Abstract
While male courtiers and eunuchs typically wore the chlamys for ceremony, many other garments are mentioned in the Byzantine sources that prescribe what garments courtiers should wear for specific events, or what garments are awarded to them as part of their salaries. The Book of Ceremonies, the Kletorologion, and several histories record the names of many such garments, the majority of which are either tunics or cloaks. With several exceptions these terms can usually be defined, but the terms cannot give us more than a vague image of each garment. Many terms, such as skaramangion, have even been misidentified by scholars and subsequently used incorrectly in modern literature. The problem of terminology is aggravated by the fact that few portraits of Middle Byzantine courtiers exist, leaving us with no visual record of these garments. The case of women at court, who were typically the wives of courtiers and female relatives of the imperial couple, is even worse as they are hardly mentioned in the sources and only one manuscript with portraits of court women survives1 (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Gr. 1851, fols. 6 and 3v) (plate 12).
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Notes
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Accession number CMNH 10061–149, published in Thelma K. Thomas, Textiles from Medieval Egypt, A.D. 300–1300 (Pittsburgh: Carnegie Museum of Natural History, 1990), p. 53.
For more information on the zoste patrikia see: Pamela G. Sayre, “The Mistress of the Robes—Who Was She?” Byzantine Studies 13:2 (1986): 229–39.
Tim Dawson convincingly proposes that the thorakion is an ornamental chain that crisscrosses the chest. Tim Dawson, The Forms and Evolution of the Dress and Regalia of the Byzantine Court: c. 900-c. 1400 (Doctoral Dissertation, University of New England, Melbourne, 2002), pp. 175–78.
James Laver, Costume and Fashion, revised and expanded ed. (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1995), p. 39.
Embroidery is formed using a needle and thread and adding the design to an already woven ground. See Jennifer Harris ed., Textiles 5,000 Years (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers, 1993) p. 31. Damask, where the design is made by the contrast of the binding of the warp and wefts, and brocade, where the design is made with an additional weft woven into the ground weave, are examples of fabrics with designs woven into them.
See CIETA, Fabrics: Vocabulary of Technical Terms (Lyons: Centre Internationale d’Etudes Textiles Anciens, 1964).
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Anne Hollander, Seeing Through Clothes (New York: Viking Press, 1978), p. 350.
A.E.R. Boak, “The Book of the Prefect,” The Journal of Economics and Business History 1 (1928–29): 601.
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© 2005 Jennifer L. Ball
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Ball, J.L. (2005). Court Dress. In: Byzantine Dress. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05779-2_3
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