Women of Byzantium / Carolyn L. Connor.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Connor, Carolyn L. (Carolyn Loessel)

Contributor:

Edith E. Clark Endowment Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Women--Byzantine Empire.

Women.

Women--History--Middle Ages, 500-1500.

History.

Byzantine Empire.

Physical Description:

xvii, 396 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 26 cm

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, [2004]

Summary:

Women played key roles in Byzantine society: some ruled or co-ruled the empire, and others commissioned art and buildings, went on pilgrimages, and wrote. This engrossing book draws on evidence ranging from pictorial mosaics and inscriptions on the walls of churches to women's poetry and histories, examining for the first time the lives, occupations, beliefs, and social roles of Byzantine women.In each chapter Carolyn L. Connor introduces us to a single woman--from the elite to the ordinary--and uses her as a springboard to discuss Byzantine society. Frequently quoting from contemporary accounts, Connor reveals what these women thought of themselves and their lives and how they remembered the lives of women who had lived earlier. Informative, sympathetic, and engagingly written, this book is a window into Byzantine culture and women's history that has never before been opened. Carolyn L. Connor is professor of classics at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

Contents:

Ascetic women and religious life in early Christianity

Pilgrimage

Female imperial authority

Sinners and saints

Women and artistic patronage

The challenge of Theodora

Ordinary women in the orbit of Theodore of Sykeon

Women's monasticism

Women in art

Imperial women and marriage

The world of Anna Komnene

Founding mothers and the testimony of the Typika

Epilogue.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 375-390) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edith E. Clark Endowment Fund.

ISBN:

0300099576

OCLC:

54279813