Judith Herrin

Margins and Metropolis: Authority across the Byzantine Empire

Abbreviations ix Introduction xiii MARGINS 1.A Christian Millennium: Greece in Byzantium--How the Empire Worked at Its Edge 3 2.Aspects of the Process of Hellenization in the Early Middle Ages 33 3.Realities of Provincial Government: Hellas and Peloponnesos, 1180-1204 58 4.The Ecclesiastical Organization of Central Greece at the Time of Michael Choniates: New Evidence from the Codex Atheniensis 1371 103 5.The Collapse of the Byzantine Empire in the Twelfth Century: A Study of a Medieval Economy 111 6.Byzantine Kythera 130 METROPOLIS 7.Byzantium: The Palace and the City 159 8.Philippikos and the Greens 179 9.Philippikos the Gentle 192 10.The Historical Context of Iconoclast Reform 206 11.Constantinople, Rome, and the Franks in the Seventh and Eighth Centuries 220 12.The Pentarchy: Theory and Reality in the Ninth Century 239 13.From Bread and Circuses to Soup and Salvation: The Origins of Byzantine Charity 267 14.Ideals of Charity, Realities of Welfare: The Philanthropic Activity of the Byzantine Church 299 15.Mathematical Mysteries in Byzantium: The Transmission of Fermats Last Theorem 312 16.Book Burning as Purification in Early Byzantium 335 Index 357

Public and Private Forms of Religious Commitment among Byzantine Women

The purpose of this chapter is to examine the development of the different forms of religious commitment expressed by women who lived in the Byzantine Empire between the sixth and eleventh centuries AD — a development predicated on their gradual exclusion from displays of public religiosity. Over this long period, as the Church consolidated its organisation through an administration grafted on to Roman imperial government, the ecclesiastical hierarchy of male bishops effectively excluded women from prominent public positions. This development can be traced through canonical rulings laid down at oecumenical and local church councils, which defined the Christian practice appropriate for women. It is also documented by women’s participation in religious activities as recorded in a variety of sources, especially hagiographical.