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Constructing a Byzantine Augusta: A Greek Book for a

French Bride
Cecily J. Hilsdale
Published online: 04 Apr 2014.

To cite this article: Cecily J. Hilsdale (2005) Constructing a Byzantine Augusta: A Greek Book for a French Bride, The Art Bulletin,
87:3, 458-483, DOI: 10.1080/00043079.2005.10786255

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00043079.2005.10786255

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 Constructing a Byzantine Augusta: A Greek Book for a
French Bride
Cecily J Hilsdale
Marriage between outsiders is a social advance (because it
integrates wider groups). It is also a venture.-Claude
Levi-Strauss'
In 1179 Agnes, the nine-year-old daughter of Louis VII of
France, embarked on a Genoese ship that took her to Con-
stantinople, the city of the emperor of the Romans. Here she
would wed his purple-born son, Alexios, and prepare for her
new role as Byzantine augusta. At some point during the
ceremonies marking her arrival in the imperial city, she was
presented with a book containing a poem written in vernac-
ular Greek and lavishly illustrated in such a way that, even
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without knowing the language, she could comprehend its
plot and message. This book, modest in scale yet highly
sumptuous and currently bound in the incorrect folio order,
survives in fragmentary form as Vatican Greek Manuscript
1851 (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticanar.f As a
welcoming present, its imagery speaks eloquently of the role
in the Byzantine court foreign brides were expected to play.
The book is also deeply embedded within a structure of
ritual and reciprocity, categories of behavior fruitfully inter-
preted by anthropology. Scholars of medieval art have in-
creasingly embraced theories of gift exchange and mutual
indebtedness made famous by Marcel Mauss and subsequent
generations of anthropologists.P Art historians have culled
primary textual sources to demonstrate the significance of
largesse to medieval European, Byzantine, and Islamic socie-
ties." These anthropological studies highlight the modalities
of power in force at moments of gift exchange. Incorporating
the anthropology of gift giving, for example, Brigitte Buett-
ner has recently examined the centrality of visual display in
ceremonial exchanges at the Valois court even in the absence
of surviving art objects. The paucity of surviving medieval
gifts, in contrast to the abundance of their textual attesta-
tions, has for the most part dictated the somewhat limited
parameters of the anthropological inquiry.
For the Byzantine world, rich textual sources for imperial
protocol adumbrate what kind of gifts are appropriate for
foreign ambassadors both at court in Constantinople and
abroad, and they emphasize rituals of reciprocity and display.
Yet in stark contrast to these elaborate though abstract tax-
onomies of gifts, few objects survive that can be located within
an identifiable exchange context, and fewer still that were
custom-made for that circumstance. Vat. gr. 1851 is excep-
tional as a surviving illustrated book created for a particular
recipient on a certain occasion: a present to welcome a young
French bride arriving in Constantinople to marry the heir to
the Byzantine throne. The entire organization of the manu-
script speaks to this purpose. Emphasizing the specificity of
circumstance and imagery of the manuscript shifts the focus
from the exchange context and structures of generosity, that
is, anthropological concerns, to the efficacy of gifts them-
selves. This gift, through its ritual narration, mediates the
introduction of a French bride to the Byzantine court.
The surviving pages of Vat. gr. 1851 are divided into three
main narrative sections, each one featuring a topographic
scene of water and land. The first section concerns the be-
trothal negotiation: here betrothal arrangements and an-
nouncements occur within a setting marked by trappings of
empire. The young Western betrothed emerges as protago-
nist of the second section of the book, where she is repre-
sented arriving in Constantinople and becoming the Eastern
augusta. In the last surviving section, the betrothed is intro-
duced to and enters her new Byzantine family. Such clearly
delineated transitions from outside to inside relate to the
experience of the intended reader, the bride-to-be herself,
evoking the progression through a rite de passage. The anthro-
pological structure of such a rite, following Arnold van Gen-
nep and Victor Turner, promotes the formation of com-
munity and social cohesion." Ceremonies accompanying
marriage, a prime rite of passage, therefore, generally stress
integration as the goal of the ritual.
The Vatican manuscript, however, problematizes such a
straightforward reading because, as this article contends, rit-
ualized depiction is not the same as ritual itself. The book's
ritualized pictorial schema, in other words, exceeds mimesis,
as the images, rather than depicting a preexisting ritual as
acted out in reality, produce and organize a set of social
relations. This distinction is crucial, for it underlies the status
of the object-the book-as a gift endowed with a specific
social function. Moreover, this distinction precludes any sort
of ritual reconstruction, an endeavor most recently called
into question by Philippe Buc. Distinguishing between tex-
tual descriptions of ceremonies and their actual perfor-
mances, Buc has shown how medieval authors wrote ritual for
contemporary political purposes." For Buc, "texts were forces
in the practice of power" whose authors "sought to impact
directly the present."? Buc's formulation suggests the poten-
tial of the narration of ritual. In the case of the Vatican codex,
its visual and verbal articulations function as a political tool
that masks fracture as much as it creates cohesion. More
broadly, Buc's theory allows us to recognize how certain art
objects attain agency." Gifts in particular constitute active
agents of social change that mediate broader relations among
individuals and parties through the binding and solidifying of
allegiances. The relation between visual and verbal compo-
nents of the Vatican manuscript evokes a ritual pattern that
promotes integration. The book does not merely represent a
rite of passage; it facilitates full incorporation of a newcomer
into the larger group, which is the goal of the ritual process.
The present interpretation, therefore, interrogates the spe-
cific relation between an art object and its potential for social
agency.
 CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 459

Komnenian Kinship and Allegiance

Vat. gr. 185 I makes visible some of the problems confronting
the policy of middle Byzantine dynastic consolidation and
expansion at the end of the twelfth century. The Komnenoi,
ruling family of Byzantium from 1081 until 1185, had estab-
lished imperial dominance through intermarriage with both
Byzantine and foreign aristocratic families. Under Alexios I
Komnenos (r. 1081-11 18), the court titular system was radi-
cally transformed: new titles were invented and distributed to
family members, resulting in an imperial dynastic structure
whose organization is often described as clanlike." Study of
Vat. gr. 1851 must be seen within this context of Komnenian
dynastic politics, where an unprecedented manipulation of
marriage alliances and titles helped both to maintain family
cohesion and to further imperial agendas. Through what has
been described as a "new blood policy" of the later-twelfth-
century Komnenian emperors, spouses were absorbed into
the imperial family for political advancement. 10 The Vatican
manuscript, however, does not simply reflect this policy but
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also provides a commentary on it, affording an opportunity to

consider foreignness and allegiance among the Komnenoi.
The manuscript, however, is not universally accepted as a
product of the late twelfth century. Owing to its exceptional
status as an object made to be presented to a young bride,
Vat. gr. 1851 poses a methodological problem for art histo-
rians, philologists, and historians alike. Its text and illumina-
tions, unique in both style and subject matter, elude literary
and art historical categorization. The date of the codex is
highly disputed not only because the surviving folios preserve
no proper names but also because there are few comparanda
for the images. II Although the historical variables of the
text-including titles and epithets employed-indicate that
the codex should be associated with the late-twelfth-century
diplomatic marriage alliance arranged between Louis VII of
France and the Byzantine emperor Manuel I Komnenos,
many scholars, primarily art historians, hold open the possi-
bility of a later date. 12 It is hard to deny that the story fits well
within the late-twelfth-century historical context, but at first
glance the images look nothing like Komnenian artistic pro-
duction in either style or iconography. Thus, in 1923 Jean
Ebersolt rejected the late-twelfth-century date based on the
depictions of dress that, he claimed, do not resemble other
visual or textual representations from the middle Byzantine
period.P Stylistic discrepancies have led another scholar to
propose that the poem was composed for the late-twelfth-
century wedding but that the illuminations, which are
claimed to be of a quality inferior to other late-twelfth-cen-
tury paintings, must date to the fourteenth century.l" The
underlying assumption is that lesser quality must be associ-
ated with later or provincial workshops. While the story, the
script, and the five ornate zoomorphic initials'" accord well
with our expectations of the elite Komnenian book culture,
the images seem incongruous.
Despite Ebersolt's objection, which has been echoed more
recently by Antonio Iacobini.l" various details throughout the
Vatican codex are consistent with middle Byzantine imagery.
For example, the elaborate female and male headdresses can
also be found in middle Byzantine imagery, in both religious
iconography and contemporary portraits.!" Strong evidence
for a middle Byzantine date consistent with Komnenian ar-
1 Manuel I Komnenos and Marie of Antioch. Vatican City,
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana Vat. gr. 1176, fol. 2r (photo:
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)
tistic production is provided by the suppedia, or imperial
cushions, on which members of the imperial family stand.
Representations of these cushions differ dramatically be-
tween the Komnenian and the late Byzantine (Palaiologan)
periods.l" A lower jeweled edge is characteristic of suppedia
illustrated in the middle Byzantine period. In the Palaiologan
period, however, suppedia are represented with a clean lower
edge instead of an ornamented band.l" Comparing two im-
perial portraits-one of Manuel I Komnenos (r. 1143-80),
the other of Manuel II Palaiologos (r. 1391-1425)-makes
the distinction evident. A mid-twelfth-century manuscript in
the Vatican, Vat. gr. 1176, portrays the Komnenian imperial
couple atop suppedia with clearly delineated lower bands
punctuated at regular intervals by square gems (Fig. 1).20 By
contrast, in a portrait of a Palaiologan emperor in an early-
fifteenth-century manuscript in Paris, the smooth lower hem
of the suppedion displays no separate ornamental band (Fig.
2).21 On the imperial cushions depicted throughout the
pages of Vat. gr. 1851, a lower hemline is visible, articulated
with dabs of white to suggest pearls or gems. 22
Beyond the details of imperial dress and suppedia, which
are much better situated within the twelfth than the four-
teenth century, the style of the miniatures has vexed art
historians who often describe it as "crude. "23 Ultimately, how-
ever, the style of the illuminations may correspond more to
 460 ART BULl.ETlN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOl.UME l.XXXVII NUMBER 3
Downloaded by [New York University] at 21:52 19 June 2015
2 Manuel II Palaiologos. Paris, Bibliotheque Nationale de
France, suppl. gr. 309, fol. 6r
the kind of book it is and the particular circumstances of its
creation. The Vatican codex does not exhibit the level of
quality associated with Komnenian book production both
because it is a different kind of commission-a special gift to
a young French bride-and because it is the unique surviving
example of such an intimate iI1ustrated book. Thus, if visual
evidence points to a twelfth-century date but the images look
"crude," it may be more fruitful to explain the imagery than
to redate the manuscript. The manuscript's narrative unfolds
on a number of levels, including the visual. Certain features
of the codex, including those that have been most problem-
atic for its dating, enable a viewer unfamiliar with Byzantine
court culture and the Greek language to follow its plot of
transformation and incorporation.
If the twelfth-century date is accepted for the codex, then
the protagonists of the story can be inferred from the epithets
and titles that appear on the pages and the contemporaneous
historical context.f" Agnes was the daughter of Adele of
Champagne and Louis VII of France. Her betrothal to Alex-
ios, purple-born son of Manuel I Komnenos and his second
wife, Marie ofAntioch, who are also depicted in the book, was
pivotal to late Komnenian dynastic politics. 25 The choice of a
French bride for his son is consistent with Manuel's pro-Latin
policy, often described as Latinophilia.f" Unlike his father
and grandfather, Manuel favored foreign marriages with the
Latin world. 27 When Manuel's first wife, the German-born
Bertha of Sulzbach, arrived in Constantinople in 1142, the
court poet Theodore Prodromos delivered a welcoming ad-
dress that in many ways lays bare the ideological implications
of foreign marriages. Addressing Bertha's German father, he
writes: "0 great king of the ancient and older Rome ... glo-
rious Conrad ... now you have risen in honour, now you
have been ennobled still further, because you have been
grafted into the Comnenian family and have been held to be
the heir of so mighty an Emperor. "28 The rhetoric of horti-
culture continues when Prodromos turns to the Western
bride and Byzantine groom, congratulating the emperor
"who has transplanted a beautiful vine from the West, and has
established it in the imperial gardens so that you [Bertha]
may embrace and grow together with his own stock."29 En-
tirely appropriate in an address welcoming a bride, such
imagery suggests that new planting and new identity are
central to dynastic solidarity.P" Nominal practices further
underscore this ideology. Manuel's first wife, like most Byz-
antine imperial brides of foreign origin, changed her name
as a sign of full incorporation within her new Greek-speaking
community-Bertha of Sulzbach took the name Irene,
"Peace," the most common name adopted by foreign brides.
The young Agnes of France, protagonist of the Vatican co-
dex, was also renamed on her arrival, although she took a
name, Anna, that preserved the first letter of her birth
name."
Both Angeliki Laiou and Paul Magdalino have explored
the imperial and aristocratic controls, even manipulations, of
marital unions for sociopolitical advancement.F Manuel I
Komnenos was particularly active in the organization and
orchestration of aristocratic marriages. In 1166 the emperor
presided over a church council on marital policy and issued
an edict confirming the patriarchal decision to tighten the
restrictions on internal marriages. Magdalino points out this
policy made more Byzantine brides available for export, thus
promoting exogarny.P Strategic foreign marriages under the
Komnenoi furthered dynastic or familial supremacy in an
unprecedented way: by incorporating outsiders, emperors
relied on marriage to integrate wider groups and facilitate
social advancement.
In addition to officially legislating on marriage, Manuel
also exercised imperial regulatory authority over individual
marriages. Magdalino writes of the perilous consequences of
a marriage not authorized by the emperor: "it could upset the
new hierarchy of nobility, lead to the growth of factions,
deplete the stock of imperial relatives available for making
new alliances or rewarding loyal service, and, in general,
weaken the very basis of Comnenian power."34 Accordingly,
unapproved marriages, as perceived threats to dynastic cohe-
sion, were often dissolved by the emperor and the parties
involved punished. Eustathios of Thessaloniki recounts a
vivid episode in which one of Manuel's ministers had his nose
cut off for attempting to marry above his station. 35
Manuel himself was married twice, both times to women
from prominent royal families of Germany and France, and

