Byzantine Princess Research Articles

Княгиня Ольга и Константинополь: бродячие сюжеты и изменчивые надписи

Introduction. The author proposes a new reconstruction of two episodes concerning Princess Olga in the chronicles and Prolog, which allows to clarify the overall picture of the development of the pre-Mongol legend about the baptism of Olga and her trip to Constantinople. Analysis. In the early chronicles, two layers of narrative about Olga’s trip to Constantinople are clearly distinguishable. The original story contained only the relationship between Olga and Emperor Ioannes Tzimiskes: the author had a good knowledge of the realities of Byzantine politics in the 960s, probably from the Byzantine chronicles. However, the story itself is too fictionalized, and its author, who inscribes Olga’s trip in 946 and her baptism in a completely different chronological frame – the turn of the 960–970s, had to work in the 1060s – early 1070s imitating stories about a wise pagan princess from an older chronicle. Probably, in the “Initial Compilation” this ‘secular’ story was ‘Christianized, but not quite harmoniously. In this form, the story of Olga’s trip and baptism was included in the “Tale of Bygone Years”, but in its recension the “unhistorical” Ioannes Tzimiskes was replaced – probably on the basis of Byzantine chronicles – by the ‘historical’ Constantine VII. However, the chronicles of the late 11th – early 12th century do not know Olga’s cross, which, according to the Prolog, stood in the 1160s in the altar of St. Sofia of Kiev. It was either a “fixation” of the historical memory of the first baptist of Rus’, or a contribution of a 12th century princess with the same name (e.g., of the daughter of Yuri Dolgorukiy and a Byzantine princess). The author of the Prolog combined excerpts from the “Tale of Bygone Years” with the story of Olga’s cross, also “historicizing” the patriarch, who became now Photios, and creating the basis for the entire further hagiographic tradition of the princess.

Prince’s Trident on Frescoes and Graffiti of St. Sophia of Kyiv

The article, for the first time in academic research, puts and comprehensively considers a unique phenomenon of picturing seven images stylized under the lily of the prince’s tridents of Volodymyr on the frescoes and graffiti of St. Sophia of Kyiv, which elucidates the time of the cathedral construction and its prince-builder. They are singled out as separate compositions, “inserted” in the center of large narrative scenes of the religious and secular nature. Four tridents of Volodymyr are present in four frescoes of the vestry, decorated with scenes from the cycle of the Virgin; two more are present in the fresco of the north stair tower, which is part of the secular cycle that tells about the conclusion of dynastic marriage between Prince Volodymyr and Byzantine Princess Anna. Two inverted tridents of Volodymyr, drawn by his warriors after the death of the prince, were found in the graffiti of St. Sophia. They appeared around 1017 after Yaroslav’s capture of the Kyiv throne. Volodymyr’s trident on the walls of St. Sophia is a sign of his ownership of the temple and the glorification of the prince in the eyes of contemporaries and descendants. On the wall of the St. Michael’s altar of the cathedral there is a trident of Iziaslav Yaroslavych, similar to the lilies on the frescoes of the cathedral, which in the conditions of feud marked the right of this prince to Kyiv and St. Sophia, its heart. Iziaslav’s trident appeared here during the difficult period between 1068 and 1078. The prince’s tridents did not appear in the graffiti of Sophia spontaneously, as their authors were inspired by the urgent needs of life at that time. Like the oldest dated graffiti on its walls, mosaics, and frescoes, Prince Volodymyr’s tridents confirm the inference that St. Sophia was founded by Volodymyr the Great in 1011, and during his reign the cathedral was built and decorated with mosaics and frescoes. Instead, Yaroslav’s tridents were not found on the walls of St. Sophia.

