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Empress Theodora: A Holy Mother

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Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era

Part of the book series: Queenship and Power ((QAP))

Abstract

Empress Adelheid can legitimately be considered the most powerful ruling woman who lived between the reigns of Cleopatra of Egypt and Queen Elizabeth I of England. In the late tenth century, she ruled the Roman Empire alone on four separate occasions, independently of her emperor son and grandson. Her contemporaries called her consors regni; augusta praeclara, imperatrix augusta, and imperatores patres. Unusually for medieval ruling women, her maternal role was seen as equally important, as indicated by her other titles: imperatrix Adelheida, mater Mechtildis; Adheleida mater Ottonum; and matrem regnorum. Her main biographer, Abbot Odilo of Cluny, confirmed her governing and parental roles as of equivalent and complementary importance.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Judith Herrin, Women in Purple, Rulers of Medieval Byzantium, London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2001, 185–239; Lynda Garland, Byzantine Empresses, Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527–1204, London, New York: Routledge, 1999, 95–108.

  2. 2.

    ODB II, 975–977. She is commemorated as a saint on February 11, the Feast of Orthodoxy, for her role in defeating Iconoclasm, see ODB III, 2038.

  3. 3.

    “Life of St. Ioannikos,” intro. and trans. Denis F. Sullivan, Byzantine Defenders of Images, Eight Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. Alice-Mary Talbot, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1998, 243–351, esp. 345; for its date: ibid., 247. The text emphasizes the literal meaning of “Theodora,” namely gift of god.

  4. 4.

    Herrin, Women in Purple, 254.

  5. 5.

    Warren T. Treadgold, “The Problem of the Marriage of the Emperor Theophilus,” Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies 16/1 (1975), 325–341. For the less convincing dating to 821, see E. W. Brooks, “The Marriage of the Emperor Theophilos,” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 10 (1901), 540–545, and PMBZ #7286.

  6. 6.

    The historicity of the bride show has been debated. Warren Treadgold, “The Historicity of Imperial Bride-shows,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 54 (2004), 39–52 argues for their historicity, but provides references to differing scholarly views.

  7. 7.

    For Michael I, Leo V, and Michael II, see Mark Walter Herlong, Kinship and Social Mobility in Byzantium, 717–959, Ph. D. dissertation, The Catholic University of America, 1986, 50-57, 63–65; ODB II, pp. 1362, 1209–1210, 1363; PMBZ #4989, #4244, #4990; for Leo V and Michael II also see Warren Treadgold, The Byzantine Revival, 780–842, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1988, 196–262.

  8. 8.

    It is unclear whether Leo V had one or two wives. Treadgold, Byzantine Revival, 199, 415 n. 265 argues for two wives; Herlong, Kinship and Social Mobility, 56–57 and PMBZ #4244 suggest that his wife was known by two different names.

  9. 9.

    For Bardanios, see Herlong, Kinship and Social Mobility, 59–61. Some sources intimate that the wives of Michael II and Leo V were sisters, although scholars disagree on the veracity of this: Treadgold, Byzantine Revival, 196 accepts these reports as historical, while Herrin, Women in Purple, 151, 280 n. 47 rejects them.

  10. 10.

    Herlong, Kinship and Social Mobility, 43–44, 65; Herrin, Women in Purple, 155–158; PMBZ #1705.

  11. 11.

    PMBZ #8167, #7286, #4707, #4812; Herlong, Kinship and Social Mobility, 64, 121–124, 131–134; for Theodora, also see Garland, Byzantine Empresses, 95–108; Herrin, Women in Purple, 185–239. For the titles, see ODB III, 1748–1749, 1964, 2100–2101, ODB I, 663.

  12. 12.

    PMBZ #3931, #7261, #460, #231, #6384, #4735, #4991; and Herlong, Kinship and Social Mobility, 67–73.

  13. 13.

    However, Maria was engaged or married to Alexios Musele, see Treadgold, Byzantine Revival, 438, n. 395.