he arranged Western matches for his children as well. His
first German wife, Bertha-Irene, addressee of Prodromos's
poem, bore the emperor a daughter, Maria Porphyrogenita,
but no son. 36 With no male heir in sight, Maria occupied a
central position in Manuel's foreign policy: the emperor first
offered her hand to Bela of Hungary, who presumably would
then have succeeded him as the next Byzantine emperor.
After Bertha-Irene died, however, Manuel wed Marie of An-
tioch in 1169, and she bore him a long-awaited male heir, the
future Alexios II. It then became crucial for Manuel's daugh-
ter to marry someone who would pose no threat to the
succession of his son. Thus, Manuel dissolved the betrothal of
Bela to Maria and instead arranged for Renier of Montferrat
to travel to Constantinople in 1179 to marry her. 37 At the
time of the wedding, Maria Porphyrogenita was nearing thirty,
whereas Renier was still a teenager.
Within a month of the wedding of Maria and Renier,
nine-year-old Agnes of France, for whom the Vatican manu-
script was produced, married Alexios, who was to succeed his
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father as emperor. The weddings took place early in 1180, as
it happens, the same year Manuel died. 38 Because of the
emperor's concerns for dynastic succession, he left imperial
power in the hands of his foreign-born widow, Marie of
Antioch, as regent for their son, who was wed to another
Westerner, Agnes of France. This arrangement precluded
Maria Porphyrogenita from exercising any substantial or legit-
imate power. Following the emperor's death, latent tensions
between Latin and native Byzantine factions erupted into
open revolt, headed by Maria Porphryogenita; this was followed
by violent suppression.l"
The incorporation of a French princess into the imperial
family as the wife of the future emperor suited Manuel's
dynastic logic, and while the Franco-Byzantine union inspired
the creation of the Vatican manuscript, it should not be read
as a wholehearted endorsement of Komnenian marital pol-
icy. Manuel's strategy of exogamy was not universally popular,
and Maria Porphyrogenita, as rival of newcomer Agnes, exer-
cised significant influence at court. The book made for Agnes
responds to these court tensions. It is altogether appropriate
that the book, as an integral part of a series of rituals de-
signed to welcome the foreign bride-including aural accla-
mations, processions, recitations of panegyric, and the ex-
change of gifts-should emphasize incorporation, especially
on a purely visual level, as she most likely did not know any
Greek when she arrived. The organization of the Vatican
codex presents a visual progression from separation to tran-
sition to incorporation-the basic structural features of a rite
of passage-that would facilitate Agnes's integration into the
imperial family. At the same time, the program masks signif-
icant voices of contestation.
Separation
The first section of the extant codex focuses on the negotia-
tions for the marital alliance and is dominated by the voice
and action of the two fathers. The story begins with text alone
on both recto and verso (fol. 8).40 The narrative starts
abruptly in the middle of a speech by the unnamed Western
king, father of the bride-to-be."
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE 461
... I was considering [it/the matter] and I was divided
within myself,
and pains of unbearable, fearful,
great and intolerable anxieties consumed my heart.
I said: the one who is inseparable, indissoluble from
me,
she who is my eyes and soul, breath, heart,
sustenance, comfort, release from pain,
alleviation of my grief, increase of my life,
and sustenance of my breath-how shall I let her go?
How would I be able to see the loss of my daughter?
How would I be able to endure such a bitterness?
[and] how shall I tolerate such an unendurable grief?
It is very difficult to accomplish and I shall not attempt
it.
But then, I turned my mind to the greatness, 0 Mon-
arch, of your empire,
to the fear of your power, to the glory of your deeds
and the splendor of your throne,
I did not wish at all to disregard your letter.
And 10 and behold I send you [as] bride my much-
beloved daughter,
inseparable from me, 0 powerful ruler,
hoping that another second father she may discover,
the great autokrator and father-in-law in you.
These words are presented in the form of a letter to the
emperor and make reference to earlier correspondence from
the same Eastern autokrator (which may have constituted at
least part of the missing preceding folia).42 The language of
the Western king's response is significant. His words of la-
ment emphasize the inalienable relation of father to daugh-
ter or bride to homeland. The poet, assuming the voice of the
father, describes her as "inseparable, indissoluble." She is
literally incapable of being unbraided or disentangled (anek-
luunon or anekplokon). Yet the greatness of the Byzantine
emperor is strong enough to break this bond.
After this epistolary lamentation from the Western father,
the narrator's voice switches to the first person of the poet
directly addressing the princess (fol. 2r):
The greatly powerful and fearful king,43
your ruler and father, after revealing these things with
many tears
to my awesome ruler, the emperor of the Romans,
he kissed and bade you farewell.
And immediately he sends forth a light sea-faring vessel
with a congratulator to the porphyrogenitos with great
speed.
Below these words, a framed miniature, eight lines of text tall,
depicts a domed structure surrounded by city walls sur-
mounted by turrets, in tum surrounded by water. In the
upper right comer of the miniature, the Greek letters H
nOAII, "the city," are legible, and in the upper left comer
another inscription, though badly damaged, refers to Con-
stantinople (Fig. 3).44 Even without the inscription, the city
can be identified as the Byzantine capital not only by com-
 462 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOl.UME l.XXXVII NUMBER 3
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parison with other depictions of the imperial city but also on
the basis of the textual narrative that precedes it and the
visual one that follows it.
Though the text does not explicitly mention Constanti-
nople by name, the illumination supplements and completes
the text by displaying a visualization of the princess's desti-
nation. The artist paints a picture of the famed city walls
surrounded by water and the Great Church with its detailed
tympanum, dome, and cross. Iacobini aptly draws a compar-
ison between the representation of this church and that in
the lunette mosaic of the southwest vestibule of Hagia Sophia
(Fig. 4).45 In this tenth-eentury monumental image,Justinian
holds a model of Hagia Sophia while Constantine carries a
model of the city itself, displaying its walls and illustrious
3 View of Constantinople. Vatican
City, BAV Vat. gr. 1851, fo1. 2r (photo:
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)
golden gate to the viewer below. The manuscript illumina-
tion situates the church within the city walls, providing a
single image denoting the most salient and famed topo-
graphic features of the Eastern imperial capital, its "high
walls and lofty towers" as described by the French Crusader
Geoffroy Villehardouin in 1203. 46
Both Byzantine manuscript and mosaic adhere to tradi-
tional medieval pictorial conventions for rendering cities
from a slightly elevated perspective.'? And yet the Vatican
illuminator has attenuated this perspectival tradition to em-
phasize specific architectural features. Although the domed
church, Hagia Sophia, dominates the manuscript's city view,
the gate to the city constitutes the focal point. The image
combines a frontal perspective that stresses the gate with a

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4 Enthroned Virgin and Child
between Constantine and Justinian.
Istanbul, Hagia Sophia, south vestibule
(photo: AIinari / Art Resource, NY)
more elevated cartographic bird's-eye view. The combination
leads the viewer's gaze from a vantage point detached and
outside the city straight to the city's entrance. At the same
time, the composition offers a glimpse of what lies behind
the gate through a mysterious open window that draws
the curious eye farther in. 48 Ultimately, this movement
from outside (via the slightly elevated cartographic angle)
to inside (through doors and windows) expands visually
with the turn ofthe page. The full-page miniatures that faced
each other in the original foliation (now fols. 2v and 7r)
represent the arrival of the "congratulator" sent by the West-
ern king to the porphyrogenitos, as was recounted in the text a
page earlier.
The image on the verso, divided into three registers, un-
folds from bottom to top and from left to right (Fig. 5). Amid
large waves, a dark ship sails toward land located on the right
edge of the lowest zone. Six passengers dressed in red and
green are seated in the boat, and a seventh figure, larger in
scale than the rest and dressed in red but with no headdress,
disembarks on the right with the help of a figure in blue and
gold (whose upper half is rendered illegible by paint loss).
These two characters bridge the bottom two registers, for-
mally breaking the ground line that separates them. In the
middle level, the same messenger, or "congratulator," as
described in the text, still recognizable by his bright red
garment and lack of headdress, kneels before a figure clad in
purple, who wears a white conical headdress that designates
him a member of the Byzantine court. Their interaction
constitutes the focal point of the central register: the messen-
ger offers a white letter to the imperial courtier with one
hand while with the other (and with his gaze) he gestures
upward to the enthroned personage at the center of the
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE 463
upper register. The combination of gestures signifies that the
messenger gives the scroll to the figure before him but that its
final destination is one level above. On either side of this
central act of transmission stand more Byzantine courtiers,
dressed on the right in purple, and on the far left, behind the
messenger, in a lighter color and further distinguished by a
white hat that projects upward, breaking the ground line into
the upper register.f" The same distinctive headdress is also
worn by a group of courtiers in the far upper right corner of
the page. Worn by figures facing to the left, the pointed
headdresses create a diagonal, framing the beginning and
the end of the narrative registers. In this way, subtleties of
dress, a central component of the Byzantine formal idiom,
function as signposts for the viewer, facilitating recognition
and comprehension of the story.
As distinctive as the headdresses are, it is the scroll that
both formally and thematically advances the narrative. In the
upper register, the scroll-the physical manifestation of the
message from the Western king that had been narrated ver-
bally two folios earlier-is presented to the enthroned em-
peror by the purple-dad courtier who received it on the level
below. Dignitaries flank the emperor along with his son, the
porphyrogenitos whom the message concerns and who, like his
father, wears the imperial crown and long jeweled scarf or
stole called the loros. With imperial cushions at their feet and
large haloes around their crowned heads, father and son turn
toward each other as the scroll is placed in the emperor's
hand.
The action continues on the facing folio (7r), another
full-page miniature, this time divided into two registers (Fig.
6). In the lower zone, the emperor, holding the white scroll,
and his son, carrying a cruciform staff, proceed toward the
 464 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 3
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right and begin to ascend a prominent staircase. Above, the
imperial family stands together firmly and solemnly atop
lavish suppedia, the emperor in the center and the crowned
prince on the left; both look at the empress on the right, who
returns her husband's gaze. 5O In front of the two male impe-
rial figures a diminutive courtier or herald holds open the
scroll, presumably reading aloud the announcement of the
betrothal. This message has taken several forms: the words of
the Western father-to-be spelled out in Greek vernacular; the
same words converted into a scroll delivered to the court
(Fig. 5); and finally the words unrolled and returned to
spoken voice (Fig. 6).
Read together as they must be,51 these two full-page illu-
minations establish an innovative relationship between text
and image whereby the visual advances the narrative beyond
the textual. The text emphasizes the words of the father,
5 Arrival of Messengers. Vat. gr. 1851,
fol. 2v (photo: Biblioteca Apostolica
Vaticana)
concluding with the news that a messenger was sent to con-
gratulate the porphyrogenitos but making no mention of the
message's reception. The images then pick up the story by
detailing the specific scenes that move toward a culmination
in the upper register of folio 7r: first Constantinople is seen
from a distance (Fig. 3), then the foreign ambassador arrives
by boat (Fig. 5); next the rolled scroll, the text itself, is passed
from hand to hand until its logical end, where it is unrolled
in the upper register of folio 7r and read aloud by the herald.
The text establishes an expectation that is fulfilled visually. It
is significant that the narration shifts from verbal to visual
precisely where the letter and the reader enter Constanti-
nople.
The verso of folio 7 describes the reaction inspired by the
betrothal. Rather than moving the story forward, or describ-
ing textually what we have seen visually, the next page, again

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6 Announcement of the Betrothal.
Vat. gr. 1851, fol. 7r (photo:
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)
in the voice of the poet, relates the emotions aroused by the
announcement of the nuptials (Fig. 7):
When such a message came to the ruler,
who has the strength to recount the joy of his heart,
the delight of the people and of all his faithful [sub-
jects],
of well-born kin high and low,
of the senate, and of citizens within and without [the
city]?
It can be said simply, in so short and brief a word,
that from the emperor to any chance individual,
the announcement incited in all of them,
one exultation and expectation and acceptance in their
hearts.
This joy and anticipation existed in everyone.
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AU(;USTA 465
This speech does not report the movement of the betrothal
message, from kingly words recounted, to messenger, to
scroll, to herald's voice. Instead, it describes the universal
sentiments of joy that result from the announcement of the
betrothal. Although the book opens with an expression of
pain at potential separation (fol. 8r-v), the sentiment here
has turned to elation at the implied promise of the bride's
arrival. And between these emotive textual passages, the im-
agery presents a different narrative of movement and ex-
change of information.
In terms of narrative time, however, text and image come
together on folio 7. The speech on the verso constitutes a
moment of stillness and reflection as the rhythm of the
preceding images comes to a halt in front of the imperial
family in the upper register of folio 7r while the message is
read aloud. This interplay between physical delivery of the
 466 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 3
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....
letter, its being read aloud, and then its content being ab-
sorbed establishes a tempo that is sustained both textually
and visually in the subsequent pages of the codex. Such a
performative exchange creates the ritualistic or ceremonial
rhythm that permeates the book. The pattern of alternating
progressions and arrests recalls ceremonial processions as
described in texts, distinguished by the alternation of move-
ment and stillness and punctuated by the roar of the crowd's
acclamation or the silence of its visual reflection. The first few
images of the Vatican manuscript unfold with a sense of rapid
movement only to halt in the upper register of folio 7r in an
imperial tableau vivant that has been described as the picto-
rial equivalent to the Byzantine frrokypsis ceremony.P" Taking
its name from the stage on which it was performed, the
prokypsis ceremony enacted a ritualized imperial epiphany.
The emperor and his family ascended a special stage or
7 Arrival of a Messenger. Vat. gr.
1851, fol. Ir (photo: Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana)
platform hidden from view by a curtain that was pulled open
at the appropriate moment, indicated by sound and lights, to
reveal the imperial family standing immobile, surrounded by
lights until the curtain was closed. Replacing the emperor's
appearance to his people at the hippodrome, this new cere-
monial form of presentation obviated the distraction of char-
iot races or games and allowed a much more stringent reg-
ulation of the imperial image. 53 This ritual restriction trans-
formed the act of beholding the emperor into the equivalent
of being granted a privilege or gift. Although the audience
for a prokypsis ceremony was large and public, as opposed to
the intimate and even solitary experience of reading the
Vatican manuscript, a sense of stasis characterizes the culmi-
nation of both the ceremonial performance and the pictorial
sequence. They share a similar strategy of managing and
exhibiting imperial presence.