Women as Boundary Markers between Islam and Secularism in Julia Kristeva's Murder in Byzantium (2004) and Elif Şafak's The Bastard of Istanbul (2006)

ABSTRACT: The Bulgarian-French writer Julia Kristeva's Murder in Byzantium (2004) and Turkish novelist Elif Şafak's The Bastard of Istanbul (2006) show how both secular and veiled women become the ground upon which Turkey and France build their national identities. In Murder , the two narrators—the French journalist, Stephanie Delacour, and the unnamed narrator—associate secularism with modernization and progress, and Islam with backwardness and gender inequality. A financially independent world traveler, Stephanie constructs her identity as a foil to the allegedly subservient headscarved Turkish women and fears that French women's freedom might be endangered by the arrival of Muslim immigrants. Her elevation of her Slavic mother Christine and the Byzantine princess Anna Comnena as secular and rational Western women stands for her dream of a French national identity without Islamic influences. Şafak's novel, on the other hand, portrays Turkish female identity not as singular but complex, as the two sisters—the headscarved Banu and Zeliha wearing a miniskirt—live under the same roof. Şafak also portrays Turkish women's ambivalent position as the markers of modernity and tradition as the matriarch Gülsüm Kazancı criticizes Banu for defying secularism and Zeliha for her seductive clothes. Whereas Kristeva's narrators set French national identity in opposition to Islam and Turkish women, Şafak's novel challenges the flattened conception of Turkish femininity by depicting the hybridity of women's dress codes and religious practices. Both novels portray how secular Turkish and French nationalisms are imagined vis-à-vis female roles.

On the question of polygamy and debauchery of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich

The subject of this study is the family ties of Prince Vladimir Svyatoslavich. The object is the personality of Prince Vladimir. The purpose of this article is to establish, based on a comparative analysis of sources, the degree of reliability of the facts they contain about promiscuity, the number of marriages and children of Vladimir. A materialistic approach to history is used as a methodological basis. Within its framework, the article applies: the comparative historical method, the method of critical analysis, the principles of historicism and objectivity. The source base is the data of the Russian chronicles ("The Tale of Bygone Years", the Laurentian Chronicle), the Chronicle of George Amartol, biblical texts, the writings of Titmar of Merseburg, Leo the Deacon, John Skilitsa, Ibn Haukal. The article discusses the controversial issue of Prince Vladimir's family ties. The author comes to the conclusion that Vladimir Svyatoslavich, contrary to the instructions of the chronicle on the prince's polygamy in the pagan era, was married only twice — the first time by a pagan marriage to the Polotsk Princess Rogneda and the second time by a Christian marriage to the Byzantine princess Anna. The number of the prince's children exceeded the figure indicated in the chronicle — about 8 sons and 9 daughters. The main "antihero" of ancient Russian history, Prince Svyatopolk, according to the author, was the legitimate son of Vladimir, not Yaropolk. At the same time, the author believes that Vladimir was distinguished by intemperance in relationships with women and kept many concubines.

Teratological Plot of the Ornament in the South Tower of St. Sophia of Kyiv

St. Sophia of Kyiv, built in 1011‒1018 at the turn of the reigns of Volodymyr the Great and Yaroslav the Wise, has preserved a large number of unique secular frescoes. Their customer was Volodymyr, who owns the idea of the temple, which is reflected in the mosaics and frescoes. A triumphal fresco cycle is unfolding in the two stair towers which, according to the Byzantine tradition, glorifies its customer. The frescoes tell about a dynastic marriage between Prince Volodymyr the Great and the Byzantine Princess Anna Porphyrogenitus at the turn of 987–988, which initiated the baptism of the Kyivan State. The cycle consists of narrative historical and symbolic (ornamental, zoomorphic, and teratological 4) plots. The central composition of a symbolic nature is a mysterious teratological plot of five interconnected medallions placed on the vault of the south tower. This combined plot traces the Scandinavian influences caused by Volodymyr’s princely order, which are present in the unique emblematic image of god Odin with two wolves. The decoding of the plot revealsits semantic unity both with the triumphant fresco cycle of towers, which it is a part of, and with the ideological concept of the whole temple complex as a memorial of the baptism of Rus-Ukraine, the founder and builder of which was Volodymyr the Great. The plot reveals deep sacred and at the same time ethnically colored connotations with the image of Volodymyr as a crowned prince-baptizer and a powerful military leader. This concept fits into the general marital leitmotif of the secular cycle. The frescoes of the towers present not only a completely realistic outline of the initial event of the baptism of the people (the engagement of Volodymyr and Anna) but also a corresponding symbolic and metaphorical disclosure of this theme.

