Art and Marriage in Early Byzantium Author(s): Gary Vikan Source: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 44 (1990), pp. 145-163 Published by: Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1291624 Accessed: 02-03-2018 18:43 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms Dumbarton Oaks, Trustees for Harvard University is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Dumbarton Oaks Papers This content downloaded from 138.16.118.104 on Fri, 02 Mar 2018 18:43:34 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Art and Marriage in Early Byzantium GARY VIKAN ture on folio 125r (Fig. 1), for example, represents This riagearticle helped addresses to shape Byzantine the materialquestion cul- of how mar- the union of Emperor Constantine VII and Helen, ture, or, put another way, how the material culture the daughter of Romanos I, Lekapenos.2 This of Byzantium reflects the rituals and values of scene, when coupled with middle Byzantine texts marriage. The question properly encompasses all of the marriage ceremony and passages in the Book facets of betrothal and marriage, the ceremonial, of Ceremonies distinguishing the wedding stephanos legal, moral, and sexual. And it should include as from the imperial stemma, and surviving marriage well all potential categories of marriage-related ar- crowns of the period, like the pair in the Byzantine tifact, from illustrated historical chronicles por- Museum of Athens (Fig. 2), graphically evokes the traying real marriages and the coins issued to com- experiential reality of a middle Byzantine wed- memorate them, to the rings, crowns, and belts ding.3 Similarly straightforward in its approach is used to punctuate and confirm various stages of an inscribed middle Byzantine betrothal ring in the ritualized union, to the gifts exchanged by the the Stathatos Collection, Athens (Fig. 3), whose be- couple or offered by friends, to the amulets worn zel bears simply the words "I, Goudeles, give the by one or the other to protect their union and en- betrothal ring to Maria."4 sure successful procreation. The evidence, although abundant, is homoge- 2 Figure 1 = Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional, cod. 5-3, no. 2, fol. neous neither in character nor in quantity across 125r. See Estopafian, Skyllitzes matritensis, no. 305. the millennium of Byzantine history. That from For the Byzantine betrothal and marriage ceremonies, see late Antiquity is at once richer in its variety and P. N. Trempela, "He akolouthia ton mnestron kai tou gamou," Theologia 18 (1940), 101-96 (based on manuscripts of the 9th more subtle in its iconography than is the relatively through 17th centuries). For the distinction between the two sparser evidence from the middle and late Byzan- crowns, see Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De ceremoniis aulae by- zantinae, II, 6-9. tine periods, which tends to reflect a more literal Figure 2 = Athens, Byzantine Museum, nos. 7663a, b. See approach. Characteristic of the latter are the mar- P. A. Drossoyianni, "A Pair of Byzantine Crowns," XVI. Interna- riage scenes in the twelfth-century copy of the tionaler Byzantinistenkongress, Akten 11/3 = JOB 32.3 (1982), 529- John Skylitzes chronicle in Madrid.' The minia- 38. Drossoyianni is overly cautious in identifying these crowns-which are a match for those in the Madrid Skylitzes, clearly form a pair, are large enough to be worn, and bear a Special thanks are due to Leslie S. B. MacCoull for help with passage from the Psalms (20:3) used in the marriage ceremony papyrological sources used in this article. (Trempela, "He akolouthia," 153 f)-as specifically marriage After fifty years the most useful general treatment of early crowns. Because their main inscription is an invocation, on be- Byzantine marriage remains that of K. Ritzer's 1940 Wirzburg half of "Romanos the spatharokandidatos together with his wife dissertation, here cited in its French translation, Le mariage dans and children," she sees them as "votive offerings to a church" les iglises chrtiennes du Ier au XIe si'cle (Paris, 1970). As for (even though made of tin-plated copper). Yet Byzantine mar- marriage-related art of the period, the standard publication is riage rings do occasionally bear invocations (see M. Hadzidakis still the insightful though partial treatment by E. H. Kantoro- [Chatzidakis], "Un anneau byzantin du Mus&e Benaki," BNJ 17 wicz, "On the Gold Marriage Belt and the Marriage Rings of [1939-43], nos. 80, 89; and note 97 below), and it was not un- the Dumbarton Oaks Collection," DOP 14 (1960), 3-16. usual for late Roman marriage rings to invoke long life in a general and anticipatory way on behalf