Just as the poet of the Vatican codex plays with textual
genres-interspersing epistolary speeches with direct and in-
direct speech-so the artist combines two distinct pictorial
conventions to produce a visual rhythm and momentum that
bear ritualistic overtones. Continuous narration, in which
repeated figures indicate a progression in time, builds toward
the image of stasis that draws on official portraiture trends,
exemplified by the likenesses of Manuel I Komnenos and
Marie of Antioch in Vat. gr. 1176 (Fig. 1).54 This slightly
earlier portrait of the same imperial couple emphasizes their
immobile majesty as Manuel and Marie stare out of the page
as living icons of imperium. In the upper register of folio 7r
of Vat. gr. 1851, the artist stages a similarly austere imperial
presentation but inserts allusions to time and narrative: the
herald reads aloud the announcement while the gazes of the
protagonists are interlocked. Even the format of the double
register precludes seeing the upper scene in isolation from
the ascending staircase below, perhaps evocative of the ascent
to the prokypsis platform.
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Through the alternation of modes of speech and visual
genres, the first section of Vat. gr. 1851 evokes a ritual sepa-
ration. It begins in the middle of an epistolary lament from
the father of the bride and ends with a subtle allusion to a
ceremony whose express purpose is to make Byzantine impe-
rial presence more real. The young bride does not appear in
visual form in these first pages; her absence establishes the
distance necessary for a Byzantine augusta to be constructed.
Transition
Following a pause in the narrative, the text continues on the
succeeding folio (fol. lr), briefly ushering in the next se-
quence of events. The poet describes the preparations for the
arrival of the bride-to-be:
As the emperor was preparing the wedding arrange-
ments,
again another message from the ambassadors
came to the emperor full of great joy.
And the words of the golden proclamation were these:
A badly damaged framed miniature, below these verses, oc-
cupies more than half the page (Fig. 7).55 At first glance the
composition appears strikingly similar to the earlier scene of
a message being delivered (Fig. 5): the enthroned emperor,
at the center of the composition, receives a message in the
form of a scroll. The general arrangement replicates the
earlier scene but with details particular to the new circum-
stance of the narrative. Here, unaccompanied by his son, the
emperor is flanked on both sides by court dignitaries who
wear the same distinctive headgear as those in Figure 5.56 The
letter is delivered not by a court intermediary but by a West-
ern representative who is again recognizable by his red garb
and lack of headdress. As in the earlier scene, the scroll,
passing from the hand of the Western messenger to the
Eastern emperor, serves as the focal point.
The content of this message, the "golden proclamation," is
given in verbal form on the verso. Here the poet again
assumes the voice of the Western father and congratulates
the Eastern emperor:
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE IoU(;CSTIo 467
Hail emperor of Rome, unconquered monarch,
unparalleled among all the dynasts in the universe,
surpassing all rulers on the earth.
From now on, the one whom you wanted and yearned
to gain,
the ripe maiden, entirely noble, the beauty of the West,
the fame of the East and of all the inhabited world,
with the help of God, you may see her in a few days.
Let everything for her reception be prepared.
I congratulate the porphyrogenitos son of my emperor,
because he was fortunate and acquired [a bride] at a
tender age.
Foreshadowing future events, this letter announces that the
Western bride, who at the beginning of the codex was said to
be inseparable from her father, would be arriving soon. At
this point, it is clear that, both thematically and formally, the
delivery of information constitutes a central theme of the
codex and is articulated through the rhythmic alternation of
text and image that sets the pace for the narration. Margaret
Mullett has noted a similar emphasis in the illustrated copy of
Skylitzes' Synopsis historiarum in Madrid (Bibl. Nac. vitro 26-2)
"on ceremony, on the transaction, on the public nature of
letter-exchange, on the social and political importance of
communication.Y" In it, communication is emphasized both
textually and visually. The miniature on folio 75v, for exam-
ple, depicts an exchange of letters between a Byzantine em-
peror and a caliph in which, between the two rulers in their
respective tents, three depictions of the messenger, each with
slightly different body language, represent three separate
moments in the exchange (Fig. 8).58 On the left, the envoy
stands erect, receiving the scroll from the Byzantine emperor;
on the right, in a slightly bowed posture of respect, he offers
it to the caliph; and in the center, he strides back toward the
emperor on the left. In the Vatican codex, the delivery of
information propels the narrative: the initial words of the
father are presented textually as a letter to the emperor to be
read by the viewer; they are then transformed into the visual
marker of the scroll and pictorially delivered to the court of
Constantinople to be read aloud. Then a second message,
again from the Western to the Eastern ruler, also arrives as a
scroll, whose text appears on the verso, inaugurating the next
sequence of events. Whereas the first segment of the book
opens with a farewell in the form of a painful lament.P" the
next section begins with a joyous proclamation-voiced
through letters of the father of the betrothed, speech acts
both imagined and recorded as letters.
The Western father's announcement that provoked joy in
all who heard it initiates, as his earlier letter did, a narrative
sequence that is amplified visually on the next surviving page
of the book. Following a lacuna in the manuscript/" the text
resumes on the recto of folio 3 with a description of the
Western princess's reception in Byzantine territories, begin-
ning with a zoomorphic letter, an eagle-shaped my, and a
full-page miniature on the verso. The poet, textually, and the
painter, visually, address the bride directly and elaborate the
details of her reception:
After these, he sent all the female relatives,
up to seventy and beyond, I believe,
 468 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 3
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they were all descendants of caesars and sebastokraiors
and crown-bearing despots, purple-sprung.
The emperor sent ahead one of the selected women, in
whom
he had much confidence, so that she might receive
[you] before the rest
and she alone might see you on his behalf, in a more
affectionate manner,
and change you into Roman despoina garb,
along with all the other accessories/insignia suitable for
the augusta.
And in such a way,everyone could see you and venerate
you.
To emphasize the prestige of the event, the poet enumerates
the high echelons into which the princess will be welcomed,
paying special attention to courtly titles as one would expect
from a period in which titles were increasingly created and
granted. Titles clearly distinguished social rank in Byzantium.
They were accompanied by certain colors and patterns of
dress, as well as physical inclusion or exclusion from ceremo-
nies, which demarcated hierarchy. In a late-ninth- or early-
tenth-century description of a procession in Constantinople,
Harun-ibn-Yahya, for example, describes how ten thousand
people dressed in one color followed another ten thousand
dressed in another color to convey a striped effect. While the
numbers are surely exaggerated, the report nonetheless
evokes a sense of the visual color-coding of court strata, where
ranking individuals are orchestrated according to proces-
sional bands of color. 6 1 The Vatican manuscript likewise
suggests this correlation of color and dress to station when
the poet announces that, after the bride was initially wel-
comed on a small scale, she changed into clothing appropri-
ate for her new rank of augusta before being presented to all.
8 The Exchange of Correspondence
between the Byzantine Emperor and
the Caliph, from Chronicle ofJohn
Skylitzes. Madrid, Biblioteca Nacional,
vitro 26-2, fol. 75v
Other textual accounts of the arrival of a foreign bride
similarly describe the donning of appropriate attire. 62 Dress,
station, and recognition are all emphasized in John Kin-
namos's description of the arrival of Bertha of Sulzbach in
1142 to marry Manuel I Komnenos. According to the histo-
rian, Bertha was met by a specific group of noblewomen, and
one, distinguished by her close familial relation to the impe-
rial family, "wore a garment of linen and for the rest was
adorned in gold and purple ... the dark purple of the linen
caused her to he noticed by the newcomer...63 Just as Kinnamos
stresses that dress may have helped a young bride arriving in
Byzantium recognize members of her future family, so in the
Vatican manuscript do depictions of dress help the viewer
identify the people depicted and grasp their importance.
The full-page illumination on the verso of folio 3 visually
depicts the bride's arrival and transformation (Fig. 9). The
miniature, divided into three separate registers, advances the
narrative in a manner distinctly different from the previous
scenes. Within an ornate crimson border, upper and lower
registers are set apart by a bridge surmounted by small white
crosses and statuary, stretching over houses and other build-
ings. The landscape, despite its dissimilarities with the earlier
image of Constantinople (Fig. 3), shares with it the fact that
it is surrounded by seawalls and water. 64 Whereas the formal
imperial spaces of the first few images of the codex were
demarcated by clear ground lines, here a bridge, the entry
into Constantinople, marks spatial and temporal divisions.
Extremely rare in Byzantine art, bridges are rich with associ-
ations ofliminal transformation particularly well suited to the
depiction of the arrival of a bride, and topographical accu-
racy would take second place to the charged symbolism of
such a motif denoting transition. 65 It dominates the full-page
illumination in which the protagonist sheds the clothing of
her homeland and adopts attire befitting her new identity as
 CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AU(;L'STA 469
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9 Arrival and Reception of the Princess. Vat. gr. 1851, fol. 3v (photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)
 470 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 3
augusta, thus participating in a social system where station was
visually marked by dress.
The action on this page unfolds from top to bottom in two
distinct manners: on the top the narrative proceeds from left
to right, as if the figures were moving across the bridge, while
information in the lower area is conveyed in an iconic or
frontal manner. We first encounter the princess in the upper
left comer where, standing in front of a small group of
Western women, she is welcomed by several Byzantine
women, significantly depicted in a larger scale. Costume mo-
tifs also distinguish the two groups: the members of the
princess's entourage are dressed in solid red and blue, the
outer layer oftheir mantles pulled up to cover their heads. In
contrast, the Byzantine women wear elaborate headdresses,
replete with dangling earrings or jewel-encrusted veils and
pearl-fringed purple and gold cloaks reminiscent of Kin-
namos's description of Bertha of Sulzbach's arrival. The prin-
cess, like her companions, wears a simple red tunic, but her
head is bare and surrounded by a halo outlined in red. In the
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upper right comer of the page, on the other side of the
bridge, she appears again, now dressed in Byzantine garb.
Here she wears a gold and purple dress with long sleeves,
elaborately outlined with pearls, and stands atop an ex-
tremely abstracted dais or suppedion while two Byzantine
ladies-in-waiting (or Western women dressed as Byzantines)
attend to her. In a sense, she has truly arrived only once she
has crossed the bridge and changed into the dress that visu-
ally asserts her new role as a Byzantine augusta.
The lower zone represents the culmination of the transfor-
mation process: the princess appears a third time, recogniz-
able by her halo and new dress, sitting enthroned and bejew-
eled, surrounded by appropriately garbed Byzantine ladies-
in-waiting.66 Not only are we shown the solemn augusta
visually marked as worthy of veneration or proskynesis, as is
stated in the text, but the commanding image, presented
frontally, seems to cause the narrative to come to a halt. In
this sense, this lower, static scene of presentation formally
parallels that of the imperial family on folio 7r with its allu-
sion to ceremonial stasis (Fig. 6). Where the action on folio
7r proceeds in the lower register from left to right toward the
stilled scene of presentation above, the action in folio 3v
progresses from left to right in the upper register toward the
stilled action below. The artist used the same narrative for-
mulation but changed the action that stopped forward mo-
tion: sequential movement is arrested in proclamation (fol.
7r) on the one hand and in presentation (fol. 3v) on the
other. But in folio 3v the narrative is driven not by the scroll,
the father's words recorded textually, but by the very body of
the betrothed herself. The document of the betrothal was
transformed from emotional words of separation (fol. 8r-v)
to joyous promise or "golden proclamation" (fol. lv), and
here, pictorially, the subject of the betrothal, the bride-to-be,
undergoes a similar transition resulting in her own golden
adornment and veneration.
Significantly, the lowest zone of folio 3v is the only surviv-
ing scene in the codex in which the young princess confronts
the viewer's gaze, staring out from the page in an attitude of
deixis. In earlier textual passages, the poet hails the reader
explicitly in the second-person singular: on folio 2r "your"
father bids "you" farewell; on folio 3v, "you" have changed
into augusta dress and "you" are seen and venerated.f" These
verbal deictic clues parallel the frontal gaze of the princess.
This static pose arrests the momentum of the narrative and
simultaneously allows the viewer, who was originally the bride
herself, to identify with the image on the page. After travers-
ing the bridge, the symbolic threshold of Byzantium, and
changing attire, the outward manifestation of her identity,
the new augusta looks out from the page, encouraging iden-
tification and participation. Here the viewer would recognize
herself in the pages, returning her own gaze, while at the
same time see herself visually transformed. For emphasis, a
small crimson cross surmounting the upper border of the
miniature at the exact center of the page is vertically aligned
with the white cross at the center of the bridge and the
frontal gaze of the princess, whose halo is outlined in crim-
son. Such clues render the narrative intelligible on a purely
visual level.
Incorporation
Following another lacuna,68 the poet announces the next
significant event for the bride-to-be (fol. 5r-v). The text be-
gins midsentence and continues with an enlarged marginal
letter kappa on line 3:
... and the indescribable grace and the exceptional
joy.
And this [is my account] of your male and female
relatives,
the nobles of your land, all the great ones,
who with indescribable joy
and an imperial procession befitting your majesty
come with you to the Ausonian ruler. 69
After this awesome encounter, I think,
indescribable and horrible, I come to another meeting,
more fearful and entirely more indescribable,
and I tremble lest from the indescribability of that
meeting,
my heart may break and tear and be tom from me,
or some great pain may occur after.
But despite grave danger from the great ones,
and though an agonizing death may lie before me
because of this
and I may be lost completely and inexorably from this
world,
I will dare, my augusta, all matters of your honor,
and I will write in detail, whatever may befall me.
The poet implies the majesty of her reception, which pre-
sumably would have been recounted in the preceding lost
pages, but seems more concerned with the next event or at
least with the anxiety that it provokes in him. Although the
poet describes his emotional state, he omits all details about
what might happen next or where it might occur. The sub-
sequent miniatures provide these details. Another framed
image of a city with domed structures and turrets surrounded
by water lies below the text on folio 5v (Fig. 10). Although the
illumination bears no inscription, the city must refer to Con-
stantinople, not only because of its formal similarity with the
earlier cityscape (Fig. 3) but also because of what happens

.. .' ......
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10 View of Constantinople. Vat. gr.
1851, fol. 5v (photo: Biblioteca
Apostolica Vaticana)
next in the narrative. Just as the other city view sets the stage
for the dramatic events that unfold in pictorial form on the
next page, this scene, too, contains the topographic context
for the facing page, which represents in a large miniature the
meeting of the Byzantine and foreign princesses outside the
walls of the city.
The small city view gives a schematic indication of the
setting of this meeting, emphasizing the aspects of the city
that are most important for understanding the narrative.
Whereas the first city view drew the eye in and offered a
glimpse of the interior where the events of the following page
would take place, the less elevated vantage point of the
second cityscape accentuates the exterior of the city, espe-
cially its seawalls. As a sign, this emphasis anticipates the
corresponding words in the same position on the facing
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUST.'! 471
..
-
.' 1
t,
"
page, "near the walls outside the great city...." (fol. 6r, lines
1-2). In preparation for the next important narrative segment,
this cityscape relocates the setting and reorients the viewer.
Throughout the codex, topography is a central concern. In
addition to the bridge that spans a coastal landscape lined
with seawalls, the city is circumscribed by walls and water. For
a foreign princess arriving in the Byzantine capital by sea,
these images stress the naval character of her new home and
the new ties that will be created through her. The signifi-
cance of the topographic scenes is heightened by the fact that
they allude to views of Constantinople, visual depictions of
which are extremely rare in Byzantine art. 70 Certain topo-
graphic features highlighted by the artist may carry weightier
associations for the intended viewer as they may evoke, even
trigger, the memory of the bride's arrival. While difficult if
 472 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 3
not impossible to determine exactly where the Genoese ship
carrying Agnes would have docked in 1179, it most likely
sailed along the Golden Horn toward the Blachernai Palace
and docked in that vicinity, outside the city walls, as detailed
in the text. 71
According to a number of other accounts, the arrival of a
foreign bride was accomplished in stages: the first included
an informal docking and reception by female representatives
of the royal house and a changing of garments; the second
was the formal and solemn ceremonial procession replete
with acclamations.P A similar progression is enacted in the
Vatican manuscript's three topographic scenes that anchor
the narrative. The first of the city viewson folio 2r emphasizes
the most prominent features of the imperial city: her high
walls and towers, on the one hand, and Hagia Sophia, spiri-
tual center of the empire, on the other (Fig. 3). The elevated
perspective uses the gate as a focal point to attract the eye to
the great church. The gate at the center may allude to one of
the two imperial gates along the processional route by boat
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between the Blachernai Palace, primary residence of the
Komnenoi since the late eleventh century, and Hagia
Sophia.i" The bridge dominates the second topographic
scene on folio 3v, but the landscape over which it stretches
may be equally significant (Fig. 9). The domed church at the
far left, a likely reference to Hagia Sophia, may indicate a
progression of time and new orientation to the city. Unlike
the first city view, which entices the eye, the second, on folio
5v (and the third topographic scene; Fig. 10), with its stress
on the external gates and towers, reorients the viewer with a
position still outside the great city. These topographic im-
ages, therefore, echo in visual terms the stages of the bride's
arrival. They orient the viewer to narrative shifts that may in
some way have resonated with the conventions for the ritu-
alized arrivals of foreign brides in Byzantium.
Facing the third topographic scene, the miniature on folio
6r, above four lines of text, sets forth the location of the
"indescribable" meeting in exquisite detail (Fig. 11). In the
upper left comer, against a flat gold background and framed
by a dark foliate hedge, hovers a closed crimson tent orna-
mented with a tree motif on its two outer flaps. It is partially
obstructed by another lavish tent, most probably the same
one later in time, which dominates the composition. Its flaps
are open to reveal the drama occurring within. Extending
beyond the borders of the miniature frame, the flaps of the
larger tent are tethered by ropes that are anchored beyond
the limit of the page.?"
Tents appear often in Byzantine art, and, while they are less
symbolically charged than bridges, their connotations and
contexts merit further exploration. The Madrid Skylitzes
manuscript is replete with visual depictions of tents in scenes
of military encampments involving sieges, receptions, and the
exchange of letters (Fig. 8).75 In addition, tents connote
courtly life and the hunt. 76 As a particularly fluid visual motif,
the tent further accrues female associations. In the epic
Digenis Akritis, an embroidered tent with depictions of ani-
mals is listed as part of a dowry.77 The late Byzantine historian
George Pachymeres describes a particularly interesting tent
that accompanied Maria, illegitimate daughter of Emperor
Michael VIII Palaiologos, when she left Constantinople to
marry a Mongol khan, as richly decorated with images of
saints so as to serve as a portable chapel. 78 At its most basic,
the tent constitutes a moveable shelter, an intermediate space
somewhere between permanent masonry and an encamJr
ment in the open. For men either at war or on a hunt, a tent
provides an extension of the palace. For a Byzantine be-
trothed princess, it signifies an interior space for her private
use in a foreign land and an intermediate space of intimacy
before entering the palace. Precisely such a motif structures
the setting of the "indescribable" meeting that inspired terror
in the poet. At this moment of emotive terror, the text falls
mute and the images take up the narrative thread. In other
words, the painter, on the facing page, continues the project
started by the poet who claims to be unable to describe the
encounter.
Within the larger tent, space and time are further subdi-
vided between foreground and background. In the upper
area, at the apex of the tent, two women embrace: they are
each depicted with halo, elaborate dress, and long hair ar-
ranged in a single braid that nearly reaches the floor, on the
left blond and on the right dark brown. The long blond plait
is discernible a few pages back, where the Western princess
arrives and changes into Byzantine dress (Fig. 9). Such a
visual clue allows the viewer to identify the Western princess
and her soon-to-be Eastern sister-in-law, who is described on
the following page. The same figures are repeated at the base
of the tent, indicating temporal progression: they sit to-
gether, presumably deep in conversation, at the lower left in
a canopied pavilion demarcated by intricate patterns of red
silk brocade, whose symmetrical red foliate circles echo the
women's red haloes. To the right, outside the enclosure,
three women, each with a different ornate headdress, pre-
sumably ladies of the Byzantine court, stand and watch the
exchange.
Consistent with the relation between text and image
throughout the manuscript, here the verbal means of trans-
mission shifts to the visual. The poet, despite melodramatic
exclamations of fear, states that he will record their meeting,
but in fact he does not. Only the pictures depict the meeting
of the two princesses. Employing the same visual strategy here
as elsewhere to facilitate comprehension, the artist intro-
duces the general topography with the small cityscape on
folio 5v (Fig. 10), then delineates the exterior space of the
tent in the upper left corner of folio 6r (Fig. 11), which is
opened in the main space of the page to expose the events
taking place inside. This progressive penetration of space
occurs at each stage in time: after a detached city view, the eye
is led to the outside of the tent in the distance, then to the top
of the tent that defines the middle space, and then even
further into the intimate crimson pavilion in the foreground.
In a similar ceremonial rhythm that permeates the entire
narrative of the book, this progressive movement ends in
stasis, in this instance with the two princesses framed by silk.
While the preceding text merely implies the importance of
the event, the words directly below the image (fol. 6r), con-
tinuing on the verso (fol. 6v), describe not the encounter but
merely the locale, situating the meeting outside the walls of
the illustrious Byzantine capital:
Near the walls outside the great city,
the magnificent castle of the land of the Romans
 CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE .H/Gt'STA 473
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11 Meeting of the Two Princesses. Vat. gr. 1851, fol. 6r (photo: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana)
 474 ART BULLETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME LXXXVII NUMBER 3
or rather, more beautiful than all [others] under
heaven,
the castle with which no other can be compared at all,
whether you speak in praise or speak of the reality,
[the castle] in which on the following day it was ar-
ranged
by the emperor of the Romans, that you may see the
great autokrator
and your father-in-law, augusta, with utmost splendor,
[then] she came out, your sister-in-law, the first
daughter of the emperor and basilissa in order to meet
you
and to venerate your majesty as a servant.
With what sort of utmost splendor did she go out?
The poet praises the city and the castle that the Western
princess will see when she meets her Byzantine father-in-law
on the next day, but quickly moves on to the meeting of the
emperor's first daughter.
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Unfortunately, the following folio does not survive,79 but
the story continues on folio 4r-v, where the poet compares
the two princesses to vibrant stars in the sky:
She came out and met you and venerated you, and
whoever
saw [this] believed [they saw] the uniting of two great
stars
revealing the repose of the cosmos and the expansion
of the Romans.
But the stars were not soulless, the usual traversers of
the heavens,
but rather, [they were] the most noble and beautiful in
the cosmos,
better and beyond the bodies of all the world,
bodies adorned by nature in a supernatural manner:
of these, one was the glory of the entire West,
your animate body of air and crystal,
while the other and second to you, augusta,
could not hold comparison entirely with your beauty,
she was your sister-in-law, the parphyrogenita.
And again another end arrived for you, augusta,
the "daughters in your honor and in the presence
of the purple-born dynasts, the great emperors."
I have narrated these things up until now, to the best of
my ability,
but will recount the other things after today and the
next day, and
the day after and the day after that, and, as I recount, I
do not know at all
how my knowledge and tongue [will be able to] de-
scribe completely indescribable things....
So ends the last surviving page of the codex, breaking off not
only on a note of suspense and anticipation but also with a
curious evocation of Western supremacy that separates this
text from other examples of Byzantine ceremonial poetry.
MichaelJeffreys has drawn attention to the conventionality of
much of the Vatican poet's material, which is similar to
formal wedding addresses in Komnenian literature and also
to vernacular texts of the time. 8O Astral imagery, for example,
pervades the marriage hymns in the work of Theodore Pro-
dromos, and Eustathios of Thessaloniki describes a bride and
groom as two animate stars at their meeting. 8 1 This metaphor
shifts in the Vatican manuscript where the two princesses are
likened to stars, the Western bride unmistakably superior to
the Byzantine parphyrogenita. This passage and one other
depart significantly from the "conventional," and both treat
the meeting of the Western and Eastern princesses. The first
passage appears on folio 5r-v, where the poet announces his
terror at describing the fearful encounter. While Byzantine
poets often claim the task of writing to be difficult, even
impossible, given the magnitude of the events being nar-
rated, the grave danger (perhaps death) that the Vatican
poet fears "from the great ones" is extremely rare, if not
unattested. Jeffreys explicates these two textual idiosyncrasies
as political critiques, linked to the historical circumstances
surrounding the marriage being celebrated, firmly locating
the poem within the twelfth-century realm of political vernac-
ular. 82
Gifts, Learning, and Legitimization
In light of the fragile political situation surrounding the final
years of Manuel I Komnenos's reign and the contested dy-
nastic succession, Jeffreys's political interpretation of the
Vatican poem, echoed most recently by Cordula Scholz, is
especially convincing.P The poetic tension between the two
princesses, one French and one Byzantine, embody the anx-
iety between foreign and native elements of late Komnenian
society.
If a policy of arranging foreign marriages for strategic
purposes fostered dynastic solidarity among the Komnenoi, it
also aggravated factionalism at court, as evidenced by the
tension between Marie of Antioch, the Latin-born second
wife of Manuel (Fig. 6), and his firstborn parphyrogenita
daughter, Maria (Fig. 11). In the final years of Emperor
Manuel's life, he arranged as best he could for a peaceful
transition of power. Marie of Antioch would serve as regent
for their son, whom he had married to Agnes, daughter of
Louis VII of France. To temper the power and influence
wielded by Maria Parphyrogenita, he broke her engagement to
Bela of Hungary and wed her to Renier of Montferrat, who
posed less of a threat. Again, both weddings were celebrated
within a month of each other, when Maria was nearly thirty
and Agnes only nine. Perhaps such a discrepancy in age is
conveyed visually on folio 6r of the Vatican codex, where
Maria appears slightly larger than Agnes (Fig. 11). In addi-
tion to age, this difference in size may also allude to Maria's
power and influence at court as the central member of the
anti-Latin cause. It is also significant that Maria's larger scale
sharply contrasts with the poet's valorization of the Western
princess over her Eastern counterpart. This tension between
textual and pictorial narratives may be linked directly to the
divisions in the court and may explain the great anxiety, even
fear, expressed by the poet, as well as his inability to describe
the events textually, events that could only be conveyed pic-
torially.
Another discrepancy in scale may also relate to the circum-
stances of the manuscript's patronage: in the upper register
of folio 7r the empress is represented as subtly though dis-
cernibly larger than the emperor, a formal clue that should