THE DOWER CHARTER OF OTTO II AND THEOPHANU, AND THE ROMAN SCRIPTORIUM AT SANTI APOSTOLI

Analyses of writing culture in tenth-century Rome have been impeded by an absence of manuscripts and documents that can be assigned unquestionably to scriptoria in the city. This paper will examine the possibility that one such document has hitherto been hiding in plain sight, as it were: the dower charter given by Emperor Otto II to the Byzantine princess Theophanu on the occasion of their marriage in St Peter's on 14 April 972. Usually considered to be ‘Ottonian’, rather than ‘Italian’ or ‘Roman’, this document nevertheless states explicitly that it was undertaken at the Roman church of Santi Apostoli, and this possibility is assessed in light of what is known about that church, the Via Lata region and their connections to the foremost noble family in the city.

Negativne predstave vizantijskih princeza u srpskim srednjovjekovnim žitijima

Negativne predstave vizantijskih princeza u srpskim srednjovjekovnim žitijima

An Instructive Story About How a Byzantine Princess Bravely Looked Deep into the Abyss of Oblivion

An Instructive Story About How a Byzantine Princess Bravely Looked Deep into the Abyss of Oblivion Anna Comnena’s beginning of the Prologue to her Alexiad is a fine literary and rhetorical piece. It is about the problem how destructive the passing of time is, and for which the only obstacle can be to consolidate the achievements of the past in a literary work. Such a line of thought was usually interpreted in the terms of the author’s rhetorical topos. Most frequently, this topos occurs in ancient historiography whose formal features were continued by Greek historians of the Eastern Roman Empire (Byzantium). While not deyning that there is much to recommend in such an approach, the present paper tries also to pay attention to Anna’s life and stress the authenticity of her emotions. In this light the Preface to the Alexiad, while remaining an example of magnificent rhetorical argumentation, can also be seen as an authentic attempt ‘to stop’ time, an attempt made by an aging woman, conscious that this is the only chance to give meaning to her own life by preserving it in the memory of future generations, so, in a sense, to ‘immortalize’ it, given that it will be told in a written story, capable of surviving in time.

Evan JonesLater Emperors

occupation of Gaza caused Aliya’s tragedy. Walls defend those boundaries, disfiguring the Holy Land and filling the angry rhetoric of America’s new president. Disturbed by these controls, Joseph draws a “naked map,” without borders. Boundaries, meanwhile, often signal violence and exile, a status Joseph and his family share. Benjamin left Poland, then Brooklyn; Flint abandoned Brooklyn; Rachel the reservation and her family; Aliya a refugee camp. Exiled from his Palestinian roots, Joseph leaves his mountain home to reclaim them. Its voices authentic, its scenes and settings vivid, the novel takes us down Alice’s rabbit hole or through her looking glass— among Joe’s favorite texts. The sharp vision of his single eye beholds a world where reality and magic converge, where the secular Judaism and Christianity of his parents coexist with Rachel’s Cherokee spirituality, where Gaza and Israel have become surrealities, deformed by walls and borders in a barren landscape both physical and symbolic. Finally, Mahmutović’s beautiful novel shows how love can bridge difference and level artificial walls, opening us to the world. As Joseph plants a mountain seed beside Aliya’s desert grave, he imagines his newfound half-siblings in the mountains playing “with Rachel’s ghost.” Having lain “at the foot” of both mothers and reconciled his roots, he can now construct his own identity. Michele Levy North Carolina A&T State University Evan Jones Later Emperors Manchester, UK. Carcanet. 2020. 73 pages. IN LATER EMPERORS, Evan Jones’s learning is clearly displayed in his engagement with Roman history and in the breadth of his allusions, but it is more deeply and subtly manifested in his deft exploration of such classical topoi as the ruins of time and the vanity of human desire. Jones’s spare, evocative, and imagistic verse offers, through half-glimpsed narratives of ambition and loss, a rumination on the transience of things in this world. The book is divided into four distinct yet thematically related sections. The first part of the book covers some of the later western emperors from “the year of the six emperors” in 238 to the reign of Diocletian. Typical among them is the fate of Aemilian as Jones tells it in “Aemilianus the Moor”: “He stepped out of his tent one night / woken by what he thought were goats / and his soldiers sacrificed him.” This part of the book especially brings to mind such Renaissance works as The Mirror for Magistrates and The Ruins of Time as well as the broad tradition of memento mori. The next two sections of the book turn to the Eastern Empire, giving voice to the Byzantine scholar Michael Psellos and to Anna Komnene, a Byzantine princess, scholar, and physician who was exiled for her failed attempt to usurp the throne. In the voices of these figures, Jones explores the relationship between political power and the life of the mind, evoking the classical debate of the active versus the contemplative life. Yet he also acknowledges that scholar and emperor share a common fate. “All glories to dust, yes, like / the library at Alexandria, / the Serapeum,” the scholar muses in “After Something Else.” Jones offers these meditations in delicate verse and in glimpses and fragments of these fascinating lives. The final section of the book reflects more directly on personal loss through a longer poem, which is an imagined first draft of Plutarch’s Consolatio ad Uxorem, the famed ancient historian’s response to news of his small daughter’s death. The elegiac tone of this section makes it a fitting and poignant finale for the book, as Jones imagines Plutarch writing to his wife: “Life is made thin / and there is so much in the grave past / and graver future.” Later Emperors is a lyrical book, somber yet lovely. Rare among works of poetry today, it offers not only beauty but also a wisdom rooted in time and timelessness. Benjamin Myers Oklahoma Baptist University Poupeh Missaghi trans(re)lating house one Minneapolis. Coffee House Press. 2020. 296 pages. POUPEH MISSAGHI’S debut, trans(re)lating house one, is a hybrid novel set in the aftermath of Iran’s 2009 election. Missaghi ’s narrator searches for statues that are disappearing from Tehran...