  14. 14.

    Theodora was removed from power by her own son with the assistance of her brother, Bardas, see Herrin, Women in Purple, 226–230. For her unwillingness to share power with her brothers during the regency, see ibid., 216.

  15. 15.

    For the bride show, see n. 6; for the vita, see n. 39.

  16. 16.

    Kriszta Kotsis, “Defining Female Authority in Eighth-Century Byzantium: The Numismatic Images of Empress Irene (r. 797–802),” Journal of Late Antiquity 5/1 (2012), 185–215, esp. 192.

  17. 17.

    For Irene’s coinage, see Kotsis, “Defining Female Authority.”

  18. 18.

    They are known from three specimens only, suggesting a small, ceremonial issue, see DOC III/1, 428. The abbreviated names ΘΕΚ’ΘΕΟF’ΘΕ’ appear on the obverse, and the full names ΑnnΑSΑnSTASIA on the reverse. For a recent discussion, see Cecily Hennessy, “The Byzantine Child: Picturing Complex Family Dynamics,” Approaches to the Byzantine Family, eds. Leslie Brubaker, Shaun Tougher, Farnham, UK, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2013, 207–231, esp. 211–214.

  19. 19.

    Kotsis, “Defining Female Authority,” 192; DOC III/1, 224–351.

  20. 20.

    PMBZ #3931, #7261, #460, #231, #6384, #4735, #4991.

  21. 21.

    DOC, III/1, 408–409, 415–16; Jannic Durand, ed., Byzance: l’art byzantin dans les collections publiques françaises, Paris: Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, 1992, 203, no. 138. For a different view, see Gustave Schlumberger, “Un monnaie d’or byzantine inédite,” Mélanges d’archéologie Byzantine, Paris: E. Leroux, 1895, 141–145.

  22. 22.

    The various views include: the commemoration of the princesses’ coronation, in Treadgold, Byzantine Revival, 283, and Cécile Morrisson, “Théodora, impératrice, régente et sainte,” Le Club français de la médaille. Bulletin 86/87 (1985), 162–65, esp. 164; celebrating Theophilos’s sack of Zapetra or the birth of Michael III in Andreas Dikigoropoulos, “The Constantinapolitan Solidi of Theophilus,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 18 (1964), 353–361, esp. 361; responding to the fall of Amorion by projecting family strength, in Vassiliki Athanassopoulou-Pennas, Byzantine Monetary Affairs during the 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th Centuries, D. Phil. dissertation, Oxford University, 1991, 37–38; and the impossibility of establishing the reason for this issue, in DOC III/1, 415.

  23. 23.

    Katerina Nikolaou, "Hoi gynaikes sto vio kai ta erga tou Theophilou," Symmeikta 9/2 (1994), 137–51 emphasizes the role of women in Theophilos’ life.

  24. 24.

    4.35 m by 2.91 m when closed, Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c. 680–850: A History, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011, 435; for a ground plan showing the doors’ location, see ibid., p. 438. Also see, Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca 680–850): The Sources, An Annotated Survey, Aldershot, UK, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2001, 109–111, with earlier bibliography; W. Eugene Kleinbauer, “A Byzantine Revival: The Inlaid Bronze Doors of Constantinople,” Archaeology 29/1 (1976), 16–29.

  25. 25.

    Adapted from Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c. 680–850, 435.

  26. 26.

    Ibid., 435–439.

  27. 27.

    Invocations to the Mother of God for help in conceiving a child are widely attested in Byzantine sources, see Brigitte Pitarakis, “Female Piety in Context: Understanding Developments in Private Devotional Practices,” Images of the Mother of God, Perceptions of the Theotokos in Byzantium, ed. Maria Vassilaki, Aldershot, UK, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005, 153–166.

  28. 28.