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12 Justinian and His Court. Ravenna, San Vitale, north wall of the sanctuary (photo: Dumbarton Oaks, Byzantine Photograph and
Fieldwork Archives, Washington, D.C.)
not be read as accidental (Fig. 6). In addition to a distinction
in scale between the two imperial figures, all eyes are fixed on
the empress rather than the emperor, who looks sharply at
her. By way of comparison, in another portrait of the same
imperial couple (Vat. gr. 1176), Manuel and Marie are equal
in height and stature, and both figures stare out from the
page in an appropriately static, majestically imperial manner
(Fig. I). In the upper register offolio 7r of Vat. gr. 1851, the
artist seems to have drawn on such imperial portraiture con-
ventions by depicting the couple in regalia atop royal suppedia
in what looks to be a hieratic official portrait, but has turned
the emperor's face, and that of his son, slightly toward the
empress; she looks at them out of the comers of her eyes but
does not tum her head. This arrangement provides a clear
visual clue about hierarchy: the direction of gazes indicates
relative precedence, as does the relative size of the figures.
According to these standard Byzantine pictorial conventions,
the empress formally dominates the composition, but her
importance is tempered by the position of the emperor: he
occupies the center of the register- but not the absolute
center. This ambiguity, even pictorial competition, between
the two imperial figures recalls the famous sixth-century mo-
saic on the north wall of the sanctuary of S. Vitale in Ravenna,
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 475
where the Byzantine emperor Justinian and Bishop Maximi-
anus vie for visual prominence (Fig. 12). The mosaic conveys
a sense of rivalry between local and imperial authority.
Whereas the emperor occupies the center of the mosaic and
is further distinguished by height and halo, only Maximianus
is identified by an inscription. Furthermore, complicating the
pictorial space, the feet of the bishop, whose right elbow
suggests he is standing behind the emperor, are placed in
front of the emperor's, evoking a sense of spatial uncertainty.
Formal idiosyncrasies such as these provide insights into
the Vatican codex's patronage and social function. Hans
Belting first recognized the Western bride, Agnes, as the
addressee and hence recipient of the book.'" The combina-
tion of second-person speech and frontal gaze of the princess
on folio 3v (Fig. 9) indicates to him that the book was
expressly produced for her young foreign eyes. Michael Jef-
freys has further proposed that Marie of Antioch, mother-in-
law of Agnes, "played a decisive role" in the book's creation,
based on her prominence on folio 7r (Fig. 6) in conjunction
with the two textual instances of pro-Latin sentiment intro-
duced above on folios 4r-v and 5r_v.85 Indeed, the represen-
tation of the imperial couple on folio 7r must relate to the
codex's production in some way. In light of the social context
 476 ART BUl.LETlN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOI.UME LXXXVII Nl'MBER 3
of foreign brides and artistic production, a stronger state-
ment about its patronage and audience may be made.
Various textual sources offer glimpses into the training
potential brides underwent before being introduced at court,
In the tenth century, Leo the Deacon, while narrating events
of inner court intrigue, refers to the instance of royal Bulgar-
ian maidens being brought to Constantinople to marry the
sons of Romanos II, to "confirm by marriage an unbreakable
alliance and friendship." Though offering no details, he in-
dicates that the empress provided some kind of training for
the foreign princesses to prepare them for their new role in
the imperial court,86 Judith Herrin has recently emphasized
that basic grammar, rhetoric, and logic were expected of
children at court precisely because of their potential role in
international diplomacy/'" In the later Byzantine period,
John Kantakouzenos describes how girls of both high and low
birth were brought up in the imperial palace for the express
purpose of serving as brides in diplomatic marriages, a prac-
tice described by Anthony Bryer as akin to a bridal finishing
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school.f"
This notion of training future brides is crucial to our
understanding of the Vatican codex, for it is precisely within
this context that its poetic and pictorial content is best un-
derstood/" Although the patron of the book can only be
suggested, based on formal motifs in its text and images, it
seems entirely appropriate that Marie of Antioch, herself a
diplomatic bride of French exrraction.?" would have commis-
sioned the codex for her new French daughter-in-law, Agnes,
as a welcoming present. The increased exchange of both
brides and books between Byzantium and the West in the
twelfth century supports this likelihood. Jeffrey Anderson has
recently explored the importance of female artistic patron-
age at this time, book culture in particular, among Komnenoi
women.?' Bertha-Irene, Manuel's first wife, commissioned a
commentary on the Iliad by the poet John Tzetzes; it was
intended to explain Homer to her as a foreign-born em-
press. 9 2 The sebastokratonssa Eirene, foreign-born wife of Man-
uel's brother Andronikos, is well known for her patronage of
such literati as Theodore Prodromos, the so-called Manga-
neios Prodromos, Tzetzes, and Constantine Manasses; Pro-
dromos even composed a treatise on Greek grammar for
her. 93 She may also have been the patron of the illustrated
sermons on the life of the Virgin by James, monk of the
Kokkinobaphos monastery, two deluxe copies of which sur-
vive in Paris and Rome." In these codices, allusions to con-
temporary aristocratic life abound, and the program of the
visual and verbal narrative is particularly well suited for the
patron: the complicated language ofJames's sermons neces-
sitated the elaborate pictorial cycle, replete with simpler cap-
tions, to introduce the sebastokratorissa to the Byzantine image
of the Virgin that was emerging as a model of learning and
patronage at the time. 95 Anderson has studied the corpus of
manuscripts related to the Kokkinobaphos Master and Eirene
the sebastokraumssa, noting that the script of a collection of
private letters between James the monk and Eirene now in
Paris (BNF gr. 3039) bears a strong resemblance to that of
Vat. gr. 1851.96
Such a comparison not only establishes a close paleo-
graphic parallel but it also raises the question of genre and
audience. Like Vat. gr. 1851, the Paris manuscript is unique
and, perhaps more important, it is associated with a foreign-
born bride married into the Komnenian aristocracy. Ander-
son astutely points out that the script of the Paris codex
strikes the eye as being peculiarly formal for a collection of
private letters. Unlike the more cursive style of contemporary
scribes, this hand is akin to a conventional liturgical script, It
may, he argues, "intentionally strike a solemn note.,,97 Sol-
emn or not, a formalized script is more easily read, as the
individual letters are larger and more clearly differentiated
from each other. In Vat. gr. 1851, this combination of large
formal script with less formal spoken Greek directly relates to
the didactic function of the book. It would be easier for
someone unfamiliar with Greek to understand.
Though little is known about the preparation of Western
princesses for marriage into the Byzantine court, language
must have been a major obstacle." In at least one instance a
Western princess began to learn Greek when she was be-
trothed. When in 781 Empress Irene arranged for her son,
the future Constantine VI, to marry Rotrud, daughter of
Charlemagne, the notarios Elissaios, court eunuch, was given
the task of training her in Greek in advance so that she would
be prepared for her arrival in Constantinople.I" It is doubt-
ful, however, that this practice was the norm, and it seems
more likely that most foreign-born brides would arrive with-
out a full grasp of Greek. In light of this circumstance, the
particular relation between text and image is significant:
throughout the Vatican codex the text sets up an expectation
that is then fulfilled in the images. Accordingly, the images
convey a simplified though coherent narrative independent
of the text. While the fragmentary state of the book precludes
complete understanding of its artistic program, it is clear that
young eyes unfamiliar with the Byzantine world would have
been able to follow the visual story of transition and incor-
poration through clues such as repetition, gaze, gesture,
costume, and topographic markers. Over time, as the bride
learned the language and customs (a process that would have
been assisted by the book itself), court tensions would be-
come more discernible and the message of final incorpora-
tion more explicit.
The notion of incorporation as the culmination of the
book-in terms of its imagery and its social function-re-
quires some qualification, given the enigmatic ending in
which the poet praises the western star at the expense of the
eastern one. As one would expect in a gift for a young foreign
bride, the Vatican manuscript emphasizes her new identity
and new position as Byzantine augusta worthy of veneration,
but it also presents her as superior to the eastern star, Maria
Porphyrogenita. Dynastic solidarity in this instance does not
emerge as a cohesive image of communal concordia but as an
ideal alliance of foreign-born mother and daughter-in-law.
The book establishes the legitimacy ofAgnes, not a legitimacy
she already had but one she would need as a foreign-born
empress in a factionalized court, many of whose members
would remain loyal to the emperor's first daughter, Maria
Porphyrogenita.
Vat. gr. 1851 was probably given to the bride when she
arrived in the imperial capital in 1179, although the exact
circumstances of its presentation remain ambiguous. Wil-
liam, archbishop of Tyre, witnessed the festivities associated
with the marriage of Alexios Komnenos and Agnes of France