of the groom's family 'See S. Cirac Estopafian, Skyllitzes matritensis, I. Reproducciones (see F. Henkel, Die r6mischen Fingerringe der Rheinlande [Berlin, y miniaturas (Barcelona-Madrid, 1965), nos. 133, 221, 305, 325, 1913], 322). Noteworthy also are late Roman sarcophagi where- 481, 491, 511, 549; and, for the dating of the manuscript, N. G. on the dextrarum iunctio, as generally symbolizing the matrimon- Wilson, "The Madrid Scylitzes," Scrittura e civilta 2 (1978), 209- ial bond, takes place in the presence of the couple's children; 19. See also A. Grabar and M. Manoussacas, L'illustration du see L. Reekmans, "La 'dextrarum iunctio' dans l'icono- manuscrit de Skylitzes de la Bibliothique Nationale de Madrid, Bib- graphie romaine et palkochretienne," Bulletin de l'Institut Histo- liotheque de l'Institut Hellenique d'Etudes Byzantines et Post- rique Belge de Rome 21 (1958), 68 f. Byzantines de Venise 10 (Venice, 1979), 159, for a brief, general 4MNHCTPON AIAOMH FOYAEAHC MAPHA. Figure 3 = discussion of the manuscript's marriage iconography. Athens, Stathatos Collection. See Collection Heline Stathatos, 2: This content downloaded from 138.16.118.104 on Fri, 02 Mar 2018 18:43:34 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 146 GARY VIKAN By contrast, weddingthe ring, withevidence the former, the annulus pronu- of the early Byzantine gold marriage bus, inbelt part functioning at as, or atDumbarton least symbolizing, Oaks (Fig. 31) is much more complex.5 the prenuptial arrabon or earnest Christ money.7 Both and Dionysos are in- terlocked in a common thematic conceit, and the rings would have been worn on the third finger of seemingly unrelated notions of concord, grace, the left hand, the anularius, since it was then still and health are inscriptionally linked as "from commonly believed that a nerve or sinew ran di- God." The paired clasps are dominated by an ap- rectly from that finger to the heart.8 As Aulus Gel- parently realistic representation of the dextrarum lius had explained it: iunctio, which actually had no precise visual coun- When the human body is cut open as the Egyptians terpart in the ritual it evokes.6 Yet the belt itself do and when dissections, or anatomai as the Greeks played an instrumental role at quite a different phrase it, are practiced on it, a very delicate nerve is juncture in the same ceremony. All of this makes found which starts from the annular finger and trav- the Dumbarton Oaks belt much less a document of els to the heart. It is, therefore, thought seemly to give to this finger in preference to all others the honour of an experiental reality than one of a deeper, con- the ring, on account of the close connection which ceptual reality. links it with the principal organ.9 Further distinguishing the earlier from the later In late Antiquity marriage rings were worn by evidence is that the latter is so sparse and hetero- both men and women, although only the bride-to- geneous that it cannot properly be said to con- stitute a historically distinct unit within later be would customarily receive the annulus pronu- bus.10 Thus, in theory at least, three rings would Byzantine art history generally. Early Byzantine typically be associated with each marriage." But in marriage-related art, by contrast, has its own iden- fact, the number of rings extant from this period tity and tradition within the history of late antique material culture as, from the fourth to seventh which are identifiable by their inscription or im- agery as specifically related to betrothal or mar- century, it gradually emerges out of later Roman riage is relatively small, and of those that do sur- art and is progressively adapted to the needs of a Christian, east Mediterranean clientele. This mar- vive, a disproportionately high number are made of gold.'2 In part this may reflect a perpetuation in riage art will, therefore, constitute the core of this paper. SIn addition to the customary commitment of money and a ring, other less common betrothal gifts included crosses, jew- During the early Byzantine period, as today, the elry, and clothing. See Ritzer, Le mariage, 127-29; and for the single object most intimately associated with mar- distinction between the betrothal and the wedding ring, Hen- riage was the ring. And then, as now, there was a kel, Fingerringe, 337-39. distinction between the betrothal ring and the 8 Macrobius, Saturnalia, VII.13; and Isidore of Seville, De ec- clesiasticis officiis, 11.20.8. See Henkel, Fingerringe, 337, 341, and ring no. 1033, showing clasped hands holding a heart. The Or- thodox betrothal service, as it had taken shape in the middle Les objets byzantins et post-byzantins (n.1., n.d.), no.