여성, 결혼, 문화 전파 : 오토 2세와 테오파노의 결혼식(972)

신성로마제국의 황제 오토 2세와 비잔티움의 테오파노의 결혼식(972)을 통해서 비잔틴 문화가 독일에 수렴되는 과정을 고찰하는 것이 본고의 목적이다. 특히, 테오파노를 중심으로 한 왕실 여성들의 역할과 이들의 상호 협력관계를 살펴보면서, 972년 이후 다양한 비잔틴적 전통이 독일 지역으로 전파되었음을 확인할 수 있었다. 이 과정에서 테오파노는 모국문화를 전파하는 문화 전도사로서의 역할을 적극적으로 수행하였다. 테오파노는 제국의 여성 통치자들과 강한 연대를 형성하였고, 왕실 수녀원은 문화 전파의 발판이 되었다. 성모 마리아와 정교회의 성인을 수호성인으로 선택한 교회와 수도원 설립, 성유물의 수입과 기증, 정교회 수도사와 학자 초빙, 정교회 전례의식 장려, 그리스어 서적 필사, 비잔틴 예술가 초청과 예술작품 제작지원 등의 방법으로 테오파노와 오토 왕실의 여성들은 비잔틴 문화를 서유럽에 이식시켰다. 외래문화에 대한 저항과 거부, 상층 엘리트 중심의 문화 전파 현상에도 불구하고, 모계 중심의 전파로 비잔틴 문화는 왕실의 보호와 지원을 받으면서 지배 계층 내부로 유입되었다. 이 과정에서 테오파노는 현지 주류사회와의 상호작용에도 소극적이지 않았으며, 상이한 문화를 수용하고 자신의 목적에 맞게 융합 내지는 활용하는 절충주의적 태도를 견지하면서, 모국문화와 서유럽 문화를 통합적으로 지향하는 모습을 보여주었다.

여성, 결혼, 문화 전파 : 오토 2세와 테오파노의 결혼식(972)