as well as that of Maria Parphyrogenita and Renier of Montfer-
rat but failed to recount many details: "Because of the im-
mense amount of material, any attempt to describe in detail
all the wonders of those days would be utterly futile, even if a
special treatise were devoted to it."IOO He does note that, in
addition to the "glorious spectacles" at the hippodrome and
"the imperial magnificence of the vestments and the royal
robes adorned with a profusion of precious stones and pearls
of great weight," the emperor "lavished" generous gifts on the
people, both native and foreign. Agnes's reception also in-
volved processions and recitations of panegyric. A lengthy
welcoming address, or disembarkation speech, by Eustathios
of Thessaloniki survives and was probably delivered orally
during Agnes's ceremonial reception in Constantinople.'?'
The Vatican codex, however, is of an altogether different
genre. It is a small and intimate book whose simplified ver-
nacular voice, large, clear script, and detailed miniature cycle
suggest that it was intended for Agnes's young eyes alone.
The close sequential relation between text and image allows
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the story to unfold on multiple levels and enables a foreign
viewer unfamiliar with the language and customs of Byzan-
tium to follow its plot and message. With the turn of each
page, she could follow the process of her own transformation
from young Western betrothed to celebrated augusta--from
Agnes to Anna. Even with little or no knowledge of Greek,
she could situate herself within the larger process of entering
a new family.
Read against a backdrop of factionalism at the Komnenian
court, where foreign marriages demanded strict imperial
controls, the book facilitated the expansion of kinship rela-
tions by promoting integration. While the identity and moti-
vation of the patron must remain speculative, complicated
issues of partisanship underlie the manuscript's visual and
verbal rhetoric. The political message should perhaps not be
read as anti-Byzantine and pro-Western but rather as anti-
Maria Porphyrogenita and pro-Marie of Antioch. If Agnes's
new mother-in-law was the patron, the book was given to
Agnes as a means of allying her with Marie against Maria.
A close reading of the book reveals tensions that contradict
the sense of incorporation that is the goal ofa rite of passage.
The manuscript emerges as a politically motivated commen-
tary on a foreign marriage that was the source of, or at least
aggravated, divisions within the imperial family and city. In its
structure and layout, the book resembles precisely the sort of
rite of passage for which it was created, yet the intellectual
category "rite of passage" does not constitute an interpreta-
tive end. It is in this regard that the cautionary remarks of
Philippe Buc are most instructive: "One should master a
culture's grammar, but not think thoughts none of its mem-
bers ever thought."102 Regardless of the patron's intention,
which willalways remain elusive, the book was an agent in the
process of dynastic affiliation, on the basis not only of what it
reveals but also of what it conceals. Ritual narrations--in this
instance the narration of a rite of passage-expand the field
of inquiry by allowing the relation between the object and its
context, or the agency and efficacy of the book, to be ques-
tioned.
Of course, it will never be known if Agnes-Anna received
Vat. gr. 1851. But if the account of Robert of Clari can be
trusted, she successfully integrated into Byzantine society. In
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 477
1203, at age twenty-four, she refused to speak to members of
the Fourth Crusade, claiming in Greek through an inter-
preter that she had forgotten her mother tongue of
French. 103
Cecily J. Hilsdale is currently an assistant professor at the Kress
Foundation Department of Art History, University of Kansas, Law-
rence. Her ongoing research investigates cultural exchange in the
medieval world, in particular the circulation of Byzantine luxury
objects as diplomatic gifts (Kress Foundation Department of Art
History, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kans. 66045, cjhilsda@
ku.edu].
Notes
Much of this research was begun while I was a Junior Fellow in Byzantine
Studies at Dumbarton Oaks, and I would like to thank there, in addition to
the library staff and fellows, Alice-Mary Talbot, for discussing various aspects
of the Vatican manuscript and, along with Dorotei Getov, providing assistance
with my translation, and Maria Parani, for sharing her expertise on represen-
tations of Byzantine dress. 1 am deeply indebted to the University of Chicago
for support throughout the larger process of my research, and in particular 1
would like to acknowledge Robert Nelson, Linda Seidel. Thomas Cummins, as
well as the late Michael Camil\e for his support early on in the project. Earlier
versions of this article have been presented at the Byzantine Studies Confer-
ence. Ohio State University (2002), and at the University of Chicago's Late
Antique and Byzantine Studies Workshop (2003). My interpretation has
benefited from many lively conversations with Cecily Hennessey and from
close readings of earlier drafts by Georgi Parpulov,Jonathan Sachs, and Kerry
Boeve, who deserves special mention for his keen eye and critical skil\s. The
final version has benefited greatly from the suggestions of Marc Gotlieb and
the anonymous readers for TIJ,Art Bulletin. Thanks also to Lory Frankel and
Fronia Simpson for their skil\ed editorial advice. Lastly, 1 would like to thank
the History of Art Department at the University of Michigan for a postdoctoral
fellowship in medieval studies (2003-5) and for assistance with reproduction
costs. The following collections have generously granted permissions to re-
produce images from their manuscripts: the Biblioteca Apostotica Vaticana,
the Biblioteca Nacional (Madrid), and the Bfbliotheque Nationale de France.
1. Claude Levi-Strauss, TIJ, Elementary Stnuture of Kinship (Boston: Beacon
Press, 1969), 48.
2. Vat. gr. 1851 consists of 8 folios measuring 230 by 175 millimeters.
Following Paul Canart (Codius Vaticani graea, codices, 1745-1962 [Vati-
can City: Bibliotheca Vaticana, 1970].324-25) and loannis Spathara-
kis (TIJ, Portrait in Byzanti1U' Illuminated Manuscripts [Leiden: E. J. Brill,
1976], 210-30), the quire order may be reconstructed as follows ("x"
designates a missing folio): x x 8 2 I 7 I x x, x 3 x 5 I 6 x 4 x. This
reading is supported on textual grounds as well as on the basis of sur-
viving illustrations and imprints of lost illuminations and other orna-
ment. Spatharakis provides the fullest discussion of previous codico-
logical interpretations, including the schema of Josef Strzygowski
("Das Epithalamion des Palaologen Andronikos 11," Byumtinisehe
ZeitschrijllO [1901]: 546-67), S. Papademetriou ("'0 81TL8aAaILLo<;
'Ave'>POlltKOV Il, TOllnaAaWAOYOV'" ByumtinisclJ, Zeitschrijlll [1902]:
452-60), and Canart, The second part of Canart's schema has proved
more controversial; see Antonio lacobini, "L'epitalamio di Andronico
11:Una cronaca di nozze dalla Constantinopolii Paleologa," in Arte
profana e arte sacra a Bisamio. ed, lacobini and E. Zanini (Rome: Ar-
gos. 1995),363 and n. 14. Canart first proposed the correct order,
followed here, that Spatharakis confirmed by matching foliation to
illuminated capital imprints.
3. Marcel Mauss, TIJ, Gift: TIJ, Form and Reasonfor Exchangein Archaic So-
cieties, trans. W. D. Halls (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990). Brigitte
Buettner's claim that gift-giving theory, though central to the social
sciences. has yet to enter mainstream historic disciplines no longer
holds true. See Buettner, "Past Presents: New Year's Gifts at the Valois
Courts, ca. 1400," Art Bulktin 83 (2001): 598. Significant recent contri-
butions include Esther Cohen and Mayke B. de Jong, eds., Medieval
Transformations: Texts, Power. and Gifts in Context (Leiden: E. J. Brill.
2001); Valentino Groebner. Liquid Assets. Dangerous Gifts: Presents and
Politics at IIJ, End of the Middle Agrs. trans. P. E. Selwyn (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press. 2001); and Jane Fair Bestor, "Mar-
riage Transactions in Renaissance Italy and Mauss's Essayon tlJ, Gift,"
Past and Present 164 (1999): 6-46.
4. On medieval European gift-giving, see Buettner, "Past Presents"; and
Arnoud:Jan A. Bijsterveld, "The Medieval Gift as Agent of Social
 478 ART BUl.I.ETlN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME l.XXXVII NUMBER 3
Bonding and Political Power: A Comparative Approach," in Cohen
and de Jong, Medieval Transformations, 123-56, with a review of sec-
ondary literature. For an anthropologically informed reading of Byz-
antine gifts, see Robin Cormack, "But Is It Art?" in Bywntitu! Dipio-
mary: Papm Jrom the Twmty-Jourth Spring Symposium oj Byzantitu!Studies,
CambridgP, March 1990, ed.Jonathan Shepard and Simon Franklin (AI-
dershot: Variorum, 1992),219-36. Study of Byzantine-Arabic gift ex-
change has benefited greatly from the relatively recent edition and
translation of the Arabic Book oj Gifts and Rarities: Chada al-Hijjawi
al-Qaddurni, ed, and trans., Book oj Gifts and Rnrilii's/Kiltih al-Hadiiyii
wa Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996). On
interpretations of this text, see Anthony Cutler, "Gifts and Gift Ex-
change as Aspects of the Byzantine, Arab and Related Economies,"
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 55 (2001): 247-78; idem, "Les echanges de
dons entre Byzance etl'lslam (IXe-Xle siecles)," Journal des Savants
(1996): 61-66; and Oleg Grabar, "The Shared Culture of Objects," in
Byzantine Court CulluTt' Jrom 829-1204, ed. Henry Maguire (Washing-
ton, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1997), 115-29.
5. Arnold van Cennep's fundamental analysis of ceremonies associated
with rites of passage (including birth, initiation, marriage, and death)
is divided into a tripartite spatial or processional pattern of separation
fsPparalion), transition (marge), and incorporation (agrigalion). See van
Gennep, TM Rites oj Passage, trans. Monika B. Vizedom and Gabrielle
L. Caffee (1908; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960); and Vic-
tor Turner, TM Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Struaure (Chicago: AI-
dine, 1969). Bruce Lincoln, Emergingfrom tM Chrysalis: Studies in Ritu-
Downloaded by [New York University] at 21:52 19 June 2015
als oj Womm's Initiation (New York: Oxford University Press. 1991),
uses the terms "enclosure," "metamorphosis," and "emergence" to dis-
cuss female initiation. See also Catherine Bell, Ritual: Pt!TSpectiv'S and
Dimensions (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997); and idem, Rit-
ual TMary, Rilual Practice (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992).
On initiation rituals in the ancient world, see Claude Calame, Choruses
oj Young Women in Ancii'nl Greece: Their Morphology, IVligious Ro", and
Social Functions, new and rev. ed., trans. Derek Collins and Janice
Orion (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2001); and David Dodd and
Christopher Faraone, eds., Initiation in Ancii'nt (Auk Rituals and Narra-
tives: New CriticalPt!TSpectives (London: Routledge, 2003). Also within
the context of ancient Greece, the work of Gloria Ferrari, Figum of
Speech: Men and Maidens in Ancient GTt'ece (Chicago: University of Chi-
cago Press, 2002), is particularly attentive to the relation between ritu-
als, initiation in particular, as we know them from texts and their vi-
sual representations.
6. Philippe Buc, TM Dangm oj Ritual: Between Early Medieval Texts and
SocialScientific TMary (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 200 I).
His position is most clearly articulated in the introduction, 4: "There
can be no anthropological readings of rituals depicted in medieval
texts. There can only be anthropological readings of (I) medieval tex-
tual practices or perhaps (2) medieval practices that the historian has
reconstructed using texts, with full and constant sensitivity to their
status as texts."
7. Ibid., 259.
8. In this regard the work of Alfred Gell has been most influential on
my thinking; I thank Michel Conan of Dumbarton Oaks for first intro-
ducing me to his work. For Gell, Art and Agmry: An Anthropological
Throry (Oxford: Clarendon, 1998),7, "art objects are the equivalent of
persons, or more precisely, social agents."
9. See Michael Angold, The Byzantine EmpiTt', 1025-1204, a Political His-
tory, 2nd ed. (London: Longman, 1997), 115-70; A. P. Kazhdan and
Ann Wharton Epstein, Change in Byzantine Culture in tM Ekventh and
Twelfth Centunes (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 74-
117. Paul Magdalino, TM Empirl'oj Manuell Komnenos, 1143-1180
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1993), esp. 180-201, pro-
vides the most thorough examination of titles and ideology among
the Komnenoi; see also Barbara Hill, Imperial Women in Byzantium;
1025-1204: Power, Patronage and Ideology (New York: Pearson, 1999).
10. Magdalino, TM Emire of Manuel I, 201-17.
11. Two thorough, well-argued, yet contradictory articles, published one
year apart in the same journal early in the twentieth century, dated
the manuscript to different eras and, in so doing, laid the foundation
for modern historiographic factions. Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion,"
argued that the manuscript was written in the later thirteenth century
on the occasion of the wedding of Michael VIII Palaiologos's son, An-
dronikos, to either Anna, daughter of Stephen V of Hungary, or
Irene (nee Yolanda), daughter of William VI of Montferrat, Papa-
dernitriou, "'0 quickly refuted this claim on the
grounds of logic. historical dating, and title usage. He proposed in-
stead that the codex must be situated in the late twelfth century and
associated with the imperial marriage of Alexios II Komnenos to
Agnes of France. This debate has been rehearsed by all subsequent
scholars, most recently Cordula Scholz, "Der Empfang der kaiserli-
chen Braut: Eine Betrachtung an hand von vier ausgesuchten
Beispielen," Palaeoslavica 10, no. 2 (2002): 132-33.
12. Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," 361-410, casts the debate in terms of disci-
plinary divisions. Canart, Codices Vaticani graeci. 324-25, initially fa-
vored a Palaiologan date, but three years later, in his addendum, Codi-
ces Vaticani graeci; codices, 1745-1962, vol. 2, lntroductio addenda indices
(Vatican City: Bibliotheca Vaticana, 1973),45-46, he emphasized the
possibility of an earlier date. Giancarlo Prato, "Scriuure Iibrarie arcaiz-
zanti della prima eta dei Paleologi e loro modelli," Scnttura e Cillillil 3
(1979): 169-71. attributes this change in opinion to a reading of
Hans Belting's treatment of the codex. Belting's main objection to
the Palaiologan date is the use of the term porflhyrogmilOS, "purple-
born," to describe Andronikos, an objection that is entirely warranted,
as he was born before his father, the future Michael VIII Palaiologos,
was crowned in Constantinople. See Belting, Das illuminierte Buch in
dec spm!Jyzantinischen Gesellschaft (Heidelberg: C. Winter, 1970).
13. Jean Ebersolt, l.l's arts somptuaires de Byzance: hUM mr l'art imphial M
Constantinople (Paris: E. Leroux, 1923), 126 n. 7.
14. Tania Velmans, "Le portrait dans I'art des Paleologues," in Art et socin)
sous les P.a[;ologues: Ac/;,s du colloque organisi par l'Association Intematio-
nale des Etudes Byzantines II Venis, en sepletnlm 1968 (Venice: Stamperia
di Venezia, 1971), 102-3.
15. These include two dogs with interlocked tails and back-turned heads
that form the omeg-a on fol. 7v; a chi formed by spotted leopards
leaping diagonally across each other on foJ. Iv; on fol. 3r an eagle
makes up the my; the arched back of a dog creates the pi on fol. 6r;
and a large griffin with back-turned head, tail, and wing forms an ep-
silon on fol. 4r. This aspect of the codex, above all others, appears
least Palaiologan, as noted by Belting, Das illuminiette Buch, 27 n. 90,
who compared these initials to those of the mid-twelfth-century Paris
Gregory, BNF gr. 550. Iacobini, "L'epitalarnio," 371-72, in his argu-
ment for a later date of production, points out that the Vatican
manuscript's illuminator relied on illustrated models from the
Komnenian period. Yet both the iconography and the style of the ini-
tials of the Vatican codex are much closer to the supposed twelfth-
century models than to the later adaptations. For example, exact fig-
ural parallels for the letters chi, epsilon, and my can be found in
Sinai codex Gr. 339, a manuscript securely dated to the late twelfth
century. Moreover, they are executed in the same color palette and
finely detailed style of painting. For the Sinai manuscript, see Kurt
Weitzmann and George Galavaris, TM Monastery ofSaint Cathenne at
Mount Sinai: The Illuminated Greek Manuscripts (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1990), 140-53. Ultimately, despite lacobini's inten-
tion, the plates of his article indicate that the Vatican initials are
much closer to the Sinai parallels than to later examples.
16. Besides lacobini, "L'epitalarnio," a recent objection to the twelfth-cen-
tury date on the basis of depictions of dress has been raised by Cecily
Hennessy. "A Child Bride and Her Representation in Vatican Gr.
1851" (paper, 27th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, University
of Notre Dame, South Bend, Ind., November 8-11,2001).
17, These parallels are introduced in the appendix to Cecily J. Hilsdale,
"Diplomacy by Design: Rhetorical Strategies of the Byzantine Gift"
(PhD diss. University of Chicago, 2003), which benefited greatly from
Maria Parani's extensive knowledge of Byzantine dress and realia: I
thank her for sharing her insights in advance of the publication of
her book. Reconstructing the Rrality oj Images: Byzantine Material CulIuTt'
and IVligious Iconography (Ilth-15th Centuries} (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
2003).
18. See Lydie Haderrnann-Misguich, "Tissus de pouvoir et de prestige
sous les Macedoniens et les Comnenes, a propos des coussins-de-pieds
et de leurs representations," Deluon tes ChristianikesArchaiologikes He-
taireias 17 (1993-94): 121-28; and Parani, Reconstructing1M Rrality,
172. In addition, the type of male crown represented in Vat. gr. 1851
is also better situated within Komnenian imperial portraiture conven-
tions. Middle Byzantine depictions of male imperial crowns include a
small jeweled cross at their apex and strands of pearls outlining the
body of the crown as opposed to the more bulbous shape and single
gem surmounting the crown of representations of later Palaiologan
emperors. The typical Palaiologan crown may be seen in the portraits
of the emperors John VI Kantekouzenos (Paris, BNF gr. 1242, fol. 5v)
and Manuel II Palaiologos (Paris, BNF suppl. gr. 309, fol. 6r. and
Paris, Musee du Louvre, MS Ivories A53, fol. 2r). The crowns repre-
sented throughout the pages of Vat. gr. 1851 accord more closely with
twelfth-century representational conventions. Komnenian crowns ap-
pear in the south gallery of Hagia Sophia, where John II Komnenos is
portrayed with his wife Irene. along with his son and co-emperor
Alexios on the pilaster, and later in the twelfth century Manuel I and
Marie of Antioch are depicted in Vat. gr. 1176 (Fig. 1). In each of
these portrait groups the general shape of the closed crown is less
bulbous than the later examples, and a jeweled cross rather than a
single stone surmounts the top. On crowns. see Parani, Reconstructing
the Rrality, 27-30; and Michael Hendy, "Imperial Ceremonial Costume
and Regalia," in Catalogueof tM Byzantine Coins in tM Dumbarton Oaks
Colkction and in the Whitlemort' Collection, ed, Alfred R. Bellinger and