    For the mosaic in Thessaloniki, see Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era (ca 680–850): The Sources, 23–24. For the monograms on Theodora’s capitals, see Werner Seibt, “Monogramm,” Reallexikon zur byzantinischen Kunst, ed. Klaus Wessell and Marcell Restle, Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, vol. 6, 1997, 589–614, esp. 593.

  29. 29.

    Nicolas Oikonomides, A Collection of Dated Byzantine Lead Seals, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1986.

  30. 30.

    For the multiple functions of inscriptions on buildings and artworks, see Andreas Rhoby, “The Meaning of Inscriptions for the Early and Middle Byzantine Culture. Remarks on the Interaction of Word, Image and Beholder,” Scrivere e leggere nell’alto medioevo, Settimane di studio della Fondazione Centro Italiano di Studi sull’Alto Medioevo LIX, Spoleto, 2012, 731–753. For the performative and oral potential of inscriptions, see Amy Papalexandrou, “Echoes of Orality in the Monumental Inscriptions of Byzantium,” Art and Text in Byzantine Culture, ed. Liz James, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007, 161–187.

  31. 31.

    Brubaker and Haldon, Byzantium in the Iconoclast Era c. 680–850, 435.

  32. 32.

    Ibid. and Cyril Mango, “When Was Michael III Born?” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 21 (1967), 253–258.

  33. 33.

    Patricia Karlin-Hayter, “Restoration of Orthodoxy, the Pardon of Theophilos and the Acta Davidis, Symeonis et Georgii,” Byzantine Style, Religion, and Civilization, In Honour of Sir Steven Runciman, ed. Elizabeth M. Jeffreys, Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 361–373; Athanasios Markopoulos, “The Rehabilitation of the Emperor Theophilos,” Byzantium in the Ninth Century: Dead or Alive?, ed. Leslie Brubaker, Alershot, UK, Brookfield, VT: Ashgate, 1998, 37–49.

  34. 34.

    DOC III/1, 457, 461–462. Aniconic silver coins were also minted during the regency, inscribed with the names Michael, Theodora, and Thekla, see ibid. 458, 464–465.

  35. 35.

    Herlong, “Kinship and Social Mobility,” 22; DOC III/1, 454.

  36. 36.

    The duration of this issue is unclear. DOC III/1, 456–457 and Cécile Morrisson, Catalogue des monnaies byzantines de la Bibliothèque nationale, Paris, 1970, II, 517 date it to 842–843. Athanassopoulou-Pennas, Byzantine Monetary Affairs, 39–42 dates it to 842–853. Franz Füeg, Corpus of the Nomismata from Anastasius II to John I in Constantinople 713–976, Lancaster, PA, London, UK: Classical Numismatic Group, 2007, 74–75 proposes 842–850.

  37. 37.

    DOC III/1, 458. Christ’s effigy appeared on Byzantine coins for the first time during the reigns of Justinian II (r. 685–695, 705–711), but this iconography was discontinued after his death, see DOC, II/2, 568–609, 644–663.

  38. 38.

    DOC III/1, 463 and Morrisson, Catalogue des monnaies byzantines, II, 517 date the beginning of this issue to 843. However, others date it more convincingly to a later period due to its small size. For dating to 853–856, see Athanassopoulou-Pennas, Byzantine Monetary Affairs, 40–42. For dating to ca. 850, see Cyril Mango, The Brazen House. A Study of the Vestibule of the Imperial Palace of Constantinople, Copenhagen: I komission hos Munksgaard, 1959, 130. For dating to 850–856, see Füeg, Corpus of the Nomismata, 76.

  39. 39.

    “Life of St. Theodora the Empress,” intro. and trans. Martha P. Vinson, Byzantine Defenders of Images, Eight Saints’ Lives in English Translation, ed. Alice-Mary Talbot, Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 1998, 353–382. Vinson dates the Life to the reigns of Basil I or Leo VI (867–912) and suggests that it was “authorized at the very highest level of political and religious establishment,” ibid., 355–356. Also see, Martha Vinson, “The Life of Theodora and the Rhetoric of the Byzantine Bride Show,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik, 49 (1999), 31–60; however, in Martha Vinson, “Gender and Politics in the Post-Iconoclastic Period: The Lives of Anthony the Younger, the Empress Theodora, and the Patriarch Ignatios,” Byzantion 68 (1998), 469–515, she argues that the text was composed in the court of Leo VI (r. 886–912), ibid., 483.