신성로마제국의 황제 오토 2세와 비잔티움의 테오파노의 결혼식(972)을 통해서 비잔틴 문화가 독일에 수렴되는 과정을 고찰하는 것이 본고의 목적이다. 특히, 테오파노를 중심으로 한 왕실 여성들의 역할과 이들의 상호 협력관계를 살펴보면서, 972년 이후 다양한 비잔틴적 전통이 독일 지역으로 전파되었음을 확인할 수 있었다. 이 과정에서 테오파노는 모국문화를 전파하는 문화 전도사로서의 역할을 적극적으로 수행하였다. 테오파노는 제국의 여성 통치자들과 강한 연대를 형성하였고, 왕실 수녀원은 문화 전파의 발판이 되었다. 성모 마리아와 정교회의 성인을 수호성인으로 선택한 교회와 수도원 설립, 성유물의 수입과 기증, 정교회 수도사와 학자 초빙, 정교회 전례의식 장려, 그리스어 서적 필사, 비잔틴 예술가 초청과 예술작품 제작지원 등의 방법으로 테오파노와 오토 왕실의 여성들은 비잔틴 문화를 서유럽에 이식시켰다. 외래문화에 대한 저항과 거부, 상층 엘리트 중심의 문화 전파 현상에도 불구하고, 모계 중심의 전파로 비잔틴 문화는 왕실의 보호와 지원을 받으면서 지배 계층 내부로 유입되었다. 이 과정에서 테오파노는 현지 주류사회와의 상호작용에도 소극적이지 않았으며, 상이한 문화를 수용하고 자신의 목적에 맞게 융합 내지는 활용하는 절충주의적 태도를 견지하면서, 모국문화와 서유럽 문화를 통합적으로 지향하는 모습을 보여주었다.

Posed hilandarskog pirga Hrusija na Kosovu i Metohiji u srednjem veku

The Monastery of Chilandar and his monks, during the first century of existence, encountered various hardships. The big issue for them were the pirates, who often attacked, plundered, took monks into slavery and then sold or ransomed them. Such a problem existed on Mount Athos long before St. Sava and his father Simeon raised Chilandar in 1198. After a turbulent XIII century, which brought frequent changes of borders, King Milutin stabilized the country and its relations with its neighbors, notably Byzantium. The result was a marriage with the Byzantine princess Simonis Palaiologina and obtaining more conquered territories as her dowry. Soon afterwards, he addressed the request of the monks of Chilandar to provide them with some protection against pirates 'because their whole life at sea.' Milutin accepted the invitation and early fourteenth century raised their pyrgos Chryseia. The pyrgos was part of Chilandar, which had the obligation to support the monks. Thanks to good relations with the king Milutin, at whose request was probably elected the first abbot, Simeon, the monks of pyrgos began to independently acquire properties. This was helped by Andronikos II and Michael IX, Emperor and Regent of Byzantium, who at the request of their son/brother in law - King Milutin, confirm or give their contributions to the pyrgos. The pyrgos grew stronger and richer, and became independent from the Chilandar monastery, which led to disputes between them. The conflict particularly deteriorated in the second half of the XIV century - after the death of the Emperor Stefan Uroš IV Dušan, culminating in a trial at the court of the Diocese of Serres, in 1388. The judges ruled that the pyrgos was subordinated to the monastery of Chilandar, and that it cannot be independent. By a charter from the period dating from 1336 to 1344, Stefan IV Dušan gave estates in Kosovo and Metohia to the pirgos of Chryseia. These estates consisted of two parts: the first was in Kosovo and included the Church of the Holy Virgin in Lipljan, the village Slovinje with 23 families of dependent people, and the revenues of the market in Lipljan, when it was organized to celebrate the days of the church. A charter describes the boundaries of the village, so we know where that land property was located. It was on the East of Lipljan, between the villages of Gušterica and Smoluša. These villages still exist with the same names. The second part of the estate was located in the North of Metohija, in the area of Metohisjki Podgor. It included half of a vineyard, a piary, a meadow and several large parts of land which were located between the villages of Žakovo, Suvo Grlo, Banje, Rudnik and Kostrc. Since all these villages still exist with the same names, it is easy to determine where the slump was. This slump was managed by the oikonomos, which means it was unique. These estates were confirmed by the Emperor Dušan in the General Chilandar charter of 1348. This ruler gifted the pyrgos with 1000 perpera of silver from Novo Brdo. Pyrgos fell into problems after the Battle of Maritsa in 1371, when the estates south of the Šar mountains fell under the rule of the Turks. The situation worsened when Prince Lazar took possession of Lipljan, because the Pyrgos' monks did not comply with the agreement that they had to build defenses against the Turks, and stole the money and gifts the Prince had given them for this aim. The danger which threatened united the monks of the monastery and the pyrgos, and after the Battle of Kosovo, together they sake contribution from Princess Milica and her sons Stefan and Vuk. She accepted and donated villages in the area of Morava in the South-East of Kosovo. The documents does not provide information about what happened to the estates of pyrgos Chryseia in the fifteenth century. We think that they survived while the Lazarevic and Brankovic ruled in these parts, up to the year 1455.