Philip Grierson, vol. 4, pt. I, AiPxius 110 Alexius V (1081-1204) (Wash-
ington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks, 1999), 165-67.
19. Parani, Rrconstrurtingtlv &ality, 172. describes the shape as "almost
tubular."
20. On Vat. gr. 1176. see n, 54 below. This gemmed hemline is even
clearer in the portrait ofJohn II Komnenos (r. 1118-43) with his son
in Vat. urb. gr. 2, fol. IOv. Other middle Byzantine manuscripts that
exemplify this convention include the elevemh-cemury Paris, BNF MS
Coislin 79 and Vat. gr. 1176. It can also be seen in enamel on the
crown of Constantine IX Monomachos in Budapest (Magyar Nemzeti
Muzeum) and on the Khakhuli triptych in Tblissi (Georgian Art Mu-
seum). On Coislin 79 and the Monomachos crown. see Helen C.
Evans and William D. Wixom. eds . Glory of Byumlium: Art and CultUTl'
of IIv MiddiP Byumtim Era, A.D. 843-126/ (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art. 1997).207-12; on the Khakhuli triptych. see Titos
Papamastorakis, "Re-Deconstructing the Khakhuli Triptych," Deliion tes
Christianikes Archaiolngikes Hetaimos 23 (2002): 225-54.
21. On Paris, BNF supp. gr. 309. fol. 6r (Fig. 2), see Helen C. Evans. ed .
Byzantium: Failh and Power (126/-1557) (New York: Metropolitan Mu-
seum of Art, 2004), 26. In addition to this portrait. emperor Manuel
II Palaiologos is depicted along with his family on fol. 2r in a copy of
the works of Dionysios the Areopagite in the Louvre. Paris (MS Ivo-
ries A53), where, despite flaking paint. the lower edges of the royal
suppediaclearly show no gemmed border. This late Byzantine conven-
tion is also evident in the portraits ofJohn IV Kantakouzenos (r.
Downloaded by [New York University] at 21:52 19 June 2015
1347-54) preserved in the copy of his theological works (Paris, BNF
MS gr. 1242. fols. 5v, 123v). Even the mid-fourteenth-century Bulgar-
ian Gospel of Czar Ivan Alexander in the British Library (Add. MS
3962) represents the royal suppedia according to such late Byzantine
imperial portraiture conventions. See Evans, ByUlntium, 286-87,56-
57.
22. lacobini, "L'epitalamio," who maintains a Palaiologan date for Vat. gr.
1851. draws a comparison between it and the 1301 Chrysobull of An-
dronikos II in the Byzantine Museum of Athens and the portrait of
John VI Kantakouzenos in BNF gr. 1242, fol. 5\', where the form of
the double-headed eagle is visible on the While the gold
paint on the suppedia in Vat. gr. 1851 indicates that some kind of fig-
ural pattern originally existed. it is far too faint to distinguish today.
There is no reason to assume that the remaining traces of figuration
indicate an eagle. since that was not the only possible animal motif.
As can be seen in Vat. urb. gr. 2, the emperor and his son stand on
tall, multicolored cushions patterned with pearls; the tail of a feline
animal is visible on that of the emperor. While suppediadecorated
with eagle motifs survive in visual representations only from the thir-
teenth century. eagles (and griffins) appear in other details of cos-
tume in the late twelfth century. as discussed by Lynn Jones and
Henry Maguire, "A Description of the Jousts of Manuel I Komnenos,"
ByUlnlineand Modn7I Greek Studies 26 (2002): 104-48. esp. 133-35. An
fkphrasis for Manuel. for example. describes red boots adorned with
eagles outlined in pearls.
23. Michael Jeffreys, "The Vernacular ew,n,pw, for Agnes of France," in
Byumtine Papm: Proceedings of tlv FirstAustralian /J.vumtine Studies Con-
feTl'nU, Canberra (Canberra: Humanities Research Centre. Australian
National University, 1981). 101, who accepts the twelfth-century date.
claims, "It is certainly puzzling if it is true that the highest circles of
imperial patronage produced these rather crude pictures at the end
of the twelfth century." He continues, 103: "To put it bluntly. the il-
lustrations look more the product of fourteenth- or fifteenth-century
decadence, than the product of the competent imperial machinery
which had presided over Manuel Comnenos' grandiose foreign policy
projects, and which could be relied on for a special effort to mark his
last coup, the marriage alliance with the King of France." But Jeffreys,
too, understands that despite lack of comparanda the book must be
located within the Komnenian context. and, as such. it is extremely
valuable for offering. among other things, a glimpse into an early
(surviving) use of vernacular Greek. Belting. Das iUuminierte Buch, 28.
while arguing for the earlier date. admits that the images do not look
typically Komnenian but points out that they would be distinctive in
any period.
24. In short, the historical preconditions stipulated by the manuscript's
poem can be summarized as follows: both fathers of the bride- and
groom-to-be are alive at the time of the marriage arrangement; the
father of the groom-to-be is described as Byzantine emperor, basileus;
and the father of the bride-to-be as regarch (king). The betrothed
groom is the son of the Byzantine emperor, and he is further distin-
guished as porphyrogmitos, born to the purple. and his sister is the pur-
phyrogmita and first daughter of the emperor. The relatives who come
to meet the princess on fol. 3r are described as descendants of CIU_sars
and sroastokrators. This final criterion provides one of the clearest indi-
cations of a Komnenian original context. Caesar was the highest rank
at court, usually reserved for the sons of the emperor until the elev-
enth century. when Alexios I created the rank of srlJastokralur for his
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AUGUSTA 479
brother Isaac Komnenos. Use of both terms in the Vatican codex pre-
cludes any date before this. though both titles continued to be used
into the Palaiolgan period. AsJeffreys has aptly pointed out, few mo-
ments in the later history of Byzantium would have called for seventy
ladies of the imperial house to gather. Such a large group of female
relatives with ties to high titles accords with what we know about the
extended kin system of the Komnenoi. On titles, see Rodolphe Guil-
land, sur les institutions byUlntims, vol. I (Amsterdam: Hak-
kert, 1967),38; and idem, "Titres aulique des hommes barbus--Le
Despote (b llelTlI"lm)';): RhJue MS Byzantine.. 17 (1959): 52-89.
The historical variables of the text have been treated most recently by
Scholz, "Der Ernpfang," 132-35.
25. Manuel I Komnenos had long been trying to win Louis as an ally.
Louis VII had visited Constantinople in 1147 and, according to histo-
rian John Kinnamos, was accorded appropriate honors and brought
to the Blachernai Church in the area northwest of Constantinople to
see awe-inspiring relics. See Charles M. Brand, ed. and trans.. Deeds of
John and Manuel C.omnenus byJohn Kinnamos (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1976).69. Magdalino, The Empire of Manuel I, 101,
describes this alliance as "the most distinguished foreign match that a
Byzantine emperor had made for generations, and it dispelled a
cloud which had hung over Byzantine-western relations since the Sec-
ond crusade." Brand. BYUlntium Confronts IIv We..t, 1180-1204 (Cam-
bridge. Mass.: Harvard University Press. 1968).23. describes the mar-
riage as the "crown of Manuel's diplomacy." The betrothal took place
on March 2. 1180; although Agnes arrived in the imperial city in the
summer of 1179, she had left her homeland on a Genoese ship some-
time after Easter 1179. See Magdalino, 101 n. 317. for details on this
voyage; and also Francesco Cognasso, "Partiti politici e lotte dina-
stiche in Bisanzio alia morte di Manuele Comneno," MemuriP Mila IV-
ale AccaiUmia fkll, Sciem di Torino, 2nd ser., 62. no. 2 (1912): 213-
317.
26. Magdalino, The EmpiTl' of Manuel I, 107ff. explores Manuel's pro-Latin
policies, pointing out his interest in the Islamic world as well. On this
aspect. see Lucy-Anne Hunt. "Comnenian Aristocratic Palace Decora-
tion: Descriptions and Islamic Connections," in B)'Ulntium: Eastern
Christendom and Islamic Art at IIv Crossroads of tlv Medieval Medilerra-
man, vol. I (London: Pindar Press, 1998),29-59; and also Charles M.
Brand, "The Turkish Element in Byzantium, Eleventh-Twelfth Centu-
ries," Dumbarton Oak.. Papers 43 (1989): 1-25. Latinophilia appears to
have been only one part of Manuel's larger interest in the foreign,
creating a court culture best described. for lack of a better term. as
cosmopolitan. The most recent discussion of Western aspects of Man-
uel's public image is provided byJones and Maguire, "A Description
of the Jousts."
27. See discussion by Magdalino, The EmpiTl' of Manuel I, 201, 209-17.
28. Wolfram Horandner, Theodaros Prodromos, Historische Gedichtr (Vienna:
Osterreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1974,321. poem 20,
lines 37-43. trans. in Jeffreys. "The Vernacular ew,n,pto'," 109.
29. Jeffreys, "The Vernacular ei.lTtn,pw,," 109. Horandner, Theodoro.. Pro-
dTOmtlS, poem 20 is entitled Ew,n,pw, lmt T"!I vv".</>evllel.n'!Jet
'AAap,avWv Tiit 1J"OPIIropcryewfrrl!' Ktp Mal'OViJA Kat uef3aITTOKptiropt..
Based on the analogy of this poem. Jeffreys proposes to rename the
poem of Val. gr. 1851 an eisiterioi celebrating Bertha's arrival rather
than an epithalamion. or hymn in praise of marriage. It should be
noted that although Bertha arrived in 1142. and her arrival cele-
brated in poem, her marriage to Manuel did not occur until January
1146.
30. For poetic emphasizing dynastic solidarity. see Paul Magda-
lino and Robert S. Nelson, "The Emperor in Byzantine Art of the
Twelfth Century: Byz.antinisclvForschungm8 (1982): 137-39, 137 n,
26.
31. On the name Irene within this context, see Magdalino, Th EmpiTl' of
Manuel I, 204-5. Marie of Antioch, Agnes's Byzantine mother-in-law,
also of foreign birth. was referred to as Maria and then Xene, "for-
eigner," which was the name most frequently taken by non-native Byz-
antine empresses when they entered a monastery after the death of
their husbands.
32. Such regulations often came into conflict with the church. as has
been explored by Angeliki E. Laiou, Mariage, amour el parentJaUl<
Xle-Xlllf srecks (Paris: De Boccard, 1992); Magdalino, The EmpiTl' of
Manuel I, 208. describes the "new blood policy" as integral to the so-
cial and political progress of the Kornnenoi, by "marginalising or de-
moting certain important aristocratic families with which the Komne-
noi had no connection."
33. Although, as Magdalino, Th EmpiTl' of Manuel ], 214-16. has pointed
out. in 1175 Manuel essentially abolished the "Tome of Sisinnios,"
which since the tenth century had prevented marriages between af-
fines of the sixth degree of kinship (second cousins), with the effect
of promoting Komnenian endogamy. Between these two contradictory
measures. Manuel issued a document addressed to the patriarch in
 480 ART Bl'l.U:TIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLUME l.XXXVII NUMBER 3
1172 praising the Latins for respecting ties of consanguinity. This, for
Magdalino (216), provides the key to Manuel's marriage policy, for it
realigned Byzantine practice with Western canon law, "which had
stricter consanguinity prohibitions but had a more relaxed attitude to
marriage among affines." In other words, Manuel's actions repre-
sented a certain Westernization of Byzantine policy. See Michael An-
gold, Church and Society in Byzantium under t'" Comneni, 1081-1261
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995),412-14; andJ. Dar-
rouzes, "Questions de droit matrimonial: 1172-1175," Reou des Etudes
Byzantines 35 (1977): 107-57.
34. Magdalino, 1''''
Empireoj Manuel I, 205. Extreme restrictions were
placed on internal marriages, Magdalino proposes, 211-13, to keep
Byzantine brides available for dynastic alliances with the courts of the
Latin West and the Crusader states. Manuel's decisions were not al-
waysappreciated, as when Theodora, daughter of the sebastokratorissa
Irene, was married to Henry of Babenberg despite her mother's pro-
tests. See Madgalino, 209 n. 71; and Hill, Imperial Women, 172-74.
35. Magdalino, 1''''
Empireoj Manuel 1,211. Eustathios expresses outrage
that the culprit, Stephen Hagiochristophorites, did not conceal him-
self in shame after the event, which Eustathios describes as follows:
"He had contracted a marriage out of his class, committing the crime
of making a noble alliance above his own status but the penalty which
he had paid was no mean one. His nose was cut off, because he had
done wrong by gambolling with one whom he should have left
alone ... ."John R. MelvilleJones, trans., Eustathios oj Thessaloniki: 1''''
Capture oj Thessaloniki (Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine
Downloaded by [New York University] at 21:52 19 June 2015
Studies, 1988), 44-45.
36. She actually bore him two daughters: Maria in 1152 and Anna in
1156, who died in 1160. Irene's death is commemorated by Basil of
Ohrid, poem 20, Tou yeyoviYro<;; lJeuuaAOIILKT/<; KVp Baul.A.etou TOU
'AXptllT/vou AiJyo<; E:7TLTtX</>W<; 1Tl T!It AAap.allwv &U1TOLvn, V. W.
Regel, ed., Fontes rerumbyzantinarum (Leipzig: Zentralantiquariat der
Deutschen Demokratischen Republik, 1982),311-12.
37. In the words of the contemporary court chronicler Niketas Choniates,
in Harry J. Magoulias, ed. and trans., 0 City oj Byzantium: Annals of
Niketas Choniates (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1984),94:
"[Manuel] transferred to his son the oaths of allegiance that had ear-
lier been pledged to his daughter Maria and her betrothed, the Hun-
garian Alexios [that is, Bela)." ....'bile Maria was still betrothed to Bela,
Manuel unsuccessfully offered her hand to William II of Sicily. On
this engagement, see J. Parker, "The Attempted Byzantine Alliance
with the Sicilian Norman Kingdom (1166-67)," Papers oj the British
School at Rinne, n.s., II (1956): 86-93; Lynda Garland, Bnantine 1:.".-
presses: Women and Power in Byzantium, AD 527-1204 (London: Rout-
ledge, 1999),204; and Magdalino, 1''''Empireoj Manuel I, 92-93. See
also Charles M. Brand's entry "Komnene, Maria," in 1'''' Oxford Dictio-
nary oj Byzantium, ed, A. P. Kazhdan and A.-M. Talbot (New York: Ox-
ford University Press, 1991), 1142-43. It should be noted that the for-
eign-born groom, Renier, like foreign-born brides, changed his name
when marrying into the Byzantine family; he took the name John.
Bela, while engaged to Maria, was called by the Byzantine name Alex-
ios, The assignment of names for male spouses of foreign origin at
this time, however, had to do with the "AlMA" prophecy, according to
which the initial letters of the four Komnenian emperors from Alex-
ios I to Alexios II spelled the Greek word for blood, [hlaima. There-
fore, when it seemed that Maria Porphyrogmita's husband would suc-
ceed Manuel as emperor, he was called Alexios, but once Manuel's
biological son Alexios was born, Maria's husband bore a Byzantine
name, John, that would keep him symbolically outside the line of suc-
cession. See Magdalino, 200; and Anthony Bryer, "Family Planning in
Trebizond: The AlMA Prophesy of the Grand Komnenoi," in To Helleni-
han: Studies in Honor oj Spn-rJ Vryonis, vol. I (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Aris-
tide D. Caratzas, 1993),85-90.
38. The marriages occurred in February-March 1180, and Manuel died in
September.
39. This anti-Latin massacre is explored best byJeffreys, "The Vernacular
ei.ovriIPWt"; Magdalino, T", Empireoj Manuel I; and Brand, Byzantium
Confronts the West. See also Angold, Church and Society, 116-19. It
should be noted, however, that pro- and anti-Latin do not most accu-
rately characterize the factionalism at court when Manuel died, for
Maria Porphyrogmita, prominent player in the uprising, was herself
half-German and her husband, Renier:John, was Western as well. As
Magdalino, 225, observes, the politics have been miscast in stark eth-
nic terms.
40. The far left edge offol. 8r (the inner margin) preserves a scribal no-
tation, a small epsilon. As noted by lacobini, "L'epitalamio," 370, this
occurs three times throughout the fragmentary codex, on fols. 8r, 2r,
and 5r. In all these instances, a larger but unhistoriated initial exists.
In situations where this same type of initial is placed on versos of the
page (fols. 8v, 5v, 4v, that is, on the outer edge of the page rather
than the inner margin), such notations do not survive, suggesting that
the book was trimmed after it was bound. In one of the full-page
verso images (foJ. 6v), the outer edge of the image is cut off.
41. The full Greek text was originally published in 1901 by Strzygowski,
"Das Epithalamion," 546-61, with a German translation but in the
incorrect order. More recently, Spatharakis, 1''''
Portrait in Byzantine
Illuminated Manuscripts, 220-27, published the poem in the correct
order but without critical apparatus or translation. Iacobini,
"L'epitalamio," translated large portions of the poem into Italian; and
Jeffreys, "The Vernacular eWtTT,pwL: offers an English translation of
the final few passages. Given the problems with existing editions, a
new critical edition and translation are warranted. I would like to
thank Alice-Mary Talbot and Dorotei Getov for their assistance with
the translation of this challenging text.
42. The preceding now-lost pages must have included at least some text,
as the upper right corner of fol. 8r preserves the impression of an
epsilon.
43. Regarch, rendered here as "king: is not listed in the Thesaurus linguae
graecae (CD-ROM, University of California, Irvine, 1999). It must be a
conflation of the Latin rex and the Greek archon. Clearly, this was an
epithet and not an official court title, a significant distinction in a cul-
ture where titles were strategically created and reinterpreted. Jeffreys,
"The Vernacular eWtTT,pwt," 102, states that Louis VII was "of suffi-
cient status to be called 'king' (regarc"'s)," In fact, both rex and archon
are used to describe Louis in the oration written by Eustathios of
Thessaloniki for Agnes's arrival; see Regel, Fontes rerum, 82; and An-
drew F. Stone, "Eustathian Panegyric as a Historical Source: ]ahrbuch
der osterreichischen Byzantinistik 51 (2001): 231. For rex, see Jean-Marie
Martin, "L'occident chretien dans le Livre des cbhnonies, II, 48," Tra-
vaux et Mhnoires 13 (2000): 617-45, esp. "Le monde franc," 638-43. It
should be noted that C-onrad of Germany, father of Bertha of Sulz-
bach, first wife of Manuel I Komnenos, is also referred to as rex. In an
interesting twist, in the mosaics of the Martorana in Palermo, the
Norman king Roger II is portrayed in Byzantinizing dress, replete
with jewel-encrusted lotos, and his name is inscribed "rogerios rex" in
Greek letters.
44. Although the inscription must refer to Constantinople, the abbrevia-
tion is disputed: Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion: 548, read merely
KAT', while Spatharakis, T", Portrait in Byzantine IUuminated Manu-
scripts, 227, followed byJeffreys, "The Vernacular ewtTT,pwt," and
Scholz, "Der Empfang," proposed KOCT instead, thus
KO(N)CT(ANTIN)OYnOAIC or KO(N)CT(ANTINOY) H nOAIC.
Canart, Addenda, 46, on the other hand, suggests a reading of
KAITPON on the basis of a proposed terminal 0 and N. Iacobini,
"L'epitalamio," 379 n. 23, weighs the merits of each. It must be noted
that kastron, or foundation/citadel, was never applied to Constanti-
nople according to Clive Foss's entry "kastron" in Kazhdan and Tal-
bot, T", Dictionary oj Byzantium, 1112. Yet at two points in the text of
Vat. gr. 1851, KtXUTPOU is used to describe the city-fol. 6r, line 3, and
fol. 6v, line 4. Thus, despite the subtleties of the different interpreta-
tions, there is no ambiguity that the image refers to Constantinople.
45. Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," 374-75. There exists a more schematic view
of the city of Constantinople along with an image of its Christian
founder, Constantine, with Helena, in an eleventh-century liturgical
roll in Jerusalem (Greek Orthodox Patriarchate codex Stavrou 109).
See Andre Grabar, "Un rouleau Iiturgique constantinopolitain et ses
peintures," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 8 (1954): 161-99, fig. 17; and also
Anthony Cutler, Transfigurations: Studies in t'" Dynamicsoj Byzantine
lcorwgraphy (University Park, Pa.: Pennsylvania State University Press,
1975), fig. 100. Here, as in the Vatican manuscript, the church is set
within the walls, and a large gate is the other prominent feature.
46. Villehardouin, cited in Magdalino, T", Empire oj Manuel I, 119. An
ekphrasison one of the towers of Constantinople by John Geometres is
analyzed by Henry Maguire, "The Beauty of Castles: A Tenth-Century
Description of a Tower in Constantinople," Deuion tes Chrislianikes Ar-
chaiologikes Hetaireias 17 (1993-94): 21-24. See also Helen Saradi,
"The Kallos of the Byzantine City: The Development of a Rhetorical
Tapas and Historical Reality," Cesta 34, no. I (1995): 37-56.
47. On pictorial conventions for representing space, see Ingrid
Ehrensperger-Katz, "Les representations de villes fortifiees dans l'art
paleochretien et leurs derives byzantines," Cahiers Archiologiques 19
(1969): 1-27; Tania Velmans, "Le role du decor architectural et la
representation de I'espace dans la peinture des paleologues," Cahiers
Archiologiques 14 (1964): 183-216; and Cutler, Transfigurations, 111-40.
48. The open window of Hagia Sophia may allude to the scene in the up-
per register of fol. 7r, the announcement of the betrothal. \\'hile it is
tempting to search for geographic and architectural accuracy (in this
instance and throughout the manuscript), the artist may have been
more concerned with narrative clarity.
49. Much of the debate about the manuscript's date centers on this as-
pect of courtly dress. Iacobini, "L'epitalarnio," 364, accurately points
out that this type of headdress occurs in the Palaiologan period on a