  40. 40.

    “Life of St. Theodora the Empress,” 364.

  41. 41.

    Ibid. Allusions to Mt 22:15–22, Mk 12:13–17, Lk 20:20–26 are noted ibid., n. 31.

  42. 42.

    Ibid., 365. Allusion to. Mt 2:1–12 is noted ibid., n.34.

  43. 43.

    Ibid. Vinson cites Acts 13:11 in association with the scriptural quotation, “the hand of the Lord is upon,” ibid., n. 35, but other passages may also be found in Ezra 7:28, Ezekiel 1:3, 3:14, 3:22, etc.

  44. 44.

    For the eschatological meaning of this parable, see Beat Brenk, Tradition und Neuerung in der christlichen Kunst des ersten Jahrtausends, Studien zur Geschichte des Weltgerichtsbildes, Graz, Wien, Köln: Böhlau in Kommission, 1966, 51–54.

  45. 45.

    Constantine Porphyrogennetos, The Book of Ceremonies: with the Greek edition of Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae (Bonn, 1829), trans. Ann Moffatt and Maxeme Tall, Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies, 2012, Chapter 41 (V50), I, 216. Moffatt and Tall date the chapter to 768 but note its modification in 944, ibid., 207; ODB I, 596 dates it to 768; Georg Ostrogosky and Ernst Stein “Die Kroenungsordnungen des Zeremonienbuches, Chronologische und verfassungsgeschichtliche Bemerkungen,” Byzantion 7 (1932) 185–233, esp. 214, 233 date it to 933–934. For apples and pomegranates as symbols of marriage and concordia, see Ernst H. Kantorowicz, “On the Golden Marriage Belt and the Marriage Rings of the Dumbarton Oaks Collection,” Dumbarton Oaks Papers 14 (1960) 1–16, esp. 6. For the use of the Greek term ‘mēlon’ (apple) both in the specific and generic sense (denoting various round fruits), see A. R. Littlewood, “The Symbolism of the Apple in Byzantine Literature,” Jahrbuch der österreichischen Byzantinistik 23 (1974), 33–59, esp. 34.

  46. 46.

    A. R. Littlewood, “The Symbolism of the Apple in Greek and Roman Literature,” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology 72 (1968), 147–181, esp. 154; Littlewood, “The Symbolism of the Apple in Byzantine Literature,” 46–47.

  47. 47.

    Roger Scott, “From Propaganda to History to Literature: the Byzantine Stories of apostrophe in ‘Theodosius’ Apple and Marcian’s Eagles,” History as Literature in Byzantium, ed. Ruth Macrides, Farnham, UK, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2010, 115–131.

  48. 48.

    For the popularity of the Chronicle of Theophanes in the ninth and tenth centuries, see The Chronicle of Theophanes Confessor, Byzantine and Near Eastern History AD 284–813, trans. Cyril Mango and Roger Scott, Oxford: Clarendon Press, New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, xcvii–xcviii. Although Theophanes used Malalas’ work, he most likely did not draw on the Paschal Chronicle, see ibid. lxxx–lxxxi.

  49. 49.

    Interestingly, tenth-century narratives of the bride show link the selection through apple with both the fall of mankind through Eve and man’s redemption through the Virgin Mary, see Warren T. Treadgold, “The Bride-shows of the Byzantine Emperors,” Byzantion 49 (1979), 395–413; Garland, Byzantine Empresses, 98.

  50. 50.

    Littlewood, “The Symbolism of the Apple in Byzantine Literature,” 41–46.