Bertilla e Berta: il ruolo di Santa Giulia di Brescia e di San Sisto di Piacenza nel regno di Berengario I

Of none of the two wives of Berengar I - Bertilla, the first, an aristocratic woman from the Supponids and Anna, the second, a Byzantine princess - have been preserved dower charters; moreover no charter reminds businesses or assets. In the family context of Berengar I emerges, however, one of his two daughters, Berta, who was abbess of the monastery of St. Salvatore in Brescia and later, by his father's appointment, of the monastery of St. Sisto in Piacenza, founded a few decades earlier by Angelberga. Both monasteries were collected in their assets large shares of royal treasury, often in the first instance passed through in doweries of the queens: the curtes and the dependent monasteries were spread across the northern part of the peninsula and, in some cases, they passed the line of the Apennines. It looks like as at the court of Berengar Berta assumes a role of great importance in the management and safeguarding of the assets of these monasteries.

Margaret Jewett Burland, Strange Words: Retelling and Reception in the Medieval Roland Textual TraditionStrange Words: Retelling and Reception in the Medieval Roland Textual Tradition. Margaret Jewett Burland. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Pp. ix+332.

<i>Margaret Jewett Burland</i>, Strange Words: Retelling and Reception in the Medieval Roland Textual Tradition<i>Strange Words: Retelling and Reception in the Medieval Roland Textual Tradition</i>. Margaret Jewett Burland. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2007. Pp. ix+332.

Seeking Byzantium on the Borders of Narration, Identity, Space and Time in Julia Kristeva's Novel &lt;i&gt;Murder in Byzantium&lt;/i&gt;

This article discusses the notion of Byzantium and Byzantium's potential capacities as a multifaceted borderland, as shaped and perceived in Julia Kristeva's novel Murder in Byzantium. In spite of its title, this is not a historical, but rather a so-called total novel, which reconciles several different plots - romantic, criminal, political and philosophical. It relies on both fictive and historical texts, especially on The Alexiad, written in the 12th century by the Byzantine princess and the first female historian ever, Anna Comnena. Through a literary analysis, this article shows how Byzantium is shaped in the novel by transgressions of the borders of narration, identity, space and time. Byzantium is thus of great interest to the general public and an academic discussion of borders, origin, history and culture, so important for the discussion of Europe's role today in - or, as suggested in the novel, perhaps between - Eastern and Western cultures.

THE SOCIAL LIFE OF THE BYZANTINE GIFT: THE ROYAL CROWN OF HUNGARY RE‐INVENTED

Inspired by what anthropologists have called the social life of things, this article traces the shifting significations of the Royal Crown of Hungary. As an object central to notions of legitimacy in a land that served as a battleground for Eastern and Western powers during the medieval and modern eras, the crown over its contested history has come to be seen as a composite symbol of political independence and Western cultural affiliation. A thorough archaeology of the crown, however, reveals its origins as an eleventh‐century diadem designed for a Byzantine princess. Subsequently this open crown was transformed into the closed crown worn by the king of a powerful and emerging Western monarchy. In the process of this re‐gendering, the object was reconceived as papal gift. Bridging both instantiations is the crown's status as a gift, replete with associations of power and subjugation that anthropologists of gift‐giving practices have long recognized.

An Armenian physician at the early tenth-century court of Louis III of Provence? The case of the Autun Glossary

