4 MAKING A NAME: REPUTATION AND IMPERIAL FOUNDING AND REFOUNDING IN CONSTANTINOPLE Liz James ow could the building of churches influ- to achieve political goals , to gain spiritual ben- Hence the reputation of an empress and how efits , to enhance their own positions and their could reputation play a part in the associations own families , perhaps in dynastic terms , and to made between empresses and churches ? Work accrue symbolic credit for themselves , as learned , on women patrons in the 1990s established that as pious , as virtuous. This symbolic credit could women’s patronage of the arts , like men’s , could then be transferred to other spheres , including be seen on two levels , the personal and the po- political power. A cycle developed in which it litical.1 In the case of the former , the reasons be- becomes apparent that the building of a church hind patronage were as individual and varied as could lead to a reputation for piety and virtue the patrons themselves. On the political level , and that in turn could lead to the ascription of however , women’s patronage was understood as more churches to the individual. Founding and having a more urgent purpose than men’s. The refounding therefore became one element in the political and symbolic benefits for men in terms establishment of reputation and the commemo- of the patriarchal power structures of the medi- ration of certain individuals ahead of others. Ma- eval and Byzantine worlds have been widely dis- tronage , to borrow Leslie Brubaker’s term , was cussed.2 In the case of female patrons , founding never simply art for art’s sake.3 buildings and paying for the arts offered a space Reputation in the context of founding and , for those disempowered to greater or lesser ex- more particularly , refounding buildings is a cen- tents by “the system” to assert their own political tral issue. It is well-known that a “good reputa- agenda. It became clear that cultural authority in tion” played an important role in establishing the Middle Ages and Byzantium functioned in a standing and authority in Imperial Rome and socially sanctioned way for women in particular Renaissance Italy , one that could be both gained My thanks to the unknown reader for some valuable thoughts and questions. 1 See , for example , J. H. McCash ( ed. ), The Cultural Patronage of Medieval Women , Athens , GA / London 1996 , esp. A. L. McClanan , The Empress Theodora and the Tradition of Women’s Patronage in the Early Byzantine Empire , pp. 50–72 ; L. Brubaker , Memories of Helena : Patterns in Imperial Female Matronage in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries , in : L. James ( ed. ), Women , Men and Eunuchs. Gender in Byzantium , London / New York 1997, pp. 52–75 ; B. Hill , Imperial Women in Byzantium 1025–1204. Power , Patronage and Ideology , Harlow 1999 ; L. Garland , Byzantine Empresses : Women and Power in Byzantium , London / New York 1999 ; L. James , Empresses and Power in Early Byzantium , Leicester 2001 , ch. 9. 2 R. Cormack , Writing in Gold , London 1985 , esp. ch. 5 , and R. Cormack , Patronage and New Programmes of Byzan- tine Iconography , in : 17th International Byzantine Congress , Major Papers , Washington , DC 1986 , pp. 609–638. 3 Brubaker , Memories of Helena ( cit. n. 1 ). Unauthenticated Download Date | 9/24/15 11:10 PM 64 Liz James and enhanced by patronage of the arts ; the same Theodora asfostering piety and bright with piety was true in Byzantium.4 The concept of “repu- respectively , and praised Theodora for nourish- tation” itself derived from Aristotle , one of the ing the destitute. For some Byzantine authors , most influential of philosophers in Byzantium , one claim to reputation for the good emperor and his definition of it against a background of was that he built churches , whilst bad emperors qualities of honour , magnificence and liberality , demolished them. The Iconophile Theophanes all perceived as qualities made manifest through claimed that Constantine the Great , Pulcheria , a patronage of the arts.5 These virtues were highly Justinian and Theodora , Justin II , Tiberios , and rated in Roman times , but they are just as rel- Irene , the mother of Constantine VI , all imperi- evant for Byzantium. They featured among the al figures he approves of , were all builders , whilst qualities of a good ruler , recast to some extent Justinian II ( castigated for demanding a prayer to incorporate philanthropy and piety. 