent are tethered that are anchored inside. This of space
larger by ropes beyond taking place progressive penetration
the limit of the page.74 occurs at each
stage in time: after a detached
city view, the eye
Tents appear often in Byzantine art, and, while they
are less is led to the outside of the tent in the distance, then to the top
symbolically charged than bridges, their connotations and of the tent that defines the middle space, and then even
contexts merit further The Madrid further into the intimate crimson in the
exploration. Skylitzes pavilion foreground.
is replete with visual of tents in scenes In a similar ceremonial that permeates the entire
manuscript depictions rhythm
of and the narrative of the book, this movement ends in
military encampments involving sieges, receptions, progressive
of letters In addition, tents connote stasis, in this instance with the two framed silk.
exchange (Fig. 8).75 princesses by
courtly life and the hunt.76 As a particularly fluid visual motif, While the preceding text merely implies the importance of
the tent further accrues female associations. In the the event, the words below the (fol. 6r), con
epic directly image
Digenis Akritis, an embroidered tent with depictions of ani tinuing

on the verso (fol. 6v), describe not the encounter but
mals is listed as part of a dowry.77 The late Byzantine historian merely

the locale, situating
the meeting outside the walls of
George Pachymeres describes a

particularly interesting
tent the illustrious Byzantine capital:
that accompanied Maria, illegitimate daughter of Emperor
Michael VIII Palaiologos, when she left Constantinople to Near the walls outside the great city,
a khan, as decorated with of the magnificent castle of the land of the Romans
marry Mongol richly images
11 Meeting of the Two Princesses. Vat. gr. 1851, fol. 6r ? Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana)
(photo:
474
or rather, more beautiful than all [others] under the in the work of Theodore Pr?
pervades marriage hymns
heaven, dromos, and Eustathios of Thessaloniki describes a bride and
the castle with which no other can be at all, as two animate stars at their This
compared groom meeting.81 metaphor
whether you in or of the shifts in the Vatican where the two are
speak praise speak reality, manuscript princesses
[the castle] in which on the following day it was ar likened to stars, the Western bride to
unmistakably superior
ranged the This passage and one other
Byzantine porphyrogenita.
the emperor of the Romans, that see the from the "conventional," and both treat
by you may depart significantly
great autokrator the of the Western and Eastern The first
meeting princesses.
and your father-in-law, augusta, with utmost passage on folio 5r-v, where the announces his
splendor, appears poet
[then] she came out, sister-in-law, the first terror at the fearful encounter. While
your describing Byzantine
of the emperor and basilissa in order to meet often claim the task of to be difficult, even
daughter poets writing
you the of the events nar
impossible, given magnitude being
and to venerate your majesty
as a servant. rated, the grave danger (perhaps death) that the Vatican
With what sort of utmost splendor did she go out? poet fears "from the great ones" is extremely rare, if not
unattested. these two textual

Jeffreys explicates idiosyncrasies
The the and the castle that the Western as linked to the historical circumstances
poet praises city political critiques,
will see when she meets her father-in-law the celebrated,
princess Byzantine surrounding marriage being firmly locating
on the next but moves on to the of the the poem within the realm of vernac
day, quickly meeting twelfth-century political
first ular.82
emperor's daughter.
Unfortunately, the following folio does not survive,79 but

the story continues on folio 4r-v, where the poet compares Gifts, Learning, and Legitimization
the two
princesses
to vibrant stars in the sky:
In light of the fragile political situation surrounding the final
years of Manuel I Komnenos's and the contested
reign dy
She came out and met and venerated and nastic succession, of the
you you, Jeffreys's political interpretation
whoever Vatican echoed most is
poem, recently by Cordula Scholz,
saw [this] believed [they saw] the uniting of two great The tension between the two
especially convincing.83 poetic
stars one French and one the anx
princesses, Byzantine, embody
the of the cosmos and the
revealing repose expansion iety between foreign and native elements of late Komnenian
of the Romans.
society.
But the stars were not soulless, the usual traversers of If a policy of arranging foreign marriages for strategic
the heavens, purposes fostered among the Komnenoi, it
dynastic solidarity
but rather, [they were] the most noble and beautiful in also
aggravated factionalism at court, as evidenced
by
the
the cosmos, tension between Marie of Antioch, the Latin-born second
better and beyond the bodies of all the world, wife of Manuel (Fig. 6), and his firstborn porphyrogenita
bodies adorned by
nature in a
supernatural
manner:
daughter, Maria (Fig. 11). In the final years of Emperor
of these, one was the of the entire West, Manuel's life, he as best he could for a
glory arranged peaceful
your animate of air and transition of power. Marie of Antioch would serve as
body crystal, regent
while the other and second to you, for their son, whom he had married to of
augusta, Agnes, daughter
could not hold with Louis VII of France. To the and influence
comparison entirely your beauty, temper power
she was your sister-in-law, the porphyrogenita. wielded by Maria Porphyrogenita, he broke her engagement to
And another end arrived for you, B?la of and wed her to Renier of Montferrat, who
again augusta, Hungary
the in your honor and in the presence less of a threat. both were celebrated
"daughters posed Again, weddings
of the the within a month of each other, when Maria was
purple-born dynasts, great emperors." nearly thirty
I have narrated these up until now, to the best of and nine. such a in age is
things Agnes only Perhaps discrepancy
my ability, on folio 6r of the Vatican codex, where
conveyed visually
but will recount the other
things
after
today
and the Maria appears slightly larger than Agnes (Fig. 11). In addi
next and tion to age, this difference in size may also allude to Maria's
day,
the after and the after that, and, as I recount, I and influence at court as the central member of the
day day power
do not know at all anti-Latin cause. It is also that Maria's scale
significant larger
how my knowledge and tongue [will be able to] de sharply
contrasts with the
poet's valorization of the Western
scribe indescribable . . . over her Eastern This tension between
completely things. princess counterpart.
textual and pictorial narratives may be linked directly to the
So ends the last surviving page of the codex, breaking off not divisions in the court and may
explain
the great anxiety,
even
only
on a note of suspense and anticipation but also with a fear, expressed by the poet, as well as his inability to describe
curious evocation of Western supremacy that this the events events that could be
separates textually, only conveyed pic
text from other of ceremonial
examples Byzantine poetry. torially.
Michael has drawn attention to the of Another in scale may also relate to the circum
Jeffreys conventionality discrepancy
much of the Vatican material, which is similar to stances of the manuscript's in the
poet's patronage: upper register
formal wedding addresses in Komnenian literature and also of folio 7r the empress is represented as subtly though dis
to vernacular texts of the time.80 Astral for than the a formal clue that should
imagery, example, cernibly larger emperor,
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA
475
12 Justinian and His Court. Ravenna, San Vitale, north wall of the sanctuary Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine and
(photo: Photograph
Fieldwork Archives, Washington, D.C.)
not be read as accidental (Fig. 6). In addition to a distinction where the

Byzantine emperor Justinian and Bishop
Maximi
in scale between the two imperial figures, all eyes are fixed on anus vie for visual prominence (Fig. 12). The mosaic conveys
the rather than the who looks at a sense of between local and
empress emperor, sharply rivalry imperial authority.
her. By way of comparison, in another of the same Whereas the emperor the center of the mosaic and
portrait occupies
imperial couple (Vat. gr. 1176), Manuel and Marie are equal is further distinguished by height and halo, only Maximianus
in
height
and stature, and both figures
stare out from the is identified by an inscription. Furthermore, complicating the
page in an appropriately static, majestically imperial manner pictorial space, the feet of the bishop, whose right elbow
(Fig. 1). In the upper register of folio 7r of Vat. gr. 1851, the suggests he is standing behind the emperor, are placed in
artist seems to have drawn on such con front of the a sense of
imperial portraiture emperor's, evoking spatial uncertainty.
ventions by depicting the couple in regalia atop royal suppedia Formal idiosyncrasies such as these provide insights into
in what looks to be a hieratic official portrait, but has turned the Vatican codex's patronage and social function. Hans
the emperor's face, and that of his son, slightly toward the Belting first recognized the Western bride, Agnes, as the
she looks at them out of the corners of her
empress; eyes but addressee and hence recipient of the book.84 The combina
does not turn her head. This a clear tion of and frontal of the
arrangement provides second-person speech gaze princess
visual clue about hierarchy: the direction of gazes indicates on folio 3v (Fig. 9) indicates to him that the book was
relative precedence,
as does the relative size of the figures. expressly produced for her young foreign eyes. Michael Jef
to these standard
freys has further
According Byzantine conventions, that Marie of Antioch, mother-in
pictorial proposed
the empress formally dominates the composition, but her law of Agnes,
"played
a decisive role" in the book's creation,
importance is tempered by the position of the emperor: he based on her prominence on folio 7r (Fig. 6) in conjunction
the center of the not the absolute with the two textual instances of sentiment intro
occupies register?but pro-Latin
center. This ambiguity, even pictorial competition, between duced above on folios 4r-v and 5r-v.85 Indeed, the represen
the two
imperial figures recalls the famous sixth-century
mo tation of the imperial couple on folio 7r must relate to the
saic on the north wall of the of S. Vitale in Ravenna, codex's in some way. In of the social context
sanctuary production light
476
of brides and artistic a state and, more it is associated with a

foreign production, stronger perhaps important, foreign
ment about its patronage and audience may be made. born bride married into the Komnenian Ander
aristocracy.
Various textual sources offer into the son out that the of the Paris codex
glimpses training astutely points script
potential brides underwent before being introduced at court. strikes the eye as being peculiarly formal for a collection of
In the tenth century, Leo the Deacon, while events letters. Unlike the more cursive of contemporary
narrating private style
of inner court refers to the instance of royal scribes, this hand is akin to a conventional It
intrigue, Bulgar liturgical script.
ian maidens to to marry the he strike a solemn note."97 Sol
being brought Constantinople may, argues, "intentionally
sons of Romanos II, to "confirm an unbreakable emn or not, a formalized is more read, as the
by marriage script easily
alliance and no details, he in individual letters are and more differentiated
friendship." Though offering larger clearly
dicates that the empress provided some kind of training for from each other. In Vat. gr. 1851, this combination of large
the foreign princesses

to prepare them for their new role in formal script with less formal spoken Greek directly relates to
the imperial court.86 Judith Herrin has recently emphasized the didactic function of the book. It would be easier for
that basic rhetoric, and were of someone unfamiliar with Greek to understand.
grammar, logic expected
children at court precisely because of their potential role in Though little is known about the preparation of Western
international In the later for marriage into the court,
diplomacy.87 Byzantine period, princesses Byzantine language
John Kantakouzenos describes how girls of both high and low must have been a
major obstacle.98 In at least one instance a
birth were brought up in the imperial palace for the express Western princess began
to learn Greek when she was be
of as brides in a trothed. When in 781 Irene for her son,

purpose serving diplomatic marriages, prac Empress arranged
tice described by Anthony Bryer as akin to a bridal finishing the future Constantine VI, to marry Rotrud, daughter
of
school.88 the notarios Elissaios, court eunuch, was

