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Home , 11th century, Basileus, Born in the purple, Grand prince, Michael VII Doukas

Conference on “Gender and Power in the Middle Ages” Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, University of Chicago, May 2017

“Byzantine Things and the Aspirations of : Gender, Power, and Materiality” Cecily Hilsdale ([email protected])

My presentation will consider the material and visual dimension of gender and power in . More specifically I want to think about how objects and their imagery can often tell a different story about imperial diplomatic marriage than textual accounts alone. The two case studies I’ve selected are among the most potent material manifestations of secular and sacerdotal power: a crown and a liturgical vestment. The enamel diadem known today as the Royal Crown of Hungary was sent to Buda from in the 11th and the embroidered vestment known as the major of Metropolitan Photios was sent from the capital to in the early . Despite such pronounced differences in terms of chronology, material, and ritual context, both objects were occasioned by Byzantine diplomatic marriages, that is, marriage alliances with the royal houses of Buda and Moscow. My primary aim is to see how such objects hinge on and are imprinted by exogamous and endogamous kinship ties that were contingent and fraught. We ultimately know very little about the two brides themselves, but the sumptuous objects that were occasioned by their marriages stand as potent symbols of secular and sacred authority even today. And both the crown and the vestment can tell us a great deal about imperial diplomatic marriage in addition to the corresponding textual accounts.

Below are some essential details about each case study to be complemented by a separate document with detailed images.

I. From Constantinople to Buda: An Enamel Crown for a Byzantine Bride

The pictorial program of the crown that is now on view in the Hungarian building in Budapest conveys the idea of the earthly hierarchy as mirroring the celestial one. The front of the Royal Crown of Hungary represents enthroned Christ above archangels and saints (that is, the celestial hierarchy), while the back represents the contemporary earthly counterpart: Byzantine Michael VII (r. 1071–78) is depicted above his son and co-emperor Constantine as well as (kral) Géza of Hungary (r. 1074–77). The historic figures are all identified by name in Greek as follows: Μιχ(αὴλ) ἐν Χ(ριστ)ῷ πιστὸς βασιλεὺς Ῥωµαίων ὁ Δούκ(ας) (Michael Doukas, Faithful in Christ, Emperor of the Romans), Κων(σταντῖνος) βασιλεὺς Ῥωµαίων ὁ πορφυρογέννητος (Constantine, Emperor of the Romans, Born in the ), and Γεωβιτζὰς πιστὸς κράλης Τουρκίας (Géza, Faithful King of Turkia).

On the basis of these historic figures, scholars have traditionally assumed that the crown was a gift from the Byzantine emperor to the Hungarian kral, but more recently it has

1 been read in light of a Byzantine-Hungarian marital union. In the mid , kral Géza married a bride from Constantinople who was the daughter of Byzantine nobleman Synadenos and niece of future emperor Nikephoros III Botaneiates (r. 1078–81). The marriage is recorded with the utmost brevity in ’s Continuation: Δέδωκε δὲ καὶ τὴν ἀνεψιὰν αὐτοῦ ὁ βασιλεὺς τὴν Συναδηνὴν, θυγατέρα οὖσαν Θεοδούλου τοῦ Συναδηνοῦ, τῷ κράλῃ Οὐγγρίας εἰς γυναῖκα, οὗ καὶ τελευτήσαντος αὖθις εἰς τὸ Βυζάντινον ὑπέστρεψε (the emperor [Botaneiates] had given his niece, the Synadene, daughter of Theodoulos Synadenos, to the kral of Hungary as wife, upon whose death she returned immediately to Byzantium). Little more is known of this union or of the bride, and yet close examination of the format and program of the Royal Crown of Hungary suggests that it was originally a female crown.

The Byzantine bride herself is elusive—she is not present pictorially on the crown itself and the primary source attesting to her marriage is laconic at best. But by understanding the crown as being created for her, we can use the crown’s pictorial program to think through issues of allegiance and hierarchy that are key to exogamy as a Byzantine diplomatic strategy.

For a detailed reading of the crown with bibliography, see Hilsdale, “The Social Life of the Byzantine Gift: The Royal Crown of Hungary Re-Invented,” Art History 31, no. 5 (November 2008): 602-31.

II. From Constantinople to Moscow: A 15th Century Vestment and a Byzantine-Rus Union

What is conventionally known as the major sakkos of Metropolitan Photios in Moscow’s Kremlin museum is a Byzantine liturgical vestment commissioned for the metropolitan of “Kiev and all of Russia,” who had been appointed by the patriarch of Constantinople in 1408, and who was responsible for negotiating the marriage of the heirs to the Byzantine and Muscovite . The dizzying liturgical program embroidered on the front and back of the sakkos is complemented by a series of contemporary royal figures identified by inscription on the lower hem of the front. In the lower left corner, the future Byzantine emperor John (VIII) (r. 1425-1448) and his bride Anna of Moscow are identified in Greek as Ἰω(άννης) ἐν Χ(ριστ)ῷ τῷ θ(ε)ῷ πιστὸς βασιλεὺς ὁ Παλεολόγος (John, Faithful in Christ, Emperor of the Romans, Palaiologos) and Ἄν(ν)α ἡ εὐσεβεστάτη Αὐγούστα ἡ Παλεολογίνα (Anna Most Pious Augusta Paleolognia). In the lower right corner, Anna’s parents, Vasily I Dmitrievič, Grand of Moscow (r. 1371-1425), and Sophia Vitovtovna, daughter of Vitovt, ruler of are identified by Slavonic inscriptions.

The sakkos was sent to Moscow sometime after the marriage of Anna of Moscow to John, heir to the Byzantine throne in (1414) and before her death (1417). While primary sources allow us to ascertain this chronology, the complicated pictorial program of the vestment itself gives us distinct insight into the ideological valences of this marriage.

2 One text to keep in mind as conceptual and historical background for the vestment is the letter of Patriarch Anthony sent to Vasily I Dmitrievič 15 earlier in 1393. Vasily I Dmitrievič had opposed the liturgical celebration of the emperor’s name in his lands. In a justifiably famous reproach to this “most noble of Moscow and all of Russia,” the patriarch reminds Dmitrievič that there could be no church without the emperor. Although the Russians may have been more interested in Byzantine spirituality than empire, Patriarch Anthony suggests that for the Byzantines these could not be disentangled. As basileus and , he insists, the emperor was consecrated the anointed ruler of the Christian oikoumene and as such was to be commemorated by the ecclesiastical hierarchy:

“…even if, by God’s permission, the nations have constricted the authority and domain of the emperor, still to this day the emperor possesses the same charge from the church and the same rank and the same prayers. The basileus is anointed with the great myron and is appointed basileus and autokrator of the Romans, that is of all . Everywhere the name of the emperor is commemorated by all patriarchs and metropolitans and bishops wherever men are called Christians, which is the privilege of no other local prince or sovereign.” (Miklosich and Müller II, 190-91)

In some sense, the sakkos can be read as a visual statement of Orthodoxy akin to the patriarch’s letter in its celebration of intertwined imperial and sacerdotal hierarchies. But the visual statement underscores this message by stressing dynastic ties as suggested by the effigies. The lower hem constitutes a celebration of diplomatic marriage across two generations and two cultures (Moscow-Lithuania; Moscow-Constantinople) all culminating in the sacro-imperial authority of Constantinople.

For a detailed reading of the sakkos with bibliography, see Hilsdale, and in an Age of Decline (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), 268- 332 (chapter 5).

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