At the end of a Carolingian manuscript given to the cathedral church of Autun, in France, sometime between 977 and 1024, is an Armenian-Latin glossary of ninety words, including those for thirty-six body parts. The script is tenth-century and the text probably copied from a prior version. This glossary has provoked interest among Armenianists primarily as testimony to the pronunciation of Armenian. The dialect of the text's informant has been identified, but in other respects he remains anonymous, though it has been suggested that he was a travelling physician. The text thus raises questions about the date, circumstances and purposes of its composition. This article suggests that the likely context for the Armenian informant's presence in the region of Autun was the suite of the Byzantine princess Anna who in c. 900 married Louis III of Provence, whose capital, Vienne, was within easy reach of Autun. Anna's suite most probably included Armenians, since there were Armenians in Constantinople, and she herself may have been of Armenian descent. This putative early tenth-century Armenian presence in the vicinity of Autun occurred not long before the consecration, in 930, in a church at Ta[tacute]ew in eastern Armenia, of paintings that, according to a thirteenth-century Armenian source, were the work of Frankish artists commissioned by Ta[tacute]ew's bishop, and whose iconography and repertory betray links to Carolingian and post-Carolingian art. We know no more about this commission and it would be entirely speculative to suggest a link with the phenomenon of the Autun Glossary. But their temporal propinquity emphasises that the early tenth century was a time of Middle Eastern-Western cultural exchanges, and hints that some of these may still be hidden from us.1 1 This article is based upon a paper delivered at a conference, “Middle Eastern and Islamic Influence on Western Art and Liturgy: Cultural exchanges in late Antiquity and the Middle Ages”, that was held at the Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, in March 2004. I thank those who participated in the discussion that followed for their comments. I also thank the following: Professor R. I. Moore for his advice and assistance in my preparation of my text; Ms Judy Preece of Print Services, Robinson Library, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, for rendering my sketch maps into good quality maps for reproduction; and Mme Marie-Françoise Poilane for the Bibliothèque Municipale of Autun for permission to publish photographs (provided by the Bibliothèque Municipale of Autun in 2006) of the two pages of the manuscript that contain the Autun Glossary.

Murder in Byzantium (review)

Reviewed by: Murder in Byzantium Marie-Pierre Le Hir Julia Kristeva , Murder in Byzantium Translated from the French by C. Jon DeloguNew York: Columbia University Press, 2006, viii + 249 pp. The bright, elegant blue-and-gold jacket catches one's attention before the author's name and the book's title do: Murder in Byzantium, a detective novel by Julia Kristeva! We are in Santa Varvara, epicenter of the global village and home of the New Pantheon, a powerful and corrupt sect. A lone rebel named the Purifier is getting rid of the sect's leaders: as the novel begins, he has just killed his eighth victim. The police commissioner, Northrop Rilsky, investigates the serial killings; a journalist, Stéphanie Delacour, reports on them for a French newspaper; and, as the genre dictates, the two fall in love. The investigation is beginning to stall when an estranged relative of Rilsky, a history professor named Sebastian Chrest-Jones, disappears. With little to report on, Stéphanie becomes interested in this case. Going through the papers of the distinguished historian of the Crusades, she learns that the scholar was secretly writing a novel about the First Crusade and, more strangely, that he had fallen in love with Anna Comnena, the twelfth-century Byzantine princess and the main protagonist of his novel. Pressed by the scholar's wife, Rilsky becomes involved in this disappearance as well: Sebastian Chrest-Jones is after all [End Page 157] his uncle, the illegitimate son of a common grandfather, an immigrant from Bulgaria. As the novel changes course to focus on Sebastian Chrest-Jones's mysterious disappearance, the novel's first story line recedes into the background for several chapters. But the two plots reconnect toward the end thanks to Fa Chang, Chrest Jones's lover, and to her twin brother Xiao Chang. Murder in Byzantium might disappoint the real aficionados of detective fiction, at least those who like their thrillers light and simple. Kristeva's novel is anything but that. Part academic novel, part psychoanalytical treaty on childhood scars, part historical novel on the Crusades, part travel narrative, part political essay on the state of the world today, part philosophical meditation on identity, this is a rich and complex work. If Murder in Byzantium manages to retain a unity of purpose in spite of its apparent eclecticism, it is primarily because it is a book by Kristeva on Kristeva, the most autobiographical of her novels, according to an interview she gave to the newspaper Le Monde. Direct autobiographical references abound in the novel: "Julia Kristeva" makes several appearances as a character; Stéphanie Delacour is, like Kristeva, "the brilliant student of philosophy turned sinologist, then extreme structuralist" who finally "morphed into a globetrotting investigative reporter-detective" (75); and other characters, Sebastian and Anna, can also be seen as doubles of the author. In short, Murder in Byzantium is a book worth reading, whether as a transposition of Kristeva's own quest for personal and intellectual origins, or as an entertaining piece of detective fiction. Marie-Pierre Le Hir University of Arizona Copyright © 2007 Southern Comparative Literature Association