Charlemagne, given
This notion of future brides is crucial to our the task of her in Greek in advance so that she would
training training
understanding of the Vatican codex, for it is precisely within be prepared

for her arrival in
Constantinople.99
It is doubt
this context that its and content is best un ful, however, that this was the norm, and it seems
poetic pictorial practice
derstood.89 Although the patron of the book can only be more
likely that most
foreign-born
brides would arrive with
suggested, based on formal motifs in its text and images, it out a full grasp of Greek. In light of this circumstance, the
seems that Marie of Antioch, herself a relation between text and is
entirely appropriate particular image significant:
bride of French extraction,90 would have commis the Vatican codex the text sets up an
diplomatic throughout expectation
sioned the codex for her new French daughter-in-law, Agnes,
that is then fulfilled in the images. Accordingly, the images
as a The increased of both a coherent narrative
welcoming present. exchange convey simplified though independent
brides between Byzantium and the West
and books in the of the text.While the fragmentary state of the book precludes
twelfth century supports this likelihood. Jeffrey Anderson has complete understanding
of its artistic program, it is clear that
recently explored
the importance of female artistic patron young eyes unfamiliar with the Byzantine world would have
age at this time, book culture in among Komnenoi been able to follow the visual story of transition and incor
particular,
women.91 Bertha-Irene, Manuel's first wife, commissioned a clues such as
poration through repetition, gaze, gesture,
commentary on the Iliad by the poet John Tzetzes; it was costume, and topographic
markers. Over time, as the bride
intended to Homer to her as a em learned the and customs (a process that would have
explain foreign-born language
The sebastokratorissa Eirene, wife of Man been assisted the book itself), court tensions would be
press.92 foreign-born by
uel's brother Andronikos, is well known for her of come more discernible and the message of final
patronage incorpora
such literati as Theodore Pr?dromos, the so-called tion more
Manga explicit.
neios Pr?dromos, Tzetzes, and Constantine Manasses; Pr? The notion of as the culmination of the
incorporation
dromos even a treatise on Greek for book?in terms of its imagery and its social function?re
composed grammar
her.93 She also have been the of the illustrated some in the
may patron quires qualification, enigmaticgiven ending
sermons on the life of the Virgin by James, monk of the which the
poet praises
at the expense
the western of the star
two sur eastern one. As one would in a a young
Kokkinobaphos monastery, deluxe copies of which expect gift for foreign
vive in Paris and Rome.94 In these codices, allusions to con bride, the Vatican her new
manuscript emphasizes identity
aristocratic life abound, and the of the and new as of veneration,
temporary program position Byzantine augusta worthy
visual and verbal narrative is particularly well suited for the but it also presents her as
superior
to the eastern star, Maria
patron: the language