thirteenth-century textile or pallio in Genoa and in the mosaics of the
outer narthex of the Kariye Camii in Istanbul. But it also appears in
an eleventh-century Psalter in the Vatican (Vat. gr. 752). as noted by
Spatharakis, 7.,., Portrait in Bywntim Illuminated Manuscripts, and in a
number of pages of the Skylitzes manuscript in Madrid (Bibl. Nac.
vitro 26-2). The scenes in which this headdress is pictured are dis-
cussed in Hilsdale, "Diplomacy by Design," 246-49.
50. Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion," 558-59, reads the scene quite differ-
ently: while he sees the protagonists of the upper register as the Byz-
antine imperial family, he identifies the two figures in the lower zone
as either the Western king followed by his daughter, the betrothed, in
Byzantine garb or the Byzantine emperor followed by the Western
princess in Byzantine garb. August Heisenberg, Aus tin" C,schichte und
tin" Literatur tin"Palaiologrnuit, Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Aka-
demie der Wissenschaften, Philosophisch-Historische Abteilung, 10
Abh. (Munich: n.p. 1920),96, followed by Velmans, "Le portrait,"
102-3, has argued that the lower register represents the emperor fol-
lowed by the bride and further points out that they are moving to-
ward the upper zone for a performance of the prokypsis ceremony.
Spatharakis, 7.,., Portrait in Byzantim Illuminated Manuscripts, 211-12,
dismisses such a reading on the basis of other representations of the
emperor, princess, and prince in the manuscript. But sheer logic pro-
vides the strongest case against Heisenberg's reading, as neither pro-
posal fits the logic of the whole narrative.
5\. Belting, Das illuminierteBuck, 26-29, proposed that fol. 7r was actually
the frontispiece of the manuscript and that the imagery summarizes
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the whole story. Following this hypothesis, in the lower zone, the em-
peror carries the marriage contract and leads the princess to the pal-
ace (denoted by the staircase); in the upper zone the princess is re-
peated but here she is taller (elevated on a cushion) and dressed as
an empress. This view is untenable not only on the basis of codicology
but also 011 pictorial grounds. The female figure in the upper register
of fol. 7r does not resemble the princess depicted on fols. 3v and 6r
in the slightest. The long blond hair of the Byzantine prince, which
appears to have been a late-twelfth-century fashion for men, may in
part account for many misunderstandings of the imagery. The
prince's long hair is less than half the length of the plaits of the prin-
cesses, most noticeable on fol. 6r.
52. Anthony Bryer. "Greek Historians on the Turks: The Case of the First
Byzantine-Ottoman Marriage," in The Writing of History in the Middle
Ages: Essays Presented to Richard William Southern, ed. R. H. C. Davis and
J. M. Wallace-Hadrill (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981),483, describes
this scene as such. Velmans, "Le portrait," Heisenberg, Aus tin" Ge-
schichte, and Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion," propose that the image
on fol. 7r represents the ceremony directly. The Western bride's ar-
rival and transformation on fol. 3v is likewise cast in the same struc-
ture of progression (arrival, crossing, and regarbing) that culminates
in stilled frontal presentation, though one that would not be linked
to the prokypsis.
53. Heisenberg, Aus tin" C,schichte, 82-132; MichaelJeffreys, "The Comne-
nian Prokypsis," Parergon 5 (1987): 38-53; and Magdalino, 7.,., Empire
of Manuel I, 240, 246-47. See also Ernst H. Kantorowicz, "Oriens au-
gusti, lever du roi," DumbartonOaks Papers 17 (1963): 159-62; Michael
McCormick, "Prokypsis," in Kazhdan and Talbot, The Dictionary of Byz-
antium, 1733. Despite the twelfth-century genesis of the prokypsis cere-
mony, the most detailed accounts of it are late in date. The descrip-
tion by Emperor John VI Kantakouzenos (r. 1347-54) situates a bride.
rather than an imperial couple, at the center of the ritual drama. In
narrating the mid-fourteenth-century marriage of his daughter Theo-
dora to the Turkish sultan Orhan, he relates how, once escorted to
Selymbria, the imperial women (the empress and three daughters)
slept in an imperial tent while the emperor stayed with the army. In
the morning, Theodora ascended the prokypsis platform that was
adorned with silk and gold curtains; the curtains were drawn aside to
reveal the bride "encircled by lights carried by kneeling eunuchs." See
Bryer, "Greek Historians," 479. Music and encomia recitations accom-
panied this ceremonial vision and was concluded with a lavish feast
that lasted several days.
54. Vat. gr. 1176, in which this portrait appears, preserves the official pro-
ceedings of the 1166 council concerning the interpretation of the
passage "My Father is greater than I" (john 14:28). This edict was also
inscribed on monumental stone slabs that were displayed in Hagia
Sophia. Five of these slabs were discovered in 1959 in the mausoleum
of Sultan Siileyman the Magnificent, set into the ceiling of the porch
with only the smooth, richly veined back side visible to the viewer. See
Cyril Mango, "The Consular Edict of 1166," Dumharton Oaks Papers 17
(1963): 317-30; Magdalino and Nelson, "The Emperor in Byzantine
Art," 139-40; Peter Classen, "Die Komnenen und die Kaiserkrone des
Westens," Jqurnal of Medieval History 3 (1977): 214-20; and Spathara-
kis, The Portrait in Byzantim Illuminated Manuscripts, 208-10.
55. The upper frame of this image partially covers the lowest line of text.
thus suggesting the order in which the manuscript was created: scribe,
CONSTRUCTING A BYZANTINE AU/;U.HA 481
then painter. This overpainting led to lacobini's proposal
("L'epitalamio," 369-73) that the images are a later addition to the
manuscript.
56. Despite significant paint loss on the left side of the miniature, the
same long, white striped headgear worn by courtiers on fol. 2v is evi-
dent in the upper left comer.
57. M. E. Mullett, "The Language of Diplomacy," in Shepard and Frank-
lin, Byzantim Diplomary, 205.
58. On the Madrid Skylitzes, see Andre Grabar and M. Manoussacas,
l. 'illustration du manuscrit de Skylitus de la BibliotMque nationals de Ma-
drid (Venice: Institut Hellenique d'Etudes Byzantines et Post-Byzan-
tines de Venise, 1979); loannis Scylitzae synopsis histonarum: Kodikas vitro
26-2 tes Ethnikes Vivliothekes tes Madrites (Athens: Miletos, 2(00); Evans
and Wixom, Glory of Byzantium, 501-2; and Vasiliki Tsamakda, The Il-
lustrated Chronicle of Ioannes Skylitzes in Madrid (Leiden: Alexandros,
2002).
59. For another contemporary lament, see Marie of Antioch's lament for
Manuel I Komnenos, in Cyril Mango, "Notes on Byzantine Monu-
ments," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 23, no. 4 (1969-70): 372-75.
60. It is difficult to speculate what image or text would have followed fol.
lv, although the imprint of a capital pi on the inner margin of fol. Iv
(lines 7-8) suggests that at least some text appeared on the next
page. The outer margin of fol. Sr, the next surviving page of the co-
dex, also preserves the markings of a historiated initial, so the preced-
ing verso must have included some text. But some flakes of red paint
in the lower area of fol. Sr also suggest the presence of a miniature.
Remnants of a frame are perceptible, especially a horizontal edge
about nine lines down from the top of the page and the vertical edge
near the inner margin. Because of what follows, Jeffreys. "The Vernac-
ular eWL'rijpLoL," 102, has speculated that the missing folios would
have included not only the end of the message from the Western
ruler but also a description of the princess's disembarkation.
61. A. A. Vasiliev, "Harun-ibn-Yaha and His Description of Constanti-
nople," Seminarium Kondakovianum 5 (1932): 150-57; and A. Berger.
"Imperial and Ecclesiastical Processions in Constantinople," in Byzan-
tim Constantinople: Monuments, Topography and Everyday Life, ed, Nevra
Necipogtu (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2001), 78, who notes that the colors of
dress related to the circus factions.
62. Scholz, "Der Empfang," has most recently studied the arrival of impe-
rial brides, relying heavily on the Vatican codex as evidence.
63. Brand, Deeds, 37, emphasis added.
64. Spatharakis, The Portraitin Bywntim Illuminated Manuscripts, 229, has
drawn a comparison to impressionistic harbor views in Pompeian w-all
paintings, while the eighth-century mosaics of the great mosque of
Damascus provide a close parallel, as noted by lacobini,
"L'epitalamio," 368. But it should be noted that the landscape does
include specific details: a domed structure with a cross at its apex can
be seen at the far left. This could be meant to evoke a generic Byzan-
tine church, but it may also refer to Hagia Sophia, seen a few pages
before.
65. Strzygowski, "Das Epithalamion," 565-66, Jeffreys, "The Vernacular
eWL'rijpwL," 112 n. 12, and Iacobini, "L'epitalamio," focus on the his-
torical accuracy. or lack thereof, of this bridge. On bridges in Con-
stantinople, see Raymond Janin, "Les ponts byzantins de la Corne
d'Or," Annuaire de l'Instinu de Philologie et d'Histoire Orientales et Slaves 9
(1949): 247-53; and idem, Constantinoplebyzantim, dhJeloppement urbain
et repertoire topographique (Paris: lnstitut Francais d'Etudes Byzantines,
1950),218-34.
66. Again, it is unclear whether these women are Byzantine or women in
Agnes's entourage who have similarly changed their clothes.
67. Here I am distinguishing between these moments of second-person
speech where the poet addresses the reader and passages of second-
person speech within the letters from Western to Eastern ruler.
68. Traces of an elaborate historiated initial are visible in the upper right
comer of fol. 5r, the next surviving page, suggesting that the preced-
ing lost page included at least some text.
69. "Ausonian ruler" is an epithet for the Roman or Byzantine emperor.
See Erich Trapp, Uxikon %ur byzantinischen Griiz.itlit besonder des 9.-12.
Jahrhunderts, vol. 2 (Vienna: Osterreichische Akademie der Nissen-
schaften, 1996),232-33, for various compounds using the Ausonian
prefix.
70. Concerning the cartography of Constantinople, the map from Cristo-
foro Buondelmonti's Liber insularum archipelagi has received much re-
cent attention, in particular in Claudia Barsanti. "Un panorama di
Costantinopoli dal 'Liber insularum archipelagi' di Cristoforo Buon-
delmonti," in L 'am di Bisanzio e I'ltalia al tempo de; Paleologi, ed. Anto-
nio lacobini and Mauro della Valle (Rome: Argos, 1999),35-54;
Thomas Thomov, "New Information about Cristoforo Buondelrnonti's
Drawings of Constantinople," Bywnlion 66 (1996): 431-53; and Evans,
 482 ART BUI.LETIN SEPTEMBER 2005 VOLllME LXXXVII NLIMBER 3
Byumlium, 400. On Hartmann Schedel's later depiction of Constanti-
nople, see Albrecht Berger and Jonathan Bardill, "The Representation
of Constantinople in Hartmann Schedel's World Chronicle, and Re-
lated Pictures," Byzanlirn' and Modern (mel! Studies 22 (1998): 2-37;
and Evans, 403-4.
71. On the topographic shift of mercantile activity to the Marmara coast
and the establishment of Venetian and Genoese quarters on the
north coast/Golden Horn, see Paul Magdalino, "Maritime Neighbor-
hoods of Constantinople: Commercial and Residential Functions,
Sixth to Twelfth Centuries," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 54 (2000): 209-26,
a contribution to the 1998 Dumbarton Oaks symposium "Constanti-
nople: The Fabric of the City." See also Albrecht Berger, "Zur Topo-
graphie der Ufergegend am Goldenen Horn in der byzantinischen
Zeit," IslanbulerMilteilun1J!'l45 (1995): 149-65; and Paul Magdalino,
('.onslanlinoplr midieualr: Esudes sur [';volulion des structures urbairn's
(Paris: De Boccard, 1996), the cover of which bears the miniature
from fol. 2r of Vat. gr. 1851 (Fig. 3). More recently, see idem, "Medi-
eval Constantinople: Built Environment and Urban Development," in
TM Economic Hislory oJByUlnlium: From 1M Seventh. Ihrough 1MFij"lunlh
('RrIlury, ed. Angeliki E. Laiou (Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks,
2(02),529-37. On the Blachernai and relevant literature, see Andrea
Paribeni, "1\ quartiere delle Blacherne a Constantinopoli," Milion I
(1988): 215-29. Of the two imperial marriages celebrated in 1179,
Maria Porphyrogmila and Renier were married at the Blachernai while,
as William of Tyre notes, Agnes and A1exios were married in the Trul-
Ian Chamber of the Great Palace. The festivities were briefly de-
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scribed by William of Tyre; Emily Atwater Babcock and A. C. Krey, ed.
and trans., A His/Qry oJDeeds DOm' beyond 1MSea by William, Archbishop
oJTyTf' (New York: Columbia University Press, 1943),449-50. See
Magdalino, TM EmpireoJManuel I, 244; and Brand, ByUlnlium Con-
fronts 1MWesl, 22-23.
72. Judith Herrin, Women in Purplr:Rulers oJMedieval ByUlnlium (Prince-
ton: Princeton University Press, 2(01), 51-53, describes the ninth-cen-
tury arrival of Empress Irene (797-802) from Athens. She would have
arrived and docked at Hiereia on the Asiatic shore; then, after a few
days, she would have crossed the Bosphoros, probably docking in the
Boukoleon harbor, and then proceeded to the Great Palace. Accord-
ing to the contemporary description by Theophanes, she would have
been met in advance by "the prominent men of the City and their
wives who led the way before her," quoted in Herrin, Women in Purplr,
52. In the fourteenth century, Pseudo-Kodinos, La lrai'; des offices, ed.
Jean Verpeaux (Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique, 1966),286-87, reports that a foreign-born fiancee would
have disembarked in an appropriate place outside the city, close to
the Blachernai Church, and she would have been met in advance by
members of the highest level of the Byzantine aristocracy. Pachy-
meres, lacobini, "L'epitalamio," reminds us, reports that in 1296 Mary
of Armenia arrived at Cosmidion on the Golden Hom, north of the
Blachernai. Kinnamos's description of the arrival of Bertha of
Sulzbach also clearly refers to imperial women greeting the bride ini-
tially and notes that one in particular was singled out (visually marked
through dress) to playa more prominent role. On acclamations, see
Jacques Handschin, Das lI'Temon;,nWl'rl! Kaiser Ktmstans und die sangbaTf'
Dichtung (Basel: Buchdr. F. Reinhardt, 1942),5-68. I believe that on
fol. 4v, lines 4-5 ("daughters in your honor and in the presence of
the purple-born dynasts, the great emperors") must be an acclama-
tion addressed to the two princesses, Agnes and Maria, though I have
found no explicit references to this event.
73. See Berger, "Processions," 83 n. 36; and Scholz, "Der Empfang," 144.
74. The pages were trimmed at some point; see n, 40 above for discussion
of the gutter notations surviving only in the inner margins.
75. Tents depicted in scenes of siege are seen on fols. 140, 151b, 153,
214; receptions in tents, on fols. 97r, 163, and 21Ov; and letters ex-
changed between tents, on fol. 75v (Fig. 8). They further appear in a
Psalter at the Vatican, Vat. gr. 752, in similar contexts (such as on
fols. 109v, 54, and 52r). See E. T. de Wald, TM Illustrations of 1M
Manuscripts oJ1MSepluaginl, vol. 3, Psalms and Odes, Part 1/: Valicanus
graerus 752 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1942); and loli Ka-
lavrezou, Nicolette Trahoulia, and Shalom Sabar, "Critique of the Em-
peror in Vatican Psalter gr. 752," Dumbatum Oaks Pa/JI'TJ 47 (1993):
195-219.
76. The depiction of an especially lavish tent, adorned with images of
beasts in motion, appears in an eleventh-century hunting manual
known as the Venice Cynegetica preserved in Venice, Biblioteca Mar-
ciana MS gr. 479, fol. 2v. See ltalo Furlan, Codiciweci illuslrali della
Biblioll'ca marciana (Milan: Stendhal, 1978), fig. 3a-b. Anthropomor-
phic acrobatic scenes decorate the exterior of a tent in a contempo-
rary Book of Kings in the Vatican, Vat. gr. 333, fol. 18v. See Jean Las-
sus, L'illustration byUlntirn' du 1.iVTl' des Rois, Valiranus graecus 333 (Paris:
Klincksieck, 1973), fig. 31. On the poetic and visual motif of the tent,
see Jeffrey C. Anderson and Michael Jeffreys, "The Decoration of the
Sevastokratorissa's Tent," BYUlnlion 64 (1994): 8-18.
77. Anderson and Jeffreys, "The Decoration," 14-15.
78. Pachymeres, /Vlalions historiques, ed. Albert Failler (Paris: Belles Let-
tres, 1984-2000), vol. I, 235. Joinville, in his Life oJSaint Louis, de-
scribes a chapel of scarlet cloth illustrated with Christological images
given by Louis IX of France to the "King of the Tatars." See discus-
sion in Anthony Cutler, "Everywhere and Nowhere: The Invisible Mus-
lim and Christian Self-Fashioning in the Culture of Outremer," in
France and 1M Holy Land: Frankish Culture al 1MEnd oJ1MCrusades, ed.
Daniel Weiss and Lisa Mahoney (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2(04), 257.
79. Although the following page is missing. clues survive as to its content.
lacobini, "L'epitalamio," has recognized that the frame of a large
miniature imprinted from the missing facing page encompasses most
of fol. 6v, leaving space for only about four lines of text below. While
the content of the image must remain unknown, its verso must have
concerned the two women, since the next and final surviving page
begins with a textual description of them.
80. These "vernacular experiments" are associated with Ptochoprodro-
mos, Glykas, and the Spaneas poet. Jeffreys, "The Vernacular
ewuijpwL," 104-5, outlines particular vernacular elements of Vat. gr.
1851. See also Erich Trapp, "Learned and Vernacular Literature in
Byzantium: Dichotomy or Symbiosis," Dumbanon Oaks Papers 47
(1993): 122; and Michael J. Jeffreys, "The Nature and Origins of the
Political Verse," Dumbarton Oaks Pa/JI'TJ 28 (1974): 157-81, esp. 178.
81. The marriage hymn written by Prodromos for Manuel I Komnenos's
sister, Theodora, opens with astral imagery: "ne; b t/>t.KrrfIp" (what
star); Carlo Castellani, ed. and trans., Epualamio di Teodoro Prodrome p"
Ir nOW'di Teodora Comnma e Giovanni Contostefano (Venice: Fratelli
Visentini, 1888), 10. Prodromos also wrote eisill'rioi for Manuel's first
wife, Bertha of Sulzbach. See Jeffreys, "The Vernacular el.onijpwL,"
115 n. 57; and Eustathios of Thessaloniki, in Regel, Fontes mum. 87,
lines 1-7.
82. Jeffreys, "The Vernacular etonijpwL," 101-15.
83. The pro-Western sentiment expressed by the poet cannot be ex-
plained as any kind of topos, according to Jeffreys, "The Vernacular
ew-L rr,pwL," 106, but rather expresses "something of real significance
in the political situation of Byzantium of 1179." Scholz, "Der Emp-
fang," 132-33, considers the fear and anxiety expressed by the poet
against the political background. concluding that his concern was jus-
tified in light of subsequent events.
84. Belting, Das illuminierte Buch, 27.
85. Jeffreys. "The Vernacular ew-Lrr,pwL," III. Magdalino, TM EmpiTf' oJ
Manuel I. 224; and Garland, BYUlnlirn' Empresses 203 (following Jef-
freys), state that the poem was written by an admirer of the empress
and expresses the tension between Marie of Antioch and Maria POT-
ph)'TOgmila.
86. Leo the Deacon, ed. Bonn. chap. 3, lines 79-80, English translation
by Alice-Mary Talbot (forthcoming). Leo continues: "As night had
already fallen, the empress, as was her custom, went in to the em-
peror, and spoke of the maidens who had recently arrived from My-
sia, saying, 'I am leaving to give some instructions about their
care ... .' " Talbot, trans., chap. 6, 86. I would like to thank Alice-Mary
Talbot for bringing this passage to my attention and for sharing her
translation with me.
87. For, as Herrin, Women in Purple. 17-18, notes, "children of both sexes
might be married to foreign rulers as part of diplomatic alliance-
building, and they were expected to represent Byzantine culture
abroad." Herrin proposes that eunuchs were responsible for the tutor-
ing.
88. John Kantakouzenos, quoted in Bryer, "Greek Historians," 481. Joseph
Gill, "Matrons and Brides of Fourteenth Century Byzantium," BYUlnti-
nisrhe Forsrhungm 10 (1985): 48, characterizes this practice as "a kind
of kindergarten for candidates for the harem."
89. A fourteenth-century Book of Hours in the Cloisters (54.1.2) served a
didactic role for Jeanne d'Evreux, as argued by Madeline H. Caviness,
"Patron or Matron? A Capetian Bride and a Vade Mecum for Her
Marriage Bed: Speculum 68 (1993): 333--62; and Joan A. Holladay,
"The Education of Jeanne d'Evreux: Personal Piety and Dynastic Sal-
vation on Her Book of Hours at the Cloisters," Art Hislory 17, no. 4
(1994): 585-611. On books of hours in general and their often fe-
male readers, see Roger S. Wieck, Time Sanrliftd: TM BookoJ HOUTS in
Medieval Art and Life (New York: George Braziller, 1988). Also relevant
is Susan Groag Bell. "Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay
Piety and Ambassadors of Culture," Signs 7, no. 4 (1982): 742-68, on
patterns of ownership; and Mayke B. de Jong, "Exegesis for an Em-
press," in Cohen and de Jong, Medieval Transformations; 69-100, esp.
72-73, on two biblical commentaries for the Carolingian EmpressJu-
dith in the 830s. The final six essays of Lesley Smith and Jan H. M.
Taylor, eds., Women and 1MBook: As.st?!iSing 1M Visual Evidence (London:

