Under Wraps Byzantine Textiles As Major and Minor Arts PDF

Under Wraps: Byzantine Textiles as Major and Minor Arts
Author(s): MARY MARGARET FULGHUM

Source: Studies in the Decorative Arts, Vol. 9, No. 1 (FALL-WINTER 2001-2002), pp. 13-33
Published by: The University of Chicago Press on behalf of the Bard Graduate Center
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MARY MARGARET FULGHUM
Under Wraps: Byzantine Textiles as Major
and Minor Arts
The study of Byzantine textiles, a field largely developed in the twentieth

century, has focused until recently on technical, iconographical, and
economic issues. Historians such as Anna Muthesius have successfully
integrated political and social themes into their research, resulting in a
new understanding of the importance of silk in Byzantine culture in
terms of production, diplomacy, and gift-giving. By applying this inter-
disciplinary methodology to the medium of textiles (including linen and
wool), its significance in Byzantium is illuminated. Because the Byzan-
tine Empire was grounded in religion, consideration of the role of textiles
in this arena is essential. Primary sources demonstrate that, in addition to
its role in the liturgy, cloth also figured in the everyday religious beliefs
of Byzantines, from emperors to laborers. Considering gender issues is
important when dealing with the use of cloth in daily life, because, as
Byzantine texts reveal, women had a special relationship with textiles,
partly owing to their religious beliefs. Finally, consideration of the
physical aspect of the medium, an approach not found in previous studies
of Byzantine textiles, is proposed here as an effective tool for understand-
ing this highly important and potent medium. Certain qualities of cloth,
such as pliability, determined aspects of its relationship with objects and
people.
In Byzantium, textiles were not considered a minor art. As docu-
mented by primary sources and visual representations, textiles, especially
silks, played a prominent role in imperial, ecclesiastical, and domestic
architectural spaces. A large source of income for the empire, silk became
an emblem of Byzantium itself. Produced in factories whose organization,
personnel, and security were carefully regulated, highly colored silks with
woven decoration lined the walls of the imperial palace, covered altars in
the main churches, and were given as important state gifts to foreign
dignitaries.
For scholars of Byzantine culture, textiles open various fields of
inquiry and provide a more direct and tangible link to the Empire than
many other types of media. Studies of Byzantine textiles have focused on
Mary Margaret Fulghum is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of the History of Art and
Architecture at Harvard University.
Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002 13
14 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
production techniques or economic issues, but they may also be used to