of James's sermons neces
Porphyrogenita. Dynastic solidarity in this instance does not
complicated
sitated the elaborate cycle, replete with simpler cap as a cohesive of communal concordia but as an
pictorial emerge image
tions, to introduce the sebastokratorissa to the ideal alliance of mother and
Byzantine image foreign-born daughter-in-law.
of the Virgin that was emerging as a model of learning and The book establishes the legitimacy of Agnes, not a legitimacy
at the time.95 Anderson has studied the of she had but one she would need as a
patronage corpus already foreign-born
related to the Master and Eirene in a factionalized court, many of whose members
manuscripts Kokkinobaphos empress
the sebastokratorissa, that the of a collection of would remain to the first Maria
noting script loyal emperor's daughter,
letters between the monk and Eirene now in
private James Porphyrogenita.
Paris (BNF gr. 3039) bears a strong resemblance to that of gr. 1851 was probably given to the bride when she
Vat.
Vat. gr. 1851.96 arrived in the imperial capital in 1179, although the exact
Such a not establishes a close circumstances of its remain Wil
comparison only pal?o presentation ambiguous.
graphie parallel but it also raises the question of genre and liam, archbishop
of
Tyre, witnessed the festivities associated
audience. Like Vat. 1851, the Paris is unique with the marriage of Alexios Komnenos and of France
gr. manuscript Agnes
as well as that of Maria and Renier of Montfer 1203, at age she refused to to members of
Porphyrogenita twenty-four, speak
rat but failed to recount many details: "Because of the im the Fourth Crusade, claiming in Greek through an inter
mense amount of material, any attempt
to describe in detail preter that she had forgotten her mother tongue of
all the wonders of those days would be utterly futile, even if a
treatise were devoted to it."100 He does note that, in
special
addition to the at the and
"glorious spectacles" hippodrome
"the of the vestments and the is an assistant at the Kress
imperial magnificence royal Cecily J. Hilsdale currently professor
robes adorned with a of precious stones and Foundation
profusion pearls Department of Art History, University of Kansas,
Law
of great the "lavished" on the rence. Her research cultural in the
weight," emperor generous gifts ongoing investigates exchange
both native and also in medieval world, in the circulation
people, foreign. Agnes's reception particular of Byzantine luxury
volved
processions
and recitations of panegyric. A lengthy objects as diplomatic gifts [Kress Foundation Department of Art
welcoming address, or disembarkation speech, by
Eustathios
History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans. 66045, cjhilsda@
of Thessaloniki survives and was probably delivered orally ku.edu].
ceremonial in
during Agnes's reception Constantinople.101
The Vatican codex, however, is of an different
altogether
genre. It is a small and intimate book whose ver Notes
simplified
nacular voice, clear and detailed miniature Much of this research was begun while I was a Junior Fellow in Byzantine
large, script, cycle
Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, and I would like to thank there, in addition to
suggest that it was intended for young eyes alone.
Agnes's the library staff and fellows, Alice-Mary Talbot, for discussing various aspects
The close relation between text and allows of the Vatican manuscript and, along with Dorotei Getov, providing assistance
sequential image
the to unfold on and enables a with my translation, and Maria Parani, for sharing her expertise on represen
story multiple levels foreign tations of Byzantine dress. I am deeply indebted to the University of Chicago
viewer unfamiliar with the and customs of for support throughout the larger process of my research, and in particular I
language Byzan
tium to follow its plot and message. With the turn of each would like to acknowledge Robert Nelson, Linda Seidel, Thomas Cummins, as
well as the late Michael Camille for his support early on in the project. Earlier
page, she could follow the process of her own transformation
versions of this article have been presented at the Byzantine Studies Confer
from young Western betrothed to celebrated ence, Ohio State University (2002), and at the University of Chicago's Late
augusta?from
to Anna. or no Antique and Byzantine Studies Workshop (2003). My interpretation has
Even with little of Greek,
Agnes knowledge benefited from many lively conversations with Cecily Hennessey and from
she could situate herself within the of close readings of earlier drafts by Georgi Parpulov, Jonathan
larger process entering Sachs, and Kerry
a new
family. Boeye, who deserves special mention for his keen eye and critical skills. The
final version has benefited greatly from the suggestions of Marc Gotlieb and
Read a of factionalism at the Komnenian
against backdrop the anonymous readers for The Art Bulletin. Thanks also to Lory Frankel and
court, where foreign marriages demanded strict Fronia Simpson for their skilled editorial advice. Lastly, I would like to thank
imperial
the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan for a postdoctoral
controls, the book facilitated the of rela
expansion kinship in medieval studies (2003-5) and for assistance with reproduction
fellowship
tions by promoting integration. While the identity and moti costs. The following collections have generously to re
granted permissions
vation of the patron must remain produce images from their manuscripts: the Biblioteca Apost?lica Vaticana,
speculative, complicated
the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid), and the Biblioth?que Nationale de France.
issues of underlie the visual and
partisanship manuscript's
1. Claude L?vi-Strauss, The Elementary Structure of Kinship (Boston: Beacon
verbal rhetoric. The political message should perhaps not be
Press, 1969), 48.
read as and but rather as anti
anti-Byzantine pro-Western 2. Vat. gr. 1851 consists of 8 folios measuring 230 by 175 millimeters.
Maria Porphyrogenita and pro-Marie of Antioch. If Agnes's Following Paul Canart (Codices Vaticani graeci, codices, 1745-1962 [Vati
new mother-in-law was the the book was to can City: Bibliotheca Vaticana, 1970], 324-25) and Ioannis Spathara
patron, given
kis (The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts [Leiden: E. J. Brill,
as a means of her with Marie Maria.
Agnes allying against 1976], 210-30), the quire order may be reconstructed as follows ("x"
A close of the book reveals tensions that contradict designates a missing folio): xx82/7lxx, x3x5/6x4x. This
reading
reading is supported on textual grounds as well as on the basis of sur
the sense of that is the of a rite of
passage.
incorporation goal and other orna
viving illustrations and imprints of lost illuminations
The manuscript as a motivated commen ment. Spatharakis provides the fullest discussion of previous codico
emerges politically
on a that was the schema of Josef Strzygowski
tary foreign marriage the source of, or at least logical interpretations, including
("Das Epithalamion des Pal?ologen Andronikos II," Byzantinische
divisions within the and
aggravated, imperial family city. In its Zeitschrift 10 [1901]: 546-67), S. Papademetriou ("'O fcmOa?ajLuo?
structure and layout, the book resembles precisely the sort of 'Av?pov?KOV II, Tov UaXcaok?yov," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 11 [1902]:
452-60), and Canart. The second part of Canart's schema has proved
rite of passage for which it was created, yet the intellectual
more controversial; see Antonio Iacobini, "L'epitalamio di Andronico
"rite of does not constitute an II: Una cronaca di nozze dalla Constantinopolii in Arte
category passage" interpreta Paleologa,"
e arte sacra a Bisanzio, ed. Iacobini and E. Zanini (Rome: Ar
tive end. It is in this regard that the remarks of profana
cautionary
gos, 1995), 363 and n. 14. Canart first proposed the correct order,
Buc are most instructive: "One should master a followed here, that Spatharakis confirmed to
Philippe by matching foliation
culture's but not think none of its mem illuminated capital imprints.
grammar, thoughts
bers ever of the 3. Marcel Mauss, The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic So
thought."102 Regardless patron's intention,
cieties, trans. W. D. Halls (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990). Brigitte
which will remain elusive, the book was an in the
always agent Buettner's claim that gift-giving theory, though central to the social
process of affiliation, on the basis not of what it sciences, has yet to enter mainstream historic disciplines no longer
dynastic only
holds true. See Buettner, "Past Presents: New Year's Gifts at the Valois
reveals but also of what it conceals. Ritual narrations?in this
Courts, ca. 1400," Art Bulletin 83 (2001): 598. Significant recent contri
instance the narration of a rite of passage?expand the field butions include Esther Cohen and Mayke B. de Jong, eds., Medieval
of inquiry by allowing the relation between the object and its Transformations: Texts, Power, and Gifts in Context (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
2001); Valentino Groebner, Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts: Presents and
context, or the and of the book, to be
agency efficacy ques Politics at theEnd of theMiddle Ages, trans. P. E. Selwyn (Philadelphia:
tioned. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001); and Jane Fair Bestor, "Mar
Of course, it will never be known if Agnes-Anna received riage Transactions in Renaissance Italy and Mauss's Essay on the Gift,""
Past and Present 164 (1999): 6-46.
Vat. gr. 1851. But if the account of Robert of Clari can be 4. On medieval see Buettner,
European gift-giving, "Past Presents"; and
trusted, she into In Arnoud-Jan A. Bijsterveld, "The Medieval Gift as Agent of Social
successfully integrated Byzantine society.
478
Bonding and Political Power: A Comparative Approach," in Cohen 12. Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," 361-410, casts the debate in terms of disci
and de Jong, Medieval Transformations, 123-56, with a review of sec plinary divisions. Canart, Codices Vaticani graeci, 324-25, initially fa
ondary literature. For an anthropologically informed reading of Byz vored a Palaiologan date, but three years later, in his addendum, Codi
antine gifts, see Robin Cormack, "But Is It Art?" in Byzantine Diplo ces Vaticani graeci, codices, 1745-1962, vol. 2, Introductio addenda indices
macy: Papers from the Twenty-fourth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, (Vatican City: Bibliotheca Vaticana, 1973), 45-46, he emphasized the
Cambridge, March 1990, ed. Jonathan Shepard and Simon Franklin (Al possibility of an earlier date. Giancarlo Prato, "Scritture librarie arcaiz
dershot: Variorum, 1992), 219-36. Study of Byzantine-Arabic gift ex zanti d?lia prima et? dei Paleologi e loro modelli," Scrittura e Civilt? 3
change has benefited greatly from the relatively recent edition and (1979): 169-71, attributes this change in opinion to a reading of
translation of the Arabic Book of Gifts and Rarities: Gh?da al-Hijj?wT Hans Belting's treatment of the codex. Belting's main objection to
al-Qaddum?, ed. and trans., Book of Gifts and Rarities/Kit?b al-Had?y? the Palaiologan date is the use of the term porphyrogenitos, "purple
wa al-Tuhaf (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996). On born," to describe Andronikos, an objection that is entirely warranted,
interpretations of this text, see Anthony Cutler, "Gifts and Gift Ex as he was born before his father, the future Michael VIII Palaiologos,
change as Aspects of the Byzantine, Arab and Related Economies," was crowned in Constantinople. See Belting, Das illuminierte Buch in
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001): 247-78; idem, "Les ?changes de der sp?tbyzantinischen C. Winter, 1970).
Gesellschaft (Heidelberg:
dons entre Byzance et l'Islam (IXe-XIe si?cles)," Journal des Savants 13. Jean Ebersolt, Les arts somptuaires de Byzance: ?tude sur l'art imp?rial de
(1996): 61-66; and Oleg Grabar, "The Shared Culture of Objects," in
Constantinople (Paris: E. Leroux, 1923), 126 n. 7.
Byzantine Court Culture from 829-1204, ed. Henry Maguire (Washing
ton, D.C.: Dumbarton 14. Tania Velmans, "Le portrait dans l'art des Pal?ologues," in Art et soci?t?
Oaks, 1997), 115-29.
sous lesPal?ologues: Actes du colloque organis? par l'Association Internatio
5. Arnold van Gennep's fundamental analysis of ceremonies associated
nale des ?tudes Byzantines ? Venise en septembre 1968 (Venice: Stamperia
with rites of passage (including birth, initiation, marriage, and death)
diVenezia, 1971), 102-3.
is divided into a tripartite spatial or processional pattern of separation
15. These include two dogs with interlocked tails and back-turned heads
(s?paration), transition (marge), and incorporation (agr?gation). See van
The Rites of Passage, trans. Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle that form the omega on fol. 7v; a chi formed by spotted leopards
Gennep,
L. Caffee of Chicago Press, 1960); and Vic leaping diagonally across each other on fol. lv; on fol. 3r an eagle
(1908; Chicago: University
tor Turner, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure makes up the my; the arched back of a dog creates the pi on fol. 6r;
(Chicago: Al
dine, 1969). Bruce Lincoln, Emerging from the Chrysalis: Studies in Ritu and a large griffin with back-turned head, tail, and wing forms an ep
als ofWomen's Initiation (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), silon on fol. 4r. This aspect of the codex, above all others, appears
uses the terms "enclosure," and "emergence" to dis least Palaiologan, as noted by Belting, Das illuminierte Buch, 27 n. 90,
"metamorphosis,"
cuss female initiation. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and who compared these initials to those of the mid-twelfth-century Paris
Dimensions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and idem, Rit Gregory, BNF gr. 550. Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," 371-72, in his argu
ual Theory, Ritual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992). ment for a later date of production, points out that the Vatican
On initiation rituals in the ancient world, see Claude Ca?ame, Choruses manuscript's illuminator relied on illustrated models from the