British Library; Buffalo: University of Toronto Press. 1997). address
"Images and Books for Women."
90. The complicated familial connections between Agnes of France and
Marie of Antioch are best summarized byJeffreys. "The Vernacular
eWLTijpWL: 105.
91. Jeffrey C. Anderson, "Anna Komnene, Learned Women, and the
Book in Byzantine Art: in Anna KomnmR and Ht'T Times, ed. Thalia
Couma-Peterscn (New York: Garland. 2000). 125-56.
92. Hill, Impenal WOmnl, 171-72. describes the monetary negotiations be-
tween Bertha-Irene and Tzetzes as recorded in his Historiae. See Jef-
freys's discussion of Tzetzes' Iliad AilegrnUs in "The Nature and Ori-
gins: 153-57.
93. The literary patronage of the sebas/okratorissa has been explored in
Anderson. "Anna Komnene": idem. "The Seraglio Octateuch and the
Kokkinobaphos Master: Dumbanon Oaks Papers 36 (1982): 83-114; by
Elizabeth Jeffreys and Michael Jeffreys in numerous publications. most
notably "The Sebvastokratorissa Eirene as Literary Patroness: The
Monk Iakovos," jahrlJuch der 6slnTeichischen Byzantinis/ik 32, no. 3
(1982): 63-71; and idem. "Who Was Eirene Sevastokratorissa," Byzan-
tion 64 (1994): 40-68. in which the authors argue that Irene was one
of many Western women brought to Byzantium for aristocratic inter-
national marriage alliances. The treatise on grammar survives in the
library of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem (Taphou
52). loannis Spatharakis, "An Illuminated Greek Grammar Manuscript
in Jerusalem: jahrlJuch der ostnreichischen Byzantinistik 35 (1985): 231-
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44. notes that this is the only surviving example of an illuminated
Greek grammar manuscript.
94. Paris. BNF gr. 1208, and BAVVat. gr. 1162. For the latter, see Marit'Tl-
Homilien: Codex Vaticanus grtJKUS 1162 (Zurich: Belser Verlag, 1991).
See also Jeffrey C. Anderson, "The Illustrated Sermons of James the
Monk: Their Dates. Order and Place in the History of Byzantine Art:
Viator22 (1991): 69-120, esp. 101-20. on the pictorial narrative; and
idem, "Anna Kornnene," 142-48, for patronage and imagery.
95. As Anderson, "Anna Kornnene," 142, explains: "For the foreigner
picking her way through the dense Greek, the miniatures provided a
running plot-summary. especially when used with their simple cap-
tions." The text ofJames's sermons is difficult to read compared with
Prodromic poems or paraphrases of the classics commissioned for
Bertha-Irene.
96. A comparison of Vat. gr. 1851 with foJ. I of Paris. BNF gr. 3039 re-
veals similarly enlarged epsilons, thetas, phis, and stylized alpha-rho
ligatures. See Anderson, "The Illustrated Sermons."
97. Ibid.,94.
98. A bilingual Greek and Latin Psalter in the Stadtbibliothek of Trier
(MS 7/9), brought to my attention by Holger Klein, may have func-
tioned as a didactic tool for a Westerner to learn Greek. One of the
five hands that copied the codex is associated with the Theophano
marriage charter of April 972 (Staatsarchiv Wolfenbiiuel 6 Urkunde
11). suggesting that the Psalter may have been used by the Byzantine
bride of Otto n. Rosamond McKitterick even suggests that the book
was commissioned by the mother of the groom, Queen Adelheid, who
was herself a diplomatic bride (daughter of Rudolph Il of Burgundy).
See McKitterick, "Ottonian Intellectual Culture in the Tenth Century
and the Role of Theophano," in The Empre!is Theophano: B.vz.antium and
the WfSt at the Tum of the Firs/ Milbmnium, ed. Adelbert Davids (Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 169-93. On Greek learn-
CONSTRl'CTING A BYZANTINE AUC;USTA 483
ing at this time. see, in the same volume, W. J. Aerts, "Froumund's
Greek: An Analysis of fol. 12v of the Codex Vindobonensis Graecus
114, Followed by a Comparison with a Latin-Greek Wordlist in MS
179 Auxerre fol. 137v ff," 194-210; and also Walter Berschin, Grffk
Leuersand the Latin Middle from j('1'()1M to Nicholas of Cusa (Wash-
ington. D.C.: Catholic University of America Press. 1988). esp. 192,
331 n. 52.
99. Herrin. WOmnl i .. Purple, 78. argues that Elissaios was part of the em-
bassy that was sent by the regency to arrange the alliance and then
remained in France to teach Rotrud. The betrothal was broken in
788. according to some sources by Charlemagne and to others by
Irene. See Ciosue Musca. "Le trauative matrimoniali fra Carlo Magno
ed Irene di Bisanzio," Annali della Facou di Letter e Filosofia
dell'Unioersiu; di Ban 7 (1961): 83-127. Magdalino, The Empir of M(m
uri I, 222 n. 138. has noted that Balduino Guercio of Genoa helped
negotiate the marriage alliances with both William of Montpellier and
Louis VII and accompanied the respective brides-to-be to and from
Constantinople. Since he was not Greek he presumably could not give
Agnes similar training. See also Brand. Byzantium Confrontsthe Wfst.
320 n. 20. Ekkehard IV (d. ca. 1060) narrates how Duchess Hadwig
was engaged to "a Greek King Constantine" who had sent to Germany
two eunuchs, one to paint her portrait and another to teach her
Greek; see Berschin, Greek ILIlt'TS, 150.
100. Babcock and Krey, A History of Deeds; 450.
101. Poem 5: Tov atno Aoyo" OtKW" 1nl3aT7/pif!) Krl>w1lT/8l" bTl T!I K
4>payKla .. Aewet T7/" fjaUtAtK""" vUp.r/>.,.,.. ei.. ",II MeyaAinroALlI, as
in Regel. Fontes mum, 80-92; and more recently Peter Wirth, Eu-
stathiana: Gesammelie Aufsiliu zu Leben und Werk drs Metropoiilen Eusta-
thios von Thessalonike (Amsterdam: Hakkert, 1980),250-56. It is dis-
cussed by Papademitriu, "'0 Bm8aAap.w.;: 454-58; Jeffreys. "The
Vernacular eWtTijpwL:I03; and Scholz. "Del' Empfang," 128-29. See
also Stone. "Eustathian Panegyric: 225-58.
102. Buc, The Dangers of 227.
103. Robert of Clan describes this encounter. When sought out by the
Crusaders. she angrily refused to speak with them: she One voloit par-
ler a aus, ains i faisoit parler un latirnier, et disoit Ii latimiers qu'ele
ne savoit nient de Franchois": Philippe Lauer, ed . Robert dr Clan, La
conquilf dr Constantinople (Paris: E. Champion. 1924), 54. Villehar-
douin specifically mentions the French princess among the other im-
penal ladies encountered by the Crusaders at the "Bouche-de-Lion"
(Boukoleon) but does not record any exchange between them; E.
Faral, ed. Villeharrlouin, La conqrdlf de Constantinople. vol. 2 (Paris: Les
Belles Lettres, 1939).50-51. See also Charles M. Brand's entry "Agnes
of France: in Kazhdan and Talbot. The Dictionaryof Byzantium. 37. On
the death of A1exios 11. Agnes-Anna did not return to France. Instead.
Andronikos I, her husband's murderer and successor, married her,
and she maintained her position at court. Both Byzantine and foreign
sources express outrage at the age difference between Andronikos,
nearly fifty. and Agnes. not yet twelve, describing the union as unnat-
ural and worse. For particularly strong responses. see Niketas Choni-
ates, in Magoulias. 0 City of Byzantium. 153; and Eustathios of Thessal-
oniki, The Cap/uTi' of Constantinople, trans. John R. MelvilleJones
(Canberra: Australian Association for Byzantine Studies. 1988).50-52.
After Andronikos's death. she married again. this time not an em-
peror but a certain Theodore Branas, described by Robert of Clari as
"a high man of the city."