Empress Theophanu: the Politics of Power at the Intersection of Byzantium and the Ottonian Empire

University of Central Florida STARS Honors Undergraduate Theses UCF Theses and Dissertations 2020 Empress Theophanu: The Politics of Power at the Intersection of Byzantium and the Ottonian Empire Harper J. Norris University of Central Florida Find similar works at: https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses University of Central Florida Libraries http://library.ucf.edu This Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the UCF Theses and Dissertations at STARS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Undergraduate Theses by an authorized administrator of STARS. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Recommended Citation Norris, Harper J., "Empress Theophanu: The Politics of Power at the Intersection of Byzantium and the Ottonian Empire" (2020). Honors Undergraduate Theses. 799. https://stars.library.ucf.edu/honorstheses/799 EMPRESS THEOPHANU: THE POLITICS OF POWER AT THE INTERSECTION OF BYZANTIUM AND THE OTTONIAN EMPIRE by HARPER NORRIS A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Honors in the Major Program in History in the College of Arts & Humanities and in the Burnett Honors College at the University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida Spring Term 2020 Thesis Chair: Duncan Hardy, Ph.D. ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to theorize the rhetoric, power dynamics, agency, and rulership of Theophanu and contextualize it through the frame of an intersection of the Byzantine and Ottonian political culture. By analyzing the unique sources surrounding Theophanu – from charters written during her consortship to chronicles written about her posthumously – this thesis seeks to push scholarship to examining Theophanu at the intersection of these two hegemonic cultures. This thesis will analyze the rhetoric of transgression surrounding the empress, the politics of power in the Ottonian court, as well as the gender of Theophanu to bring a nuanced frame of analysis to understand complicated relationship the empress had with these two cultures. This thesis seeks to use this frame of analysis to examine the political and social spaces surrounding Theophanu. The chronicles written about her during and after her life underline socio-political relations with the Ottonians and Greeks, which this thesis seeks to highlight. This thesis also analyzes the various titles in which Theophanu utilized in her political life, both masculine and feminine, through a complex political and gender frame. This analysis will help expand scholarship past thinking about Theophanu in dichotomous terms and will provide scholars a new lens to view a complex historical figure. ii DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to the memory of a great scholar, mentor, and person: Dr. Simon Barton. iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge my committee member, Dr. Edward Dandrow, for all the expertise, aid, and patience he gave to me through the writing process. I would also like to thank my chair Dr. Duncan Hardy for being a wonderful mentor who can instill a passion for medieval history into his students. This project would simply not have been possible without his support, assistance, and direction. Outside of my committee, I would like to thank Dr. Amelia Lyons, Dr. Yovanna Pineda for helping me grow as a historian, and being so supportive of my ideas. I would also like to thank Kyle Kern for helping so much with the conceptualization and encouragement that got me through the writing process. Finally to my friends, family, and of course my wonderful girlfriend Jordan – without whom this project would have never reached completion – I am deeply grateful for your support. You all have made this worthwhile. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES …………………………………………………………………………….vi INTRODUCTION …………………...………………………………………………………… 1 1.1 Historiography and Relevancy …………………………………………………….…. 3 1.2 Methodology …………………………………………………………………………. 5 1.3 Sources and Limitations …………………………………………………………….... 6 CHAPTER 1: EMPRESS THEOPHANU AND BYZANTINE TRANSGRESSION IN OTTONIAN CEREMONIAL SPACE ………………………………………………………… 9 CHAPTER 2: HYBRIDITY AND THE POLITICS OF POWER BETWEEN BYZANTIUM AND THE OTTONIAN COURT …………………………………………………………….. 27 CHAPTER 3: RECONSIDERING GENDER: THEOPHANU AS BYZANTINE PRINCESS AND OTTONIAN QUEEN …………...………………………………………………………39 CONCLUSION ………………………………………………………………………………..54 FIGURES .………………………………………………………………….… ………………56 BIBLIOGRAPHY ……………………………………………………………………….