Komnenian period. Yet both the iconography and the style of the ini
of Young Women in Ancient Greece: Their Morphology, Religious Role, and
Social Functions, new and rev. ed., trans. Derek Collins and Janice tials of the Vatican codex are much closer to the supposed twelfth
Orion (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001); and David Dodd and century models than to the later adaptations. For example, exact fig
Faraone, eds., Initiation in Ancient Greek Rituals and Narra urai parallels for the letters chi, epsilon, and my can be found in
Christopher
tives:New Critical Perspectives (London: Routledge, 2003). Also within Sinai codex Gr. 339, a manuscript securely dated to the late twelfth
the context of ancient Greece, the work of Gloria Ferrari, Figures of century. Moreover, they are executed in the same color palette and
in Ancient Greece (Chicago: University finely detailed style of painting. For the Sinai manuscript, see Kurt
Speech: Men and Maidens of Chi
cago Press, 2002), is particularly attentive to the relation between ritu Weitzmann and George Galavaris, The Monastery of Saint Catherine at
als, initiation in particular, as we know them from texts and their vi Mount Sinai: The Illuminated Greek Manuscripts (Princeton: Princeton
sual representations. University Press, 1990), 140-53. Ultimately, despite Iacobini's inten
tion, the plates of his article indicate that the Vatican initials are
6. Philippe Buc, The Dangers of Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and
much closer to the Sinai parallels than to later examples.
Social Scientific Theory (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).
His position ismost clearly articulated in the introduction, 4: "There 16. Besides Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," a recent objection to the twelfth-cen
can be no anthropological readings of rituals depicted in medieval tury date on the basis of depictions of dress has been raised by Cecily
texts. There can only be anthropological tex "A Child Bride and Her Representation in Vatican Gr.
readings of (1) medieval Hennessy,
tual practices or perhaps (2) medieval practices that the historian has 1851" (paper, 27th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, University
reconstructed using texts, with full and constant sensitivity to their of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind., November 8-11, 2001).
status as texts." 17. These parallels are introduced in the appendix to Cecily J. Hilsdale,
7. Ibid., 259. "Diplomacy by Design: Rhetorical Strategies of the Byzantine Gift"
8. In this regard the work of Alfred Gell has been most influential on (PhD diss., University of Chicago, 2003), which benefited greatly from
Maria Parani's extensive knowledge of Byzantine dress and realia. I
my thinking; I thank Michel Conan of Dumbarton Oaks for first intro
thank her for sharing her insights in advance of the publication of
ducing me to his work. For Gell, Art and Agency: An Anthropological her book, Reconstructing theReality
1998), 7, "art objects are the equivalent of of Images: Byzantine Material Culture
Theory (Oxford: Clarendon, and Religious Iconography (llth-15th Centuries) (Leiden: E. J. Brill,
persons, or more precisely, social agents."
2003).
9. See Michael Angold, The Byzantine Empire, 1025-1204, a Political His
18. See Lydie Hadermann-Misguich, "Tissus de pouvoir et de prestige
tory, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1997), 115-70; A. P. Kazhdan and
sous les Mac?doniens et les Comn?nes, ? propos des coussins-de-pieds
Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in theEleventh and et de leurs repr?sentations," Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes He
Twelfth Centuries (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 74
taireias 17 (1993-94): 121-28; and Parani, Reconstructing theReality,
117. Paul Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I Komnenos, 1143-1180
172. In addition, the type of male crown represented in Vat. gr. 1851
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), esp. 180-201, pro
is also better situated within Komnenian imperial portraiture conven
vides the most thorough examination of titles and ideology among
the Komnenoi; see also Barbara Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium, tions. Middle Byzantine depictions of male imperial crowns include a
small jeweled cross at their apex and strands of pearls outlining the
1025-1204: Power, Patronage and Ideology (New York: Pearson, 1999).
body of the crown as opposed to the more bulbous shape and single
10. Magdalino, The Emire ofManuel I, 201-17. the crown of representations of later Palaiologan
gem surmounting
11. Two articles, published one emperors. The typical Palaiologan crown may be seen in the portraits
thorough, well-argued, yet contradictory
year apart in the same journal early in the twentieth century, dated of the emperors John VI Kantekouzenos (Paris, BNF gr. 1242, fol. 5v)
the manuscript to different eras and, in so doing, laid the foundation and Manuel II Palaiologos (Paris, BNF suppl. gr. 309, fol. 6r, and
for modern historiographie factions. Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion," Paris, Mus?e du Louvre, MS Ivories A53, fol. 2r). The crowns repre
was written in the later thirteenth sented throughout the pages of Vat. gr. 1851 accord more closely with
argued that the manuscript century
on the occasion of the wedding of Michael VIII Palaiologos's son, An twelfth-century representational conventions. Komnenian crowns ap
dronikos, to either Anna, daughter of Stephen V of Hungary, or pear in the south gallery of Hagia Sophia, where John II Komnenos is
Irene (n?e Yolanda), daughter of William VI of Montferrat. Papa portrayed with his wife Irene, along with his son and co-emperor
demitriou, "'O fem&x?ajuio?," quickly refuted this claim on the Alexios on the pilaster, and later in the twelfth century Manuel I and
in Marie of Antioch are depicted in Vat. gr. 1176 (Fig. 1). In each of
grounds of logic, historical dating, and title usage. He proposed
stead that the codex must be situated in the late twelfth century and these portrait groups the general shape of the closed crown is less
associated with the imperial marriage of Alexios II Komnenos to bulbous than the later examples, and a jeweled cross rather than a
Agnes of France. This debate has been rehearsed by all subsequent single stone surmounts the top. On crowns, see Parani, Reconstructing
scholars, most recently Cordula Scholz, "Der Empfang der kaiserli theReality, 27-30; and Michael Hendy, "Imperial Ceremonial Costume
chen Braut: Eine Betrachtung anhand von vier ausgesuchten and Regalia," in Catalogue of the Byzantine Coins in theDumbarton Oaks
Beispielen," Palaeoslavica 10, no. 2 (2002): 132-33. Collection and in theWhittemore Collection, ed. Alfred R. Bellinger and
Philip Grierson, vol. 4, pt. 1, Alexius I toAlexius V (1081-1204) (Wash brother Isaac Komnenos. Use of both terms in the Vatican codex pre
ington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1999), 165-67. cludes any date before this, though both titles continued to be used
19. Parani, Reconstructing theReality, 172, describes the shape as "almost into the Palaiolgan period. As Jeffreys has aptly pointed out, few mo
ments in the later history of Byzantium would have called for seventy
tubular."
ladies of the imperial house to gather. Such a large group of female
20. On Vat. gr. 1176, see n. 54 below. This gemmed hemline is even relatives with ties to high titles accords with what we know about the
clearer in the portrait of John II Komnenos (r. 1118-43) with his son extended kin system of the Komnenoi. On titles, see Rodolphe Guil
in Vat. urb. gr. 2, fol. lOv. Other middle Byzantine manuscripts that
land, Recherches sur les institutions byzantines, vol. 1 (Amsterdam: Hak
exemplify this convention include the eleventh-century Paris, BNF MS kert, 1967), 38; and idem, "Titres aulique des hommes barbus?Le
Coislin 79 and Vat. gr. 1176. It can also be seen in enamel on the des ?tudes Byzantines 17 (1959): 52-89.
Despote (? ?scnrOTiq?)," %R?vue
crown of Constantine IX Monomachos in Budapest (Magyar Nemzeti The historical variables of the text have been treated most recently by
Muzeum) and on the Khakhuli triptych in Tblissi (Georgian Art Mu Scholz, "Der Empfang," 132-35.
seum). On Coislin 79 and the Monomachos crown, see Helen C.
25. Manuel I Komnenos had long been trying to win Louis as an ally.
Evans and William D. Wixom, eds., Glory of Byzantium: Art and Culture
Louis VII had visited Constantinople in 1147 and, according to histo
of theMiddle Byzantine Era, A.D. 843-1261 (New York: Metropolitan
was accorded
rian John Kinnamos, appropriate honors and brought
Museum of Art, 1997), 207-12; on the Khakhuli triptych, see Titos to the Blachernai Church in the area northwest of Constantinople to
Papamastorakis, "Re-Deconstructing the Khakhuli Triptych," Deltion tes
see awe-inspiring relics. See Charles M. Brand, ed. and trans., Deeds of
Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireias 23 (2002): 225-54.
John and Manuel Comnenus byJohn Kinnamos (New York: Columbia
21. On Paris, BNF supp. gr. 309, fol. 6r (Fig. 2), see Helen C. Evans, ed., Press, 1976), 69. Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I, 101,
University
Byzantium: Faith and Power (1261-1557) (New York: Metropolitan Mu describes this alliance as "the most distinguished that a
foreign match
seum of Art, 2004), 26. In addition to this portrait, emperor Manuel and it dispelled a
Byzantine emperor had made for generations,
II Palaiologos is depicted along with his family on fol. 2r in a copy of cloud which had hung over Byzantine-western relations since the Sec
the works of Dionysios the Areopagite in the Louvre, Paris (MS Ivo ond crusade." Brand, Byzantium Confronts theWest, 1180-1204 (Cam
ries A53), where, despite flaking paint, the lower edges of the royal the mar
bridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1968), 23, describes
suppedia clearly show no gemmed border. This late Byzantine conven
riage as the "crown of Manuel's diplomacy." The betrothal took place
tion is also evident in the portraits of John IV Kantakouzenos (r. on March 2, 1180;
although Agnes arrived in the imperial city in the
1347-54) in the copy of his theological works (Paris, BNF summer of 1179, she had left her homeland on a Genoese
preserved ship some
MS gr. 1242, fols. 5v, 123v). Even the mid-fourteenth-century Bulgar time after Easter 1179. See Magdalino, 101 n. 317, for details on this
ian Gospel of Czar Ivan Alexander in the British Library (Add. MS "Partiti politici e lotte dina
voyage; and also Francesco Cognasso,
3962) represents the royal suppedia according to such late Byzantine stiche in Bisanzio alla morte di Manuele Comneno," Memorie della Re
imperial portraiture conventions. See Evans, Byzantium, 286-87, 56 ale Accademia delle Scienze di Torino, 2nd ser., 62, no. 2 (1912): 213
57. 317.
22. Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," who maintains a Palaiologan date for Vat. gr. The Empire ofManuel I, 107ff., explores Manuel's
26. Magdalino, pro-Latin
1851, draws a comparison between it and the 1301 Chrysobull of An out his interest in the Islamic world as well. On this
policies, pointing
dronikos II in the Byzantine Museum of Athens and the portrait of
aspect, see Lucy-Anne Hunt, "Comnenian Aristocratic Palace Decora
John VI Kantakouzenos in BNF gr. 1242, fol. 5v, where the form of tion: Descriptions and Islamic Connections," in Byzantium: Eastern
the double-headed eagle is visible on the suppedion. While the gold Christendom and Islamic Art at the Crossroads of theMedieval Mediterra
paint on the suppedia in Vat. gr. 1851 indicates that some kind of fig nean, vol. 1 (London: Pindar Press, 1998), 29-59; and also Charles M.
urai pattern originally existed, it is far too faint to distinguish today. Brand, "The Turkish Element in Byzantium, Eleventh-Twelfth Centu
There is no reason to assume that the remaining traces of figuration
ries," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 43 (1989): 1-25. Latinophilia appears to
indicate an eagle, since that was not the only possible animal motif. have been only one part of Manuel's larger interest in the foreign,
As can be seen in Vat. urb. gr. 2, the emperor and his son stand on
creating a court culture best described, for lack of a better term, as
tall, multicolored cushions patterned with pearls; the tail of a feline The most recent discussion of Western
cosmopolitan. aspects of Man
animal is visible on that of the emperor. While suppedia decorated uel's public image is provided by Jones and Maguire, "A Description
with eagle motifs survive in visual representations only from the thir of the Jousts."
teenth century, eagles (and griffins) appear in other details of cos
tume in the late twelfth century, as discussed by Lynn Jones and 27. See discussion by Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I, 201, 209-17.
Henry Maguire, "A Description of the Jousts of Manuel I Komnenos," 28. Wolfram H?randner, Theodoros Pr?dromos, Historische Gedichte (Vienna:
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 26 (2002): 104-48, esp. 133-35. An ?sterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1974, 321, poem 20,
ekphrasis for Manuel, for example, describes red boots adorned with lines 37-43, trans, in Jeffreys, "The Vernacular ei(TiT7)pioi" 109.
eagles outlined in pearls.
29. Jeffreys, "The Vernacular elo-irf/pim," 109. H?randner, Theodoros Pr?
23. Michael Jeffreys, "The Vernacular elcriTTjpioi for Agnes of France," in dromos, poem 20 is entitled Elo-irrjpioi 'etti rrjwfjb(j)svdeiarfe^
Byzantine Papers: Proceedings of theFirst Australian Byzantine Studies Con 'AXaixav v tw irop^vpoysvvriTa) KvpMawi/rj? Kai ae?aaTOKparopL.
ference, Canberra (Canberra: Humanities Research Centre, Australian Based on the analogy of this poem, Jeffreys proposes to rename the
National University, 1981), 101, who accepts the twelfth-century date, poem of Vat. gr. 1851 an eisiterioi celebrating Bertha's arrival rather
claims, "It is certainly puzzling if it is true that the highest circles of than an epithalamion, or hymn in praise of marriage. It should be
imperial patronage produced these rather crude pictures at the end noted that although Bertha arrived in 1142, and her arrival cele