Two questions from the time of king Bodin's rule

In this paper we try to give reliable answer upon two major questions: did Bodin, king of Dioclea, capture Dyrrachion in 1085, as it is related in the Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea, and when did he try to capture Dubrovnik (Ragusa). The capture of Dyrrachion is not mentioned at Ane Comnene's Alexias. Byzantine princess wrote that citizens of Dyrrachion surrender the town to her father, the Emperor Alexios, after the death of the Norman ruler Robert Guiscard in 1085. On the other hand, the Priest of Dioclea says that Bodin, after the death of Robert Guiscard captured Dyrrachion which he gave back to the Byzantines after he signed the peace treaty with the Emperor. Both statements are not clear enough, but detailed analysis of both writings shows that Bodin took northern part of the theme of Dyrrachion and most probably tried to negotiate surrender of town itself, but he failed. Bodin's military activities against the Byzantine possessions in the theme of Dyrrachion could be placed between 1085 and 1090 when he was captured, being forced to sign peace treaty. The charter of antipope Clement III issued in 1089 to the archbishop of Antibaris, contain list of bishops which served in Dioclea, and only one of them - the bishop of Dulcigno (Ulcinj), had been earlier under the archbishop of Dyrrachion. In other words, Bodin took a very small part of the theme of Dyrrachion and southern borders of Dioclea were approximately the same as in the time of his father Michael. The description of the siege of Dubrovnik is well preserved in Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea as well by several other authors from Dubrovnik. The authors from Dubrovnik, which composed their Chronicles much later (from XIV to XVII century), made mistake in the chronology, assuming that the siege took place in 1104. Having at their disposal an old note, that Bodin's tower, which stood on the shores just opposite the wooden bridge which lead from Dubrovnik to the land, was captured on the first day of April during the Pascha, they calculated wrong year since Pascha on the first day of April was in 1016. Relative chronology, which is preserved in their description of the siege, yielded 11 years from the time Bodin built tower to cut off the defenders from the inland. In this period the authors from Dubrovnik put also seven years of siege, what was, most probably, the number taken from Bible. That way, the later authors from Dubrovnik assumed that Bodin conducted the siege of Dubrovnik in 1004/1005. On the first day of April Pascha was also in 1100 and that year should be taken as the year when the tower of Bodin was captured and leveled to the ground. In that case since the author from Dubrovnik knew that the tower stood for four years, it means that the end of siege was in 1096. The Priest of Dioclea provides another clue for more accurate dating of the beginning of the siege. He says that Bodin beheaded his relatives in front of the walls of Dubrovnik during his 22nd year of rule, revealing from which year he calculates Bodin's rule, i.e. from September/October 1072, when Bodin was crowned as the Bulgarian emperor during the insurrection of the Bulgarians - and certainly not from 1085 when his father Michael died. Therefore, Bodin besieged Dubrovnik in 1092/1093. The exact year of the Bodin's siege of Dubrovnik provides another interesting solution - the exact year of his death. Since 1096 was 22nd year of Bodin's rule, and Priest of Dioclea says that he died in the fifth month of 26th year of his rule - it means that Bodin died in February/March 1099.

A to Z of women in world history

With the explosion of women's studies at every level of education, there is an increasing need for a comprehensive resource that acknowledges their remarkable contributions. A to Z of Women in World History is a one-volume encyclopedic reference to those extraordinary women from around the globe who have made their mark in every division of achievement. More than 260 lively, detailed, and engrossing entries are grouped by each woman's claim to fame. Each in-depth essay includes sources for further reading. Three lists of entries - alphabetically by subject name, chronologically, and geographically - ensure that information can be easily found. Profiles Include: Hypatia (ca. 370-415): Alexandrian mathematician and astronomer; Anna Comnena (1083-1148): Byzantine princess and historian; Peggy Guggenhelm (1898-1979): American philanthropist and art patron; Ana Figueroa (1908-1970): Chilean feminist and educator; Sonja Henle (1912-1969): Norwegian Olympic gold medal skater; Zheng Xlaoying (1929-present): Chinese conductor; Oriana Fallaci (1930-present): Italian political journalist; Wangarl Muta Maathal (1940-present): Kenyan biologist and environmentalist.