6 Because from the patriarch to initiate the demolition of building was a large-scale , expensive , highly vis- a church ) and the iconoclast emperors , were all ible activity , an act of public display and a claim destroyers.8 to some form of public recognition , it was a sig- As a result , refounding and rebuilding had nificant act in Byzantium , whoever the patron. the potential to be as significant , and perhaps As such , it was a political action , as many emper- more significant , than building in the first in- ors recognised. Theodosios II is supposed to have stance. Refounding offered patrons a chance to banished his city prefect , Kyros , after the crowd associate themselves with the original patron. cheered that Constantine built , Kyros rebuilt , ig- That might allow them to inherit the lustre of noring the emperor altogether.7 the earlier founder or to be seen to out-do them Building a church was especially significant publicly , or , better , both. In the epigram on the for it established one’s piety in public and for church of St Polyeuktos , Anicia Juliana is hailed an emperor or empress , displayed the key impe- as refounder , in the footsteps of Eudokia the em- rial qualities of piety and philanthropia , whilst press , but as surpassing her.9 Once a reputation establishing intimacy with God. The epigram was established for honour , magnificence , piety , from St Polyeuktos hailed Anicia Juliana as pi- philanthropy and other virtues , then other ben- ous , righteous , a doer of good works ; that from efits inevitably accrued to the individual. Ani- Sts Sergios and Bacchos described Justinian and cia Juliana may well have wished to suggest her 4 The Pantheon being a case in point seeJ. Elsner , Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph , Oxford 1998 , pp. 69–70. For the Renaissance see J. Burke , Changing Patrons : Social Identity and the Visual Arts in Renaissance Florence , University Park , PA 2004 ; J. Nelson / R. Zeckhauser , The Patron’s Payoff : Conspicuous Commission in Italian Renaissance Art , Princeton 2008. 5 Aristotle , On rhetoric , 1 , 5 , 8 and 9 , for example : tr. J. H. Freese , Aristoteles , The Art of Rhetoric , London 1926. 6 For proper imperial behaviour see S. McCormack , Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity , Berkeley 1981 , pp. 263– 265 ; James , Empresses and Power ( cit. n. 1 ), ch. 2. 7 Chronicon Paschale , yr. 450 , ed. L. Dindorf , Chronicon Pascale , Bonn 1832 , tr. M. Whitby / M. Whitby , Chroni- con Pascale AD 284–632 , Liverpool 1989 ; John Malalas , Chronographia , ed. I. Thurn , Ioannis Malalae chrono- graphia , Berlin / New York 2000 , p. 282 , tr. E. Jeffreys / M. Jeffreys / R. Scott , The Chronicle of John Malalas , Melbourne 1986. 8 Theophanes , Chronographia , e.g. AM 5901 ( Pulcheria ), AM 6042 ( Justinian ), AM 6064 ( Justin II ), AM 6073 ( Ti- berios ) ; AM 6186 ( prayer for the demolition of a church ) ; AM 6259 ( Constantine V ), ed. C. de Boor , Theophanes , Chronographia , Leipzig 1883–5 , tr. C. Mango / R. Scott , The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor : Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813 , Oxford 1997. 9 Greek Anthology 1 , 10 , 1 and 7–10 , text and tr. W. R. Paton , The Greek Anthology , Cambridge , MA / London 1916. Unauthenticated Download Date | 9/24/15 11:10 PM 4 Making a Name 65 possession of appropriate imperial virtues. And their construction works.13 The fifth-century as reputations changed over time , so too did Theodosian empresses , Eudoxia , Eudokia and the founders and refounders of buildings. Not Pulcheria , were all keen builders and all earned all were as extreme as the case of St Polyeuktos various reputations for piety , linked in part with which was abandoned by the twelfth century , major construction projects : the Eudoxiana in not even warranting a refounding , but , as we Gaza for Eudoxia ; churches in the Holy Land shall see , several churches had founders who were for Eudokia ; churches in Constantinople for affected by refounders. Pulcheria.14 Their successor , Verina , was another For women , there was an added dimension empress whose reputation as pious and faithful , in both founding and refounding. In late antique beloved of God and as a new Helena derived , at and Byzantine society , women had no public least in part , from her church-building activi- roles.10 However , as Anicia Juliana’s St Polyeuktos ties.15 Even Justinian’s Theodora established a po- showed , in building a church , a woman gained tentially-lasting reputation for virtue through her access to a public space and was able to make a church building , for the inscription inside the legitimate statement and civic display of her pi- church of Sts Sergios and Bacchos talks of God- ety and , consequently , of her wealth and stand- crowned Theodora , whose mind is adorned with ing.11 This was particularly useful for empresses piety , whose constant toil lies in efforts to nourish whose access to the public world was also limit- the destitute , and both this church and Hagia ed. They , as much as , or even more than , emper- Sophia display her monogram prominently.16 It ors , could benefit from