…….60 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Ivory Carving of Christ blessing Otto II and Theophanu (figure 1, 982/3). Figure 2: Romanos and Eudochia Ivory, commissioned by Constantine VII (figure 2, 945-9). Figure 3: The Icon with the Meeting in the Garden and the Anastasis (figure 3, mid-10th century) Figure 4: The Dresden Ivory (figure 4, mid-10th century). vi INTRODUCTION Theophanu, often referred to as the “Greek Empress” by her Ottonian political opponents, perpetuated one of the most active roles in government in Ottonian history. Historians have been fascinated by the empress ̶ raised and educated in the efficient education system developed for Constantinopolitan nobility by Constantine VII (945-59) ̶ due to her mixed Roman heritage and identity. Born around 955 as a Byzantine princess in Constantinople, Theophanu married Holy Roman Emperor Otto II in Rome’s Saint Peter’s Basilica when she was only twelve, and this spurred a prolific political career. During her reign as empress with Otto II, she is recorded to have intervened in government seventy-six times, and after Otto II’s death she ruled as regent from 983 until her death in 990.1 Theophanu brought Byzantine ceremonial prescriptions and traditions, evident in texts such as De Ceremoniis, to the Ottonian court, which allowed the “Greek Empress” to fashion herself as legitimate in the eyes of the Ottonian nobility. Theophanu acted in the Latin-speaking, catholic Ottonian court, however she would have been aware of Byzantine traditions, ceremony, history, and rhetoric.2 Theophanu is the main focus of this thesis, as she exists at a crossroads of Byzantine and Ottonian culture. This thesis argues that her identity and political practices could be constructed from elements from both Ottonian and Byzantine cultures, that is to say that she might be considered simultaneously Ottonian and Byzantine while truly being neither. While this concept may seem counter-intuitive, shifting towards this lens of viewing Theophanu will help historians grasp more nuanced aspects of the empress’s political life. This enigmatic empress presents 1Karl Leyser, Communication and Power In Medieval Europe (London: The Hambledon Press, 1994), 159. 2 Judith Herrin “Theophano: Considerations on the Education of a Byzantine Princess,” in The Empress Theophanu: Byzantium and the West at the turn of the first millenium, ed. Adelbert Davids (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 67. Constantine actively sought to create education for Byzantine nobility that focused around training Byzantine princesses to be diplomats at a young age. 1 historians with numerous challenges in terms of how she should be viewed and contextualized, and many historians have attempted to rise to these challenges through contextual analysis. Many of these approaches fall short in objectively analyzing her as a historical figure, as they get wrapped up in imposing value judgments onto Theophanu. Tenth-century Byzantine and Ottonian society molded her, and these terms, “Ottonian” and “Byzantine,” are modern constructs imposed on medieval polities which did not call themselves the aforementioned titles, however for the sake of convenience the present work will utilize these terms in this thesis to refer to the empire of Constantinople and the Saxon-ruled empire. In David A. Werner’s article Ritual and Memory in the Ottonian Reich, The Ceremony of Adventus, he explains that a major purpose of ceremony in the Ottonian Empire was, “to make the invisible visible.”3 This notion articulates the function of ceremony, and this work will attempt to explain what the “invisible” was. This “invisible” often referred to platonic entities of the Ottonian states, such as the idea of empire, Roman identity, and the ideology of its Saxon rulers. When working with invisible elements of medieval polities that already face problems regarding their lack of sources, new and inventive methods of investigation must be utilized by historians. For the sake of this thesis, a variety of theories, relating to space, hybridity, and gender, will be utilized to elucidate the “invisible” elements of Theophanu’s political career. The Ottonian Empire existed as a new and volatile polity in the climate of the tenth century. This powerful medieval polity existed out of the cultural and political remnants of the Carolingian Empire, and also claimed to be inheritor of the Roman Empire. The ambition of Otto I (r. 962-73) formed a polity that would be shaped in the tenth century by his son and grandson, Otto II (r. 973-83) and Otto III (r. 996-1002) respectively. By this time, Byzantium claimed over 3 David A. Warner, “Ritual and Memory in the Ottonian Reich, The Ceremony of Adventus,” Speculum 76 (2001): 255. 2 a thousand years of uninterrupted Greek and Roman history, and this would frame their view of the Ottonians. During the tenth century, the Byzantine Empire experienced a revival of Greek and Roman culture spurred on by the educational programs of Photios, a heavily influential and controversial Patriarch from the ninth century. Constantine VII (r. 945-959) would continue many of these educational and cultural

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