Performing Byzantine Identity: Gender, Status and the Cult of the Virgin

Abstract

The chapter discusses two basic markers of identity in Byzantium, namely gender and status. It explores how gender and status intersected with ideology, in particular in terms of religious Orthodox practice, and specifically with non-liturgical devotional practices associated with the Virgin Mary. Moreover, i how Byzantine identity and ideology did work within the context of non-liturgical devotional practices and what a comparison of Byzantine Constantinople with papal Rome and Umayyad (Islamic) Jerusalem can tell us about it. It demonstrates the importance that Byzantines ascribed to recording gender and status in the practice of non-liturgical devotional activity and shows how processions in Constantinople performed Byzantine identity and put imperial ideology into practice.The chapter discusses two basic markers of identity in Byzantium, namely gender and status. It explores how gender and status intersected with ideology, in particular in terms of religious Orthodox practice, and specifically with non-liturgical devotional practices associated with the Virgin Mary. Moreover, i how Byzantine identity and ideology did work within the context of non-liturgical devotional practices and what a comparison of Byzantine Constantinople with papal Rome and Umayyad (Islamic) Jerusalem can tell us about it. It demonstrates the importance that Byzantines ascribed to recording gender and status in the practice of non-liturgical devotional activity and shows how processions in Constantinople performed Byzantine identity and put imperial ideology into practice.The chapter discusses two basic markers of identity in Byzantium, namely gender and status. It explores how gender and status intersected with ideology, in particular in terms of religious Orthodox practice, and specifically with non-liturgical devotional practices associated with the Virgin Mary. Moreover, i how Byzantine identity and ideology did work within the context of non-liturgical devotional practices and what a comparison of Byzantine Constantinople with papal Rome and Umayyad (Islamic) Jerusalem can tell us about it. It demonstrates the importance that Byzantines ascribed to recording gender and status in the practice of non-liturgical devotional activity and shows how processions in Constantinople performed Byzantine identity and put imperial ideology into practice.