of the twelfth century." He continues, 103: "To put it bluntly, the il brated in poem, her marriage to Manuel did not occur until January
lustrations look more the product of fourteenth- or fifteenth-century 1146.
decadence, than the product of the competent imperial machinery 30. For poetic ekphrases emphasizing dynastic solidarity, see Paul Magda
which had presided over Manuel Comnenos' grandiose foreign policy lino and Robert S. Nelson, in Byzantine Art of the
"The Emperor
projects, and which could be relied on for a special effort to mark his Twelfth Century," Byzantinische Forschungen 8 (1982): 137-39, 137 n.
last coup, the marriage alliance with the King of France." But Jeffreys,
26.
too, understands that despite lack of comparanda the book must be
31. On the name Irene within this context, see Magdalino, The Empire of
located within the Komnenian context, and, as such, it is extremely
valuable for offering, among other things, a glimpse into an early Manuel I, 204-5. Marie of Antioch, Agnes's Byzantine mother-in-law,
also of foreign birth, was referred to as Maria and then Xene, "for
(surviving) use of vernacular Greek. Belting, Das illuminierte Buch, 28,
while arguing for the earlier date, admits that the images do not look eigner," which was the name most frequently taken by non-native Byz
typically Komnenian but points out that they would be distinctive in antine empresses when they entered a monastery after the death of
their husbands.
any period.
In short, the historical preconditions 32. Such regulations often came into conflict with the church, as has
24. stipulated by the manuscript's
been explored by Angeliki E. Laiou, Manage, amour et parent? aux
poem can be summarized as follows: both fathers of the bride- and
are alive at the time of the marriage the Xle?XHIe si?cles (Paris: De Boccard, 1992); Magdalino, The Empire of
groom-to-be arrangement;
father of the groom-to-be is described as Byzantine Manuel I, 208, describes the "new blood policy" as integral to the so
emperor, basileus;
as regarch (king). The betrothed cial and political progress of the Komnenoi, by "marginalising or de
and the father of the bride-to-be
is the son of the Byzantine and he is further distin moting certain important aristocratic families with which the Komne
groom emperor,
noi had no connection."
guished as porphyrogenitos, born to the purple, and his sister is the por
phyrogenita and first daughter of the emperor. The relatives who come 33. Although, as Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I, 214-16, has pointed
to meet the princess on fol. 3r are described as descendants of caesars out, in 1175 Manuel essentially abolished the "Tome of Sisinnios,"
and sebastokrators. This final criterion provides one of the clearest indi which since the tenth century had prevented marriages between af
cations of a Komnenian original context. Caesar was the highest rank fines of the sixth degree of kinship (second cousins), with the effect
at court, usually reserved for the sons of the emperor until the elev of promoting Komnenian Between these two contradictory
endogamy.
enth century, when Alexios I created the rank of sebastokrator for his measures, Manuel issued a document addressed to the patriarch in
1172 praising the Latins for respecting ties of consanguinity. This, for the book was trimmed after it was bound. In one of the full-page
the key to Manuel's marriage verso images (fol. 6v), the outer edge of the image is cut off.
Magdalino (216), provides policy, for it
realigned Byzantine practice with Western canon law, "which had
41. The full Greek text was originally published in 1901 by Strzygowski,
stricter consanguinity prohibitions but had a more relaxed attitude to "Das Epithalamion," with a German translation but in the
546-61,
marriage among affines." In other words, Manuel's actions repre incorrect order. More recently, Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine
sented a certain Westernization of Byzantine policy. See Michael An Illuminated Manuscripts, the poem in the correct
220-27, published
gold, Church and Society in Byzantium under the Comneni, 1081-1261 order but without critical apparatus or translation. Iacobini,
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 412-14; and J. Dar translated of the poem into Italian; and
"L'epitalamio," large portions
rouz?s, "Questions de droit matrimonial: 1172-1175," Revue des ?tudes offers an English translation of
Jeffreys, "The Vernacular slaxrijpioi,"
Byzantines 35 (1977): 107-57. the final few passages. Given the problems with existing editions, a
34. Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I, 205. Extreme restrictions were new critical edition and translation are warranted. I would like to
thank Alice-Mary Talbot and Dorotei Getov for their assistance with
placed on internal marriages, Magdalino proposes, 211-13, to keep
the translation of this challenging text.
Byzantine brides available for dynastic alliances with the courts of the
Latin West and the Crusader states. Manuel's decisions were not al 42. The preceding now-lost pages must have included at least some text,
ways appreciated, as when Theodora, daughter of the sebastokratorissa as the upper right corner of fol. 8r preserves the impression of an
Irene, was married to Henry of Babenberg despite her mother's pro epsilon.
tests. See Madgalino, 209 n. 71; and Hill, Imperial Women, 172-74.
43. Regarch, rendered here as "king," is not listed in the Thesaurus linguae
35. Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I, 211. Eustathios expresses outrage of California, Irvine, 1999). It must be a
graecae (CD-ROM, University
that the culprit, Stephen Hagiochristophorites, did not conceal him conflation of the Latin rex and the Greek archon. Clearly, this was an
self in shame after the event, which Eustathios describes as follows: an official court title, a significant distinction in a cul
epithet and not
"He had contracted a marriage out of his class, committing the crime ture where titles were strategically created and reinterpreted. Jeffreys,
of making a noble alliance above his own status but the penalty which "The Vernacular 102, states that Louis VII was "of suffi
eicrirf/pioi,"
he had paid was no mean one. His nose was cut off, because he had cient status to be called 'king' (regarches)." In fact, both rex and archon
done wrong by gambolling with one whom he should have left are used to describe Louis in the oration written by Eustathios of
alone. . . ."John R. Melville Jones, trans., Eustathios of Thessaloniki: The Thessaloniki for Agnes's arrival; see Regel, Fontes rerum, 82; and An
Capture of Thessaloniki (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine drew F. Stone, "Eustathian Panegyric as a Historical Source," Jahrbuch
Studies, 1988), 44-45. der ?sterreichischen Byzantinistik 51 (2001): 231. For rex, see Jean-Marie
36. She actually bore him two daughters: Maria in 1152 and Anna in Martin, "L'occident chr?tien dans le Livre des c?r?monies, II, 48," Tra
vaux etM?moires 13 (2000): 617-45, esp. "Le monde franc," 638-43. It
1156, who died in 1160. Irene's death is commemorated by Basil of
should be noted that Conrad of Germany, father of Bertha of Sulz
Ohrid, poem 20, Tov yeyovoros 6sacra?.ov?Kr]<; Kvp BacrtAsiov r?v
bach, first wife of Manuel I Komnenos, is also referred to as rex. In an
'AxpL?iqvdv ?oyo? fcmT?<?>ioc ettI TTjk? 'A\a?iav(?v ?eairoivr}, V. W.
twist, in the mosaics of the Martorana in Palermo, the
Regel, ed., Fontes rerum byzantinarum (Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der interesting
Deutschen Demokratischen 311-12. Norman king Roger II is portrayed in Byzantinizing dress, replete
Republik, 1982),
with jewel-encrusted lows, and his name is inscribed "rogeriosrax:" in
37. In the words of the contemporary court chronicler Niketas Choniates,
Greek letters.
in Harry J. Magoulias, ed. and trans., O City of Byzantium: Annals of
44. Although the inscription must refer to Constantinople, the abbrevia
Niketas Choniates (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984), 94:
" tion is disputed: "Das Epithalamion," 548, read merely
[Manuel] transferred to his son the oaths of allegiance that had ear Strzygowski,
lier been pledged to his daughter Maria and her betrothed, the Hun KAT', while Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manu
[that is, B?la]." While Maria was still betrothed to B?la, scripts, 227, followed by Jeffreys, "The Vernacular elcrirf/pioi," and
garian Alexios
Manuel offered her hand toWilliam II of Sicily. On Scholz, "Der Empfang," proposed K?iCT instead, thus
unsuccessfully
this engagement, see J. Parker, "The Attempted Byzantine Alliance
K?(N)CT(ANTIN)OYIIOAIC or K?(N)CT(ANTINOY) H IIOAIC.
Canart, Addenda, 46, on the other hand, suggests a reading of
with the Sicilian Norman Kingdom (1166-67)," Papers of the British on the basis of a proposed
KASTPON terminal O and N. Iacobini,
School at Rome, n.s., 11 (1956): 86-93; Lynda Garland, Byzantine Em
"L'epitalamio," 379 n. 23, weighs the merits of each. It must be noted
presses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527-1204 (London: Rout
that kastron, or foundation/citadel, was never applied to Constanti
ledge, 1999), 204; and Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I, 92-93. See
nople according to Clive Foss's entry "kastron" in Kazhdan and Tal
also Charles M. Brand's entry "Komnene, Maria," in The Oxford Dictio
bot, The Dictionary of Byzantium, 1112. Yet at two points in the text of
nary of Byzantium, ed. A. P. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot (New York: Ox
Vat. gr. 1851, K?crrpov is used to describe the city?fol. 6r, line 3, and
ford University Press, 1991), 1142-43. It should be noted that the for
fol. 6v, line 4. Thus, despite the subtleties of the different interpreta
eign-born groom, Renier, like foreign-born brides, changed his name
tions, there is no ambiguity that the image refers to Constantinople.
when marrying into the Byzantine family; he took the name John.
B?la, while engaged to Maria, was called by the Byzantine name Alex 45. Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," 374-75. There exists a more schematic view
ios. The assignment of names for male spouses of foreign origin at of the city of Constantinople along with an image of its Christian
this time, however, had to do with the "aima" prophecy, to founder, Constan tine, with Helena, in an eleventh-century liturgical
according
which the initial letters of the four Komnenian from Alex roll in Jerusalem (Greek Orthodox Patriarchate codex Stavrou 109).
emperors
ios I to Alexios II spelled the Greek word for blood, [hjaima. There See Andr? Grabar, "Un rouleau liturgique constantinopolitain et ses
fore, when it seemed that Maria Porphyrogenita s husband would suc peintures," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 161-99, fig. 17; and also
ceed Manuel as emperor, he was called Alexios, but once Manuel's Anthony Cutler, Transfigurations: Studies in theDynamics of Byzantine
biological son Alexios was born, Maria's husband bore a Byzantine Iconography (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press,
name, John, that would keep him symbolically outside the line of suc 1975), fig. 100. Here, as in the Vatican manuscript, the church is set
cession. See Magdalino, 200; and Anthony in within the walls, and a large gate is the other prominent feature.
Bryer, "Family Planning
Trebizond: The aima Prophesy of the Grand Komnenoi," in To Helleni 46. Villehardouin, cited in Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I, 119. An
kon: Studies inHonor of Spero Vryonis, vol. 1 (New Rochelle, N.Y: Aris
ekphrasis on one of the towers of Constantinople by John G?om?tres is
tide D. Caratzas, 1993), 85-90. "The Beauty of Castles: A Tenth-Century
analyzed by Henry Maguire,
in February-March died in of a Tower in Constantinople," Deltion tes Christianikes Ar
38. The marriages occurred 1180, and Manuel Description
September. chaiologikes Hetaireias 17 (1993-94): 21-24. See also Helen Saradi,
"The Kallos of the Byzantine City: The Development of a Rhetorical
39. This anti-Latin massacre is explored best by Jeffreys, "The Vernacular
Topos and Historical Reality," Gesta 34, no. 1 (1995): 37-56.
elcriT?jpioi,"; Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I; and Brand, Byzantium
Church and Society, 116-19. It 47. On conventions for representing space, see Ingrid
Confronts theWest. See also Angold, pictorial
should be noted, however, that pro- and anti-Latin do not most accu Ehrensperger-Katz, "Les repr?sentations de villes fortifi?es dans l'art
at court when Manuel et leurs d?riv?s byzantines," Cahiers Arch?ologiques 19
rately characterize the factionalism died, for pal?ochr?tien
was herself (1969): 1-27; Tania Velmans, "Le role du d?cor architectural et la
Maria Porphyrogenita, prominent player in the uprising,
was Western as well. As repr?sentation de l'espace dans la peinture des pal?ologues," Cahiers
half-German and her husband, Renier-John,
in stark eth Arch?ologiques 14 (1964): 183-216; and Cutler, Transfigurations, 111-40.
Magdalino, 225, observes, the politics have been miscast
nic terms. 48. The open window of Hagia Sophia may allude to the scene in the up
40. The far left edge of fol. 8r (the inner margin) preserves a scribal no per register of fol. 7r, the announcement of the betrothal. While it is
to search for geographic and architectural accuracy (in this
tation, ? small epsilon. As noted by Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," 370, this tempting
instance and throughout the manuscript), the artist may have been
occurs three times throughout the fragmentary codex, on fols. 8r, 2r,
more concerned with narrative clarity.
and 5r. In all these instances, a larger but unhistoriated initial exists.
In situations where this same type of initial is placed on versos of the 49. Much of the debate about the manuscript's date centers on this as
page (fols. 8v, 5v, 4v, that is, on the outer edge of the page rather pect of courtly dress. Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," 364, accurately points
than the inner margin), such notations do not survive, suggesting that out that this type of headdress occurs in the Palaiologan period on a
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 4gJ