  51. 51.

    O city of Byzantium, Annals of Niketas Choniatēs, trans. Harry J. Magoulias, Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1984, 648, 357.

  52. 52.

    Ibid., 652–653, 360–361.

  53. 53.

    Song of Songs 2:1-3, 5; for the Greek text and translation see Gregory of Nyssa: Homilies on the Song of Songs, trans. Richard A. Norris, Jr., Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2012, 110–111.

  54. 54.

    Ibid., 110–147.

  55. 55.

    “Life of St. Theodora the Empress,” 364, n. 31; Vinson, “Life of Theodora and the Rhetoric,” 36.

  56. 56.

    Herrin, Women in Purple, 219.

  57. 57.

    Kenneth Parry, Depicting the Word: Byzantine Iconophile Thought of the Eighth and Ninth Centuries, Leiden, New York, Köln: E. J. Brill, 1996, 70–80, 99–113.

  58. 58.

    Joseph A. Munitiz et al. eds., The Letter of the Three Patriarchs to Emperor Theophilos and Related Texts, Camberley, UK: Porphyrogenitus, 1997, 42–43; for its date, ibid., xiv, xviii.

  59. 59.

    Anne McClanan, Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses, Image and Empire, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002, 133–134; Reneé Justice Standley, “The Role of the Empress Theodora in the Imperial Panels at the Church of San Vitale in Ravenna,” Representations of the Feminine in the Middle Ages, ed. Bonnie Wheeler, Dallas, TX: Academia, 1993, 161–174.

  60. 60.

    St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations, Fathers of the Church, vol. 107, trans. Martha Vinson, Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2003, 95–106.

  61. 61.

    George Galavaris, The Illustrations of the Liturgical Homilies of Gregory Nazianzenus, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1969, 9–11.

  62. 62.

    Leslie Brubaker, Vision and Meaning in Ninth-Century Byzantium, Image as Exegesis in the Homilies of Gregory of Nazianzus, Cambridge, New York, and Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 1999, 1.

  63. 63.

    St. Gregory of Nazianzus: Select Orations, 97.

  64. 64.

    Ibid., 102.

  65. 65.

    Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, fig. 18, 5–7, 62–71.

  66. 66.

    Galavaris, Illustrations of the Liturgical Homilies, 42–46.

  67. 67.

    Brubaker notes the importance of family ties, particularly of husband and wife and mother and son, in this illumination and in other illustrations of the manuscript, Brubaker, Vision and Meaning, 69–70, 403–408.

  68. 68.

    Ibid., 412–414; Shaun Tougher, The Reign of Leo VI (886–912), Politics and People, Leiden, New York, and Köln: Brill, 1997, 69.

  69. 69.

    Vinson, “Life of Theodora and the Rhetoric,” 34–38.

  70. 70.

    Tougher, Reign of Leo VI, 133–163.

  71. 71.

    Vinson, “Gender and Politics,” 483–485 notes that in the contemporary vita of Antony the Younger the motifs of remarriage and miraculous birth of a son express aspirations of Leo VI for a male heir.

  72. 72.

    Vinson, "Life of Theodora and the Rhetoric,” 35–36.

  73. 73.

    For married female saints, see Stavroula Constantinou, Female Corporeal Performances, Reading the Body in Byzantine Passions and Lives of Holy Women, Uppsala: Uppsala University, 2005, esp. 162–192.

  74. 74.

    Vinson, “Gender and Politics,” 483.

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  1. University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, WA, USA

    Kriszta Kotsis

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  1. Kriszta Kotsis
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  1. University of Winchester , Winchester, United Kingdom

    Carey Fleiner

  2. University of Winchester, Winchester, United Kingdom

    Elena Woodacre

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Kotsis, K. (2016). Empress Theodora: A Holy Mother. In: Fleiner, C., Woodacre, E. (eds) Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Early Medieval to the Early Modern Era. Queenship and Power. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51315-1_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51315-1_2

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