The Empresses Of Constantinople

Joseph McCabe brings us another book chronicling the empresses of the Classic and Medieval Era, which in this particular publication, focuses on the rise and fall of Constantinople's empresses. Constantinople's empresses came from backgrounds far more varied than its Western Roman Empire counterpart, ranging from "princesses to village girls, tavern girls or circus girls." Featured in this book are famous names such as the empress regnant and Eastern Orthodox saint Theodora the Blessed; the actress turned empress consort Theodora I; and the author and princess Anna Comnena.

Excerpt from The Empresses of Constantinople In concluding an earlier volume on the mistresses of the western Roman Empire I observed that, as the gallery of fair and frail ladies closed, we stood at the door of "the long, quaint gallery of the Byzantine Empresses." It seemed natural and desirable to pass on to this more interesting and less familiar series of the mistresses of the eastern Roman Empire, and the present volume will therefore tell the story of the Empresses, or Queens, as they preferred to be called, who occupied the throne set up by Constantine in New Rome, or ancient Byzantium, until the victorious Turk thrust it disdainfully aside to make way for his more spacious harem. The eastern or Byzantine Empire has long been regarded in Europe as a world of far less interest than that which centred on the banks of the Tiber: a world of monotonous piety and little adventure or spirit, almost Chinese in its placid and unchanging adherence to traditional and very conventional forms. One is tempted to attribute this error, not merely to the longer concealment of Byzantine antiquities from our fathers and the superior attractiveness of Italy, but, in some measure, to the disproportion of Gibbon's work. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Byzantine Empresses provides a series of biographical portraits of the most significant Byzantine women who ruled or shared the throne between 527 and 1204. It presents and analyses the available historical data in order to outline what these empresses did, what the sources thought they did, and what they wanted to do.

The role of the Byzantine emperor has been exhaustively analyzed; the place of the Byzantine empress -- often perceived as an appendate to male imperial power -- is more problematic. Elizabeth James begins her study with Helena, mother of the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great, and ends with Eirene, the only woman to rule as an "emperor" in Byzantium. More than simply a biography of each empress in the period between the fourth and eighth centuries, this book analyzes the nature of female imperial power during that time. What rights and responsibilities, what access to power, if any, did the office of empress carry?

The study presents the biographies of fifteen empresses in the period from 1261 to 1450. It also considers the selection of imperial brides and the rituals accompanying their arrival in Constantinople. Finally, the author inquires into these women's contributions to public, ritual, and ecclesiastical life and reflects on the seasons of their lives.

This book reconsiders a wide array of images of Byzantine empresses on media as diverse as bronze coins and gold mosaic from the fifth through to the seventh centuries A.D. The representations have often been viewed in terms of individual personas, but strong typological currents frame their medieval context. Empress Theodora, the target of political pornography, has consumed the bulk of past interest, but even her representations fit these patterns. Methodological tools from fields as disparate as numismatics as well as cultural and gender studies help clarify the broader cultural significance of female imperial representation and patronage at this time.