thirteenth-century textile or pallio in Genoa and in the mosaics of the then painter. This overpainting led to Iacobini's proposal
outer narthex of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul. But it also appears in ("L'epitalamio," 369-73) that the images are a later addition to the
an eleventh-century Psalter in the Vatican (Vat. gr. 752), as noted by manuscript.
Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts, and in a 56. Despite significant paint loss on the left side of the miniature, the
number of pages of the Skylitzes manuscript inMadrid (Bibl. Nac. same long, white striped headgear worn by courtiers on fol. 2v is evi
vitr. 26-2). The scenes in which this headdress is pictured are dis
dent in the upper left corner.
cussed in Hilsdale, "Diplomacy by Design," 246-49.
57. M. E. Mullett, "The Language of Diplomacy," in Shepard and Frank
50. Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion," 558-59, reads the scene quite differ
lin, Byzantine Diplomacy, 205.
ently: while he sees the protagonists of the upper register as the Byz
antine imperial family, he identifies the two figures in the lower zone
58. On the Madrid Skylitzes, see Andr? Grabar and M. Manoussacas,
as either the Western L 'illustration du manuscrit de Skylitz?s de la Biblioth?que nationale deMa
king followed by his daughter, the betrothed, in
et Post-Byzan
drid (Venice: Institut Hell?nique d'?tudes
Byzantine garb or the Byzantine emperor followed by the Western Byzantines
in Byzantine Aus der Geschichte und
tines de Venise, 1979); Ioannis Scylitzae synopsis historiarum: Kodikas vitr.
princess garb. August Heisenberg,
der Literatur der Palaiologenzeit, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Aka 26-2 tesEthn?kes Vivliothekes tesMadrites (Athens: Miletos, 2000) ;Evans
demie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Abteilung, 10 and Wixom, Glory of Byzantium, 501-2; and Vasiliki Tsamakda, The Il
Abh. "Le portrait," lustrated Chronicle of Ioannes Skylitzes inMadrid (Leiden: Alexandras,
(Munich: n.p., 1920), 96, followed by Velmans,
102-3, has argued that the lower register represents the emperor fol 2002).
lowed by the bride and further points out that they are moving to 59. For another contemporary lament, see Marie of Antioch's lament for
ward the upper zone for a performance of the prokypsis ceremony. Manuel I Komnenos, in Cyril Mango, "Notes on Byzantine Monu
Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts, 211-12, ments," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23, no. 4 (1969-70): 372-75.
dismisses such a reading on the basis of other representations of the It is difficult to speculate what image or text would have followed fol.
60.
emperor, princess, and prince in the manuscript. But sheer logic pro
lv, although the imprint of a capital pi on the inner margin of fol. lv
vides the strongest case against Heisenberg's reading, as neither pro (lines 7-8) suggests that at least some text appeared on the next
posal fits the logic of the whole narrative. page. The outer margin of fol. 3r, the next surviving page of the co
51. Belting, Das illuminierte Buch, 26-29, proposed that fol. 7r was actually dex, also preserves the markings of a historiated initial, so the preced
the frontispiece of the manuscript and that the imagery summarizes ing verso must have included some text. But some flakes of red paint
the whole story. Following this hypothesis, in the lower zone, the em in the lower area of fol. 3r also suggest the presence of a miniature.
peror carries the marriage contract and leads the princess to the pal Remnants of a frame are perceptible, especially a horizontal edge
ace (denoted by the staircase) ; in the upper zone the princess is re about nine lines down from the top of the page and the vertical edge
peated but here she is taller (elevated on a cushion) and dressed as near the inner margin. Because of what follows, Jeffreys, "The Vernac
an empress. This view is untenable not only on the basis of codicology ular elcrtrr/pioL," 102, has speculated that the missing folios would
but also on pictorial grounds. The female figure in the upper register have included not only the end of the message from the Western
of fol. 7r does not resemble the princess depicted on fols. 3v and 6r ruler but also a description of the princess's disembarkation.
in the slightest. The long blond hair of the Byzantine prince, which 61. A. A. Vasiliev, "Harun-ibn-Yaha and His Description of Constanti
appears to have been a late-twelfth-century fashion for men, may in 5 (1932): 150-57; and A. Berger,
nople," Seminarium Kondakovianum
part account for many misunderstandings of the imagery. The
"Imperial and Ecclesiastical Processions in Constantinople," in Byzan
prince's long hair is less than half the length of the plaits of the prin tine Constantinople: Monuments,
on fol. 6r. Topography and Everyday Life, ed. Nevra
cesses, most noticeable
Necipoglu (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001), 78, who notes that the colors of
52. Anthony Bryer, "Greek Historians on the Turks: The Case of the First dress related to the circus factions.
Byzantine-Ottoman Marriage," in The Writing ofHistory in theMiddle has most recently studied the arrival of impe
62. Scholz, "Der Empfang,"
Ages: Essays Presented toRichard William Southern, ed. R. H. C. Davis and rial brides, relying heavily on the Vatican codex as evidence.
J. M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 483, describes
this scene as such. Velmans, "Le portrait," Heisenberg, Aus der Ge 63. Brand, Deeds, 37, emphasis added.
schichte, and Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion," propose that the image 64. Spatharakis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts, 229, has
on fol. 7r represents the ceremony directly. The Western bride's ar drawn a comparison to impressionistic harbor views in Pompeian wall
rival and transformation on fol. 3v is likewise cast in the same struc
paintings, while the eighth-century mosaics of the great mosque of
ture of progression (arrival, crossing, and regarbing) that culminates Damascus provide a close parallel, as noted by Iacobini,
in stilled frontal presentation, though one that would not be linked "L'epitalamio," 368. But it should be noted that the landscape does
to the prokypsis. include specific details: a domed structure with a cross at its apex can
Aus der Geschichte, 82-132; Michael Jeffreys, "The Comne be seen at the far left. This could be meant to evoke a generic Byzan
53. Heisenberg,
The Empire tine church, but itmay also refer to Hagia Sophia, seen a few pages
nian Prokypsis," Parergon 5 (1987): 38-53; and Magdalino,
See also Ernst H. Kantorowicz, "Oriens au before.
ofManuell, 240, 246-47.
gusti, lever du roi," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17 (1963): 159-62; Michael 65. Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion," 565-66, Jeffreys, "The Vernacular
McCormick, "Prokypsis," in Kazhdan and Talbot, The Dictionary of Byz slcriTT/ptoL," 112 n. 12, and Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," focus on the his
antium, 1733. Despite the twelfth-century genesis of the prokypsis cere torical accuracy, or lack thereof, of this bridge. On bridges in Con
mony, the most detailed accounts of it are late in date. The descrip stantinople, see Raymond Janin, "Les ponts byzantins de la Corne
tion by Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (r. 1347-54) situates a bride, d'Or," Annuaire de l'Institut de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves 9
rather than an imperial couple, at the center of the ritual drama. In (1949): 247-53; and idem, Constantinople byzantine, d?veloppement urbain
narrating the mid-fourteenth-century marriage of his daughter Theo et r?pertoire topographique (Paris: Institut Fran?ais d'?tudes Byzantines,
dora to the Turkish sultan Orhan, he relates how, once escorted to 1950), 218-34.
Selymbria, the imperial women (the empress and three daughters) 66. Again, it is unclear whether these women are Byzantine or women in
slept in an imperial tent while the emperor stayed with the army. In Agnes's entourage who have similarly changed their clothes.
the morning, Theodora ascended the prokypsis platform that was
adorned with silk and gold curtains; the curtains were drawn aside to 67. Here I am distinguishing between these moments of second-person
reveal the bride "encircled by lights carried by kneeling eunuchs." See speech where the poet addresses the reader and passages of second
accom person speech within the letters from Western to Eastern ruler.
Bryer, "Greek Historians," 479. Music and encomia recitations
panied this ceremonial vision and was concluded with a lavish feast 68. Traces of an elaborate historiated initial are visible in the upper right
that lasted several days. corner of fol. 5r, the next surviving page, suggesting that the preced
54. Vat. gr. 1176, in which this portrait appears, preserves the official pro ing lost page included at least some text.
ceedings of the 1166 council concerning the interpretation of the 69. "Ausonian ruler" is an epithet for the Roman or Byzantine emperor.
passage "My Father is greater than I" (John 14:28). This edict was also See Erich Trapp, Lexikon zur byzantinischen Gr?zit?t besonders des 9.-12.
inscribed on monumental stone slabs that were displayed in Hagia Jahrhunderts, vol. 2 (Vienna: ?sterreichische Akademie der Nissen
Sophia. Five of these slabs were discovered in 1959 in the mausoleum schaften, 1996), 232-33, for various compounds using the Ausonian
of Sultan S?leyman the Magnificent, set into the ceiling of the porch
prefix.
with only the smooth, richly veined back side visible to the viewer. See
70. Concerning the cartography of Constantinople, the map from Cristo
Cyril Mango, "The Consular Edict of 1166," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 17
foro Buondelmonti's Liber insularum archipelagi has received much re
(1963): 317-30; Magdalino and Nelson, "The Emperor in Byzantine
cent attention, in particular in Claudia Barsanti, "Un panorama di
Art," 139-40; Peter Classen, "Die Komnenen und die Kaiserkrone des
dal 'Liber insularum archipelagi' di Cristoforo Buon
Costantinopoli
Westens," Journal ofMedieval History 3 (1977): 214-20; and Spathara
in L'arte di Bisanzio e Vitalia al tempo dei Paleologi, ed. Anto
delmonti,"
kis, The Portrait in Byzantine Illuminated Manuscripts, 208-10. nio Iacobini and Mauro della Valle (Rome: Argos, 1999), 35-54;
55. The upper frame of this image partially covers the lowest line of text, Thomas Thomov, "New Information about Cristoforo Buondelmonti's
thus suggesting the order in which the manuscript was created: scribe, of Constantinople,"
Drawings Byzantion 66 (1996): 431-53; and Evans,
482
Byzantium, 400. On Hartmann Schedel's later depiction of Constanti 77. Anderson and Jeffreys, "The Decoration," 14-15.
nople, see Albrecht Berger and Jonathan Bardill, "The Representation 78. Pachymeres, Relations historiques, ed. Albert Failler (Paris: Belles Let
of Constantinople in Hartmann Schedel's World Chronicle, and Re
tres, 1984-2000), vol. 1, 235. Joinville, in his Life of Saint Louis, de
lated Pictures," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 22 (1998): 2-37;
scribes a chapel of scarlet cloth illustrated with Christological images
and Evans, 403-4.
given by Louis IX of France to the "King of the Tatars." See discus
71. On the topographic shift of mercantile activity to the Marmara coast sion in Anthony Cutler, "Everywhere and Nowhere: The Invisible Mus
and the establishment of Venetian and Genoese quarters on the lim and Christian Self-Fashioning in the Culture of Outremer," in
north coast/Golden Horn, see Paul Magdalino, "Maritime Neighbor France and theHoly Land: Prankish Culture at theEnd of the Crusades, ed.
hoods of Constantinople: Commercial and Residential Functions, Daniel Weiss and Lisa Mahoney (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Sixth to Twelfth Centuries," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 54 (2000): 209-26, Press, 2004), 257.
a contribution to the 1998 Dumbarton Oaks symposium "Constanti
79. Although the following page ismissing, clues survive as to its content.
nople: The Fabric of the City." See also Albrecht Berger, "Zur Topo
Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," has recognized that the frame of a large
am Goldenen Horn in der byzantinischen
graphie der Ufergegend miniature imprinted from the missing facing page encompasses most
Zeit," Istanbuler Mitteilungen 45 (1995): 149-65; and Paul Magdalino,
of fol. 6v, leaving space for only about four lines of text below. While
Constantinople m?di?vale: ?tudes sur l'?volution des structures urbaines the content of the image must remain unknown, its verso must have
(Paris: De Boccard, 1996), the cover of which bears the miniature
concerned the two women, since the next and final surviving page
from fol. 2r of Vat. gr. 1851 (Fig. 3). More recently, see idem, "Medi
eval Constantinople: Built Environment and Urban Development," in begins with a textual description of them.
The Economic History of Byzantium: From the Seventh through theFifteenth 80. These "vernacular experiments" are associated with Ptochoprodro
Century, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, mos, Glykas, and the Spaneas poet. Jeffreys, "The Vernacular
2002), 529-37. On the Blachernai and relevant literature, see Andrea eio-iTTjpioi," 104-5, outlines particular vernacular elements of Vat. gr.
Paribeni, "II quartiere delle Blacherne a Milion 1 1851. See also Erich Trapp, "Learned and Vernacular Literature in
Constantinopoli,"
(1988): 215-29. Of the two imperial marriages celebrated in 1179, Byzantium: Dichotomy or Symbiosis," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 47
Maria Porphyrogenita and Renier were married at the Blachernai while, (1993): 122; and Michael J. Jeffreys, "The Nature and Origins of the
as William of Tyre notes, Agnes and Alexios were married in the Trul Political Verse," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 28 (1974): 157-81, esp. 178.
lan Chamber of the Great Palace. The festivities were briefly de 81. The marriage for Manuel I Komnenos's
hymn written by Pr?dromos
scribed by William of Tyre; Emily Atwater Babcock and A. C. Krey, ed.
sister, Theodora, opens with astral imagery: "Tic ? (j)u)arf?p" (what
