Imperial Women as Emissaries, Intermediaries, and Conciliators in the Palaiologan Era

Abstract

The activities of female emissaries in late Byzantium offer an interesting perspective from which to view the transformation of the late Byzantine court and state as the multinational power gradually diminishing to a small principality. As the position of the imperial family stabilized and the fortunes of the empire dwindled, noble and imperial women were able (or perhaps were forced) to leave the female quarters of the palace or the safety of the nunnery and enter the political arena to secure peace at the borders, inside the empire, and even within the Orthodox Church itself. The present study considers sixteen missions headed by female ambassadors and subsequently suggests the circumstances and motives which transformed nine empresses, princesses, and noble nuns into ambassadors of the late Byzantine court.