and trans., A History of Deeds Done beyond the Sea byWilliam, Archbishop
star); Carlo Castellani, ed. and trans., Epitalamio di Teodoro Pr?dromo per
of Tyre (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943), 449-50. See le nozze di Teodora Comnena e Giovanni Contostefano (Venice: Fratelli
Magdalino, The Empire ofManuel I, 244; and Brand, Byzantium Con
Visentini, 1888), 10. Pr?dromos also wrote eisiterioi for Manuel's first
fronts theWest, 22-23. wife, Bertha of Sulzbach. See Jeffreys, "The Vernacular eLo-irrjpioi,"
72. Judith Herrin, Women in Purple: Rulers ofMedieval Byzantium (Prince 115 n. 57; and Eustathios of Thessaloniki, in Regel, Fontes rerum, 87,
ton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 51-53, describes the ninth-cen lines 1-7.
tury arrival of Empress Irene (797-802) from Athens. She would have
82. Jeffreys, "The Vernacular 101-15.
on the Asiatic shore; then, after a few ewri/rr/pioi,"
arrived and docked at Hiereia
days, she would have crossed the Bosphoros, probably docking in the 83. The pro-Western sentiment expressed by the poet cannot be ex
Boukoleon harbor, and then proceeded to the Great Palace. Accord plained as any kind of topos, according to Jeffreys, "The Vernacular
ing to the contemporary description by Theophanes, she would have eiaiTr)pLOL,"106, but rather expresses "something of real significance
been met in advance by "the prominent men of the City and their in the political situation of Byzantium of 1179." Scholz, "Der Emp
wives who led the way before her," quoted in Herrin, Women in Purple, fang," 132-33, considers the fear and anxiety expressed by the poet
52. In the fourteenth La trait? des offices, ed. against the political background, concluding that his concern was jus
century, Pseudo-Kodinos,
du Centre National de la Recherche tified in light of subsequent events.
Jean Verpeaux (Paris: ?ditions
Scientifique, 1966), 286-87, reports that a foreign-born fianc?e would 84. Belting, Das illuminierte Buch, 27.
have disembarked in an appropriate place outside the city, close to
85. Jeffreys, "The Vernacular elo-irf/pioi," 111. Magdalino, The Empire of
the Blachernai Church, and she would have been met in advance by
Manuel I, 224; and Garland, Byzantine Empresses, 203 (following Jef
members of the highest level of the Byzantine aristocracy. Pachy
meres, Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," reminds us, reports that in 1296 Mary freys) , state that the poem was written by an admirer of the empress
on the Golden Horn, north of the and expresses the tension between Marie of Antioch and Maria Por
of Armenia arrived at Cosmidion
Blachernai. Kinnamos's of the arrival of Bertha of phyrogenita.
description
Sulzbach also clearly refers to imperial women greeting the bride ini 86. Leo the Deacon, ed. Bonn, chap. 3, lines 79-80, English translation
tially and notes that one in particular was singled out (visually marked by Alice-Mary Talbot (forthcoming). Leo continues: "As night had
through dress) to play a more prominent role. On acclamations, see already fallen, the empress, as was her custom, went in to the em
Jacques Handschin, Das Zeremonienwerk Kaiser Konstans und die sangbare peror, and spoke of the maidens who had recently arrived from My
Dichtung (Basel: Buchdr. F. Reinhardt, 1942), 5-68. I believe that on sia, saying, T am leaving to give some instructions about their
"
fol. 4v, lines 4-5 ("daughters in your honor and in the presence of care. . . .' Talbot, trans., chap. 6, 86. I would like to thank Alice-Mary
the purple-born dynasts, the great emperors") must be an acclama Talbot for bringing this passage to my attention and for sharing her
tion addressed to the two princesses, Agnes and Maria, though I have translation with me.
found no explicit references to this event.
87. For, as Herrin, Women in Purple, 17-18, notes, "children of both sexes
73. See Berger, 83 n. 36; and Scholz, "Der Empfang," 144. to foreign rulers as part of diplomatic
"Processions," might be married alliance
74. The pages were trimmed at some point; see n. 40 above for discussion building, and they were expected to represent Byzantine culture
abroad." Herrin proposes that eunuchs were responsible for the tutor
of the gutter notations surviving only in the inner margins.
75. Tents depicted in scenes of siege are seen on fols. 140, 151b, 153, ing.
in tents, on fols. 97r, 163, and 210v; and letters ex 88. John Kantakouzenos, quoted in Bryer, "Greek Historians," 481. Joseph
214; receptions
tents, on fol. 75v (Fig. 8). They further appear in a Gill, "Matrons and Brides of Fourteenth
changed between Century Byzantium," Byzanti
nische Forschungen 10 (1985): 48, characterizes this practice as "a kind
Psalter at the Vatican, Vat. gr. 752, in similar contexts (such as on
fols. 109v, 54, and 52r). See E. T. de Wald, The Illustrations of the of kindergarten for candidates for the harem."
Manuscripts of the Septuagint, vol. 3, Psalms and Odes, Part II: Vaticanus 89. A fourteenth-century Book of Hours in the Cloisters (54.1.2) served a
graecus 752 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1942); and Ioli Ka didactic role for Jeanne d'Evreux, as argued by Madeline H. Caviness,
lavrezou, Nicolette Trahoulia, and Shalom Sabar, "Critique of the Em "Patron or Matron? A Capetian Bride and a Vade Mecum for Her
peror in Vatican Psalter gr. 752," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 47 (1993): Marriage Bed," Speculum 68 (1993): 333-62; and Joan A. Holladay,
195-219. "The Education of Jeanne d'Evreux: Personal Piety and Dynastic Sal
76. The depiction of an especially lavish tent, adorned with images of vation on Her Book of Hours at the Cloisters," Art History 17, no. 4
(1994): 585-611. On books of hours in general and their often fe
beasts in motion, appears in an eleventh-century hunting manual
known as the Venice Cynegetica in Venice, Biblioteca Mar male readers, see Roger S. Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book ofHours in
preserved
ciana MS gr. 479, fol. 2v. See ?talo Furlan, Codici greci illustrati della Medieval Art and Life (New York: George Braziller, 1988). Also relevant
Biblioteca marciana (Milan: Stendhal, 1978), fig. 3a-b. Anthropomor is Susan Groag Bell, "Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay
scenes decorate the exterior of a tent in a contempo Piety and Ambassadors of Culture," Signs 7, no. 4 (1982): 742-68, on
phic acrobatic
rary Book of Kings in the Vatican, Vat. gr. 333, fol. 18v. See Jean Las patterns of ownership; and Mayke B. de Jong, "Exegesis for an Em
sus, L'illustration byzantine du Livre des Rois, Vaticanus graecus 333 (Paris: press," in Cohen and de Jong, Medieval Transformations, 69-100, esp.
Klincksieck, 1973), fig. 31. On the poetic and visual motif of the tent, 72-73, on two biblical commentaries for the Carolingian Empress Ju
see Jeffrey C. Anderson and Michael Jeffreys, "The Decoration of the dith in the 830s. The final six essays of Lesley Smith and Jan H. M.
Sevastokratorissa's Tent," Byzantion 64 (1994): 8-18. Taylor, eds., Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence (London:
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 4g3
British Library; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1997), address ing at this time, see, in the same volume, W. J. Aerts, "Froumund's
"Images and Books for Women." Greek: An Analysis of fol. 12v of the Codex Vindobonensis Graecus
114, Followed by a Comparison with a Latin-Greek Wordlist in MS
90. The complicated familial connections between Agnes of France and
are best summarized 179 Auxerre fol. 137v ff," 194-210; and also Walter Berschin, Greek
Marie of Antioch by Jeffreys, "The Vernacular
105. Letters and the Latin Middle Ages from Jerome toNicholas of Cusa (Wash
elairfjptoL,"
ington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1988), esp. 192,
91. Jeffrey C. Anderson, "Anna Komnene, Learned Women, and the
331 n. 52.
Book in Byzantine Art," in Anna Komnene and Her Times, ed. Thalia
99. Herrin, Women in Purple, 78, argues that Elissaios was part of the em
Gouma-Peterson (New York: Garland, 2000), 125-56.
92. Hill, Imperial Women, 171-72, describes the monetary be bassy that was sent by the regency to arrange the alliance and then
negotiations remained in France to teach Rotrud. The betrothal was broken in
tween Bertha-Irene and Tzetzes as recorded in his Historiae. See Jef
788, according to some sources by Charlemagne and to others by
freys's discussion of Tzetzes' Iliad Allegories in "The Nature and Ori
Irene. See Giosue Musca, "Le trattative matrimonian fra Carlo Magno
gins," 153-57. ed Irene di Bisanzio," Annali della Facolt? di Lettere eFilosof?a
93. The literary patronage of the sebastokratorissa has been explored in deirUniversit? di Bari 7 (1961): 83-127. Magdalino, The Empire ofMan
Anderson, "Anna Komnene"; idem, "The Seraglio Octateuch and the uel I, 222 n. 138, has noted that Balduino Guercio of Genoa helped
Kokkinobaphos Master," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 36 (1982): 83-114; by the marriage alliances with both William of Montpellier and
negotiate
Elizabeth Jeffreys and Michael Jeffreys in numerous publications, most
Louis VII and accompanied the respective brides-to-be to and from
notably "The Sebvastokratorissa Eirene as Literary Patroness: The
Constantinople. Since he was not Greek he presumably could not give
Monk Iakovos," Jahrbuch der ?sterreichischen Byzantinistik 32, no. 3 similar training. See also Brand, Byzantium Confronts theWest,
Agnes
(1982): 63-71; and idem, "Who Was Eirene Sevastokratorissa," Byzan 320 n. 20. Ekkehard IV (d. ca. 1060) narrates how Duchess Hadwig
tion 64 (1994): 40-68, in which the authors argue that Irene was one
was engaged to "a Greek King Constantine" who had sent to Germany
of many Western women brought to Byzantium for aristocratic inter
two eunuchs, one to paint her portrait and another to teach her
national marriage alliances. The treatise on grammar survives in the
Greek; see Berschin, Greek Letters, 150.
library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem (Taphou
52). Ioannis Spatharakis, "An Illuminated Greek Grammar Manuscript 100. Babcock and Krey, A History ofDeeds, 450.
in Jerusalem," Jahrbuch der ?sterreichischen Byzantinistik 35 (1985): 231 101. Poem 5: Tow ainov?oyo? eolk?s femj?arrjpic? ?K<f)?)viqdE?<;ett? ttj? ek
44, notes that this is the only surviving example of an illuminated QpayKiaq 'eAevosl ttj? ?acnAiKTjc vvfi<j)r?<;sic rrjv Msyak?iroXiv, as
Greek grammar manuscript. in Regel, Fontes rerum, 80-92; and more recently Peter Wirth, Eu
94. Paris, BNF gr. 1208, and BAV Vat. gr. 1162. For the latter, see Marien stathiana: Gesammelte Aufs?tze zu Leben und Werk desMetropoliten Eusta
Homilien: Codex Vaticanus graecus 1162 (Zurich: Belser Verlag, 1991). thios von Thessalonike (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1980), 250-56. It is dis
See also Jeffrey C. Anderson, "The Illustrated Sermons of James the cussed by Papademitriu, "'O fcm0a?a/uuo?'," 454-58; Jeffreys, "The
Monk: Their Dates, Order and Place in the History of Byzantine Art," Vernacular ?lcn/rf/pi,oi,"103; and Scholz, "Der Empfang," 128-29. See
Viator 22 (1991): 69-120, esp. 101-20, on the pictorial narrative; and also Stone, "Eustathian Panegyric," 225-58.
idem, "Anna Komnene," 142-48, for patronage and imagery.
102. Buc, The Dangers of Ritual, 227.
95. As Anderson, "Anna Komnene," 142, explains: "For the foreigner
the miniatures a
103. Robert of Clari describes this encounter. When sought out by the
picking her way through the dense Greek, provided she angrily refused to speak with them: she "ne voloit par
Crusaders,
running plot-summary, especially when used with their simple cap ler a aus, ains i faisoit parier un latimier, et disoit li latimiers qu'ele
tions." The text of James's sermons is difficult to read compared with
ne savoit nient de Franchois"; Philippe Lauer, ed., Robert de Clari, la
Prodromic poems or paraphrases of the classics commissioned for
Bertha-Irene. conqu?te de Constantinople (Paris: E. Champion, 1924), 54. Villehar
douin specifically mentions the French princess among the other im
96. A comparison of Vat. gr. 1851 with fol. 1 of Paris, BNF gr. 3039 re at the "Bouche-de-Lion"
perial ladies encountered by the Crusaders
veals similarly enlarged epsilons, thetas, phis, and stylized alpha-rho (Boukoleon) but does not record any exchange between them; E.
ligatures. See Anderson, "The Illustrated Sermons." la conqu?te de Constantinople, vol. 2 (Paris: Les
Faral, ed., Villehardouin,
97. Ibid., 94. Belles Lettres, 1939), 50-51. See also Charles M. Brand's entry "Agnes
98. A bilingual Greek and Latin Psalter in the Stadtbibliothek of Trier of France," in Kazhdan and Talbot, The Dictionary of Byzantium, 37. On
to my attention by Holger Klein, may have func the death of Alexios II, Agnes-Anna did not return to France. Instead,
(MS 7/9), brought
tioned as a didactic tool for aWesterner to learn Greek. One of the Andronikos I, her husband's murderer and successor, married her,
five hands that copied the codex is associated with the Theophano and she maintained her position at court. Both Byzantine and foreign
charter of April 972 (Staatsarchiv Wolfenb?ttel 6 Urkunde sources express outrage at the age difference between Andronikos,
marriage
that the Psalter may have been used by the Byzantine nearly fifty, and Agnes, not yet twelve, describing the union as unnat
11), suggesting
bride of Otto II. Rosamond McKitterick even suggests that the book ural and worse. For particularly strong responses, see Niketas Choni
was commissioned by the mother of the groom, Queen Adelheid, who ates, in Magoulias, O City of Byzantium, 153; and Eustathios of Thessal
was herself a diplomatic bride (daughter of Rudolph II of Burgundy). oniki, The Capture of Constantinople, trans. John R. Melville Jones
See McKitterick, "Ottoman Intellectual Culture in the Tenth Century (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 1988), 50-52.
and the Role of Theophano," in The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and After Andronikos's death, she married again, this time not an em
theWest at the Turn of theFirst Millennium, ed. Adelbert Davids (Cam peror but a certain Theodore Branas, described by Robert of Clari as
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 169-93. On Greek learn "a high man of the city."

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Constructing a Byzantine "Augusta:" A Greek Book for a French Bride

Author(s): Cecily J. Hilsdale

Komnenian Kinship and Allegiance

ruling family of Byzantium from 1081 until 1185, had estab

cally transformed: new titles were invented and distributed to

marriage alliances and titles helped both to maintain family

product of the late twelfth century. Owing to its exceptional

within the historical context, but at first of these cushions differ be

propose that the poem was

and contemporary evidence historians who often describe it as "crude."23 how

pivotal to late Komnenian dynastic politics.25 The choice of a

Both Angeliki Laiou and Paul Magdalino have explored

Below these words, a framed miniature, lines of text tall,

3 View of Constantinople. Vatican

City, BAV Vat. gr. 1851, fol. 2r (photo:

4 Enthroned Virgin and Child

middle level, the same messenger, or

5 Arrival of Messengers. Vat. gr. 1851,

returns her husband's

Read as must be,51 these two illu

6 Announcement of the Betrothal.

scroll, to herald's voice. Instead, it describes the universal

jects], has turned to elation at the implied promise of the bride's

city]? change of information.

7 Arrival of a Vat. gr.

rial equivalent to the Byzantine prokypsis ceremony.52 Taking Vatican

as the of the Vatican codex with textual Hail of Rome, monarch,

Through the alternation of modes of speech and visual text and

ceremony whose is to make on the social and of

passing from the hand of the Western messenger to the full-page

and she alone might

'* ' ""

10 View of Constantinople. Vat. gr. 4%'

that are most

in the text.71 an extension of the For a be

Digenis Akritis, an embroidered tent with depictions of ani tinuing

mals is listed as part of a dowry.77 The late Byzantine historian merely

George Pachymeres describes a

unattested. these two textual

Unfortunately, the following folio does not survive,79 but

not be read as accidental (Fig. 6). In addition to a distinction where the

of brides and artistic a state and, more it is associated with a

the foreign princesses

of as brides in a trothed. When in 781 Irene for her son,

school.88 the notarios Elissaios, court eunuch, was

understanding of the Vatican codex, for it is precisely within be prepared

patron: the language

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