examine social practices, political issues, and religious beliefs. The term
"material culture" within the field of Byzantine studies usually refers to
artifacts used in daily life, such as weights and measures, household
furnishings, and pottery. Even though exploration under this modern
rubric would shed light on the practical use of textiles, it fails to convey
the extent to which textiles of silk, linen, and wool permeated and
played crucial roles in the lives and belief systems of citizens of the
Byzantine Empire. There are many more essentially "Byzantine" practices
in the use of textiles to be studied, such as the hanging of certain fabrics
and costumes as emblems in the palace, the iconography of court dress,
the importance of textile relics in Constantinople, and the use of textiles
in the liturgy and as tributary payment to foreign rulers.
In popular usage, "byzantine" means excessively complicated or
inflexible. Indeed, the political, religious, and social practices of the
Byzantine Empire were rarely straightforward or practical. Ritual, tradi-
tion, and ceremony dominated Byzantine public life. All things pertain-
ing to the imperial sphere, from baggage trains to diplomatic receptions,
were characterized by richness, splendor, and spectacle, in which the
interplay of concealment and revelation was often used for dramatic
effects.1 For example, in the prokypsis (platform) ceremony at the impe-
rial palace, the emperor stood on a dais behind a curtain. At a certain
point in the ceremony, the curtain suddenly opened to reveal him, lights
were focused on him, and he was acclaimed by the court in chants.2 This
performance of imperial revelation in particular reflects the strong ties
between church and state in the empire: by viewing the emperor,
believed to be God's representative on earth, his subjects were supposed
to experience a kind of divine epiphany. Not only the emperor but also
certain spaces, women, and objects, such as icons, were commonly
concealed or veiled. The sixth-century poet Corippus described Con-
stantinople decorated on a state occasion, noting that the arcades were
draped with curtains to impress the crowds, "covered over so that they
might marvel all the more. . . . That which is hidden stands out in honor.
The more a thing is hidden, the more valuable it is considered."3 The
barrier served to heighten the viewer's sense of expectation, and even-
tually the barrier may have been identified with the person or object it
concealed.4 In most cases, this barrier was a textile.
As a medium, textiles have several distinct qualities. Because of their
pliable nature, they can come into extensive, direct contact with a
person or object and shroud without distorting or fully concealing the
Byzantine Textiles 15
form beneath. They can also physically protect from touch and gaze. In
short, textiles can become a second skin. Unlike wood, metal, or stone,
textiles easily absorb scent and moisture. Perhaps because of this "trans-
fer" of physical nature, they seem to have been endowed with special
spiritual qualities by the Byzantines. After being in contact with a saint,
relic, or miraculous icon, textiles were thought to possess the healing
power of the source. Some of the most famous and revered relics in
Constantinople were textiles, such as the Veil of the Virgin and the
Mandylion or "Holy Towel" on which the face of Christ was thought to
be impressed. The place of textiles in the Empire may be illuminated by
their most potent role in Byzantium: as a transitive medium in both the
physical and the spiritual worlds.
Gottfried Semper and the Primacy of Textiles
In Der Stil, written in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century,

Gottfried Semper emphasized the significance of textiles in the creation
of shelter. According to his theory of the foundation of architecture,
solid walls were the more permanent versions of textile dividers.
Wickerwork, the original space divider, retained the full importance

of its earlier meaning, actually or ideally, when later the light mat
walls were transformed into clay, tile, brick, or stone walls. Wick-
erwork was the essence of the wall. Hanging carpets remained the
true walls, the visible boundaries of space. The often solid walls
behind them were necessary for reasons that had nothing to do with
the creation of space; they were needed for security, for supporting
a load, for their permanence, and so on. Wherever the need for
secondary functions did not arise, the carpets remained the original
means of separating space. Even where building solid walls became
necessary, the latter were only the inner, invisible structure hidden
behind the true and legitimate representatives of the wall, the
colorful woven carpets.5
In Byzantium, textiles served the role of spatial dividers, often placed

at intersections between highly charged elements in social, spiritual, or
ritual contexts. The concept of textile as wall implies that color and
ornament could have been introduced from the beginning into the most
basic structures.6 This principle can be used to explain the circulation of
patterns among different media.7 Textile patterns and colors were often
captured in more monumental or permanent media, such as sculpture or
painting. This practice of transferring patterns was widespread in the
ancient world, and sometimes it is possible to retrace its progress. Some

second-century textiles excavated at Palmyra, a Roman city in Syria,
contain patterns that match very closely some fragments of architectural
sculpture from a third-century building at the site.8 These textile patterns
were probably translated into stone in order to evoke the actual fabrics
that may have once hung on similar buildings. Except for tapestries,
which are more free-form in design and use a technique closer to
embroidery, most textiles repeat designs and motifs because repetition is
a feature of loom weaving. This is not the case in carved architectural
decoration, in which a running figurai narrative is as easy or difficult to
sculpt as a complicated pattern. In Palmyra, even if the textiles them-
selves no longer exist, certain patterns on clothes of carved figures may
be compared to the extant patterns carved, painted, or rendered in
mosaic on the walls, ceilings, and floors of contemporary buildings.9 It is
clear that textiles were the basis for much architectural decoration in
Palmyra.
Scholarship on Byzantine Textiles

By far the most prolific and influential scholar to date on the subject
of Byzantine textiles, specifically silks, has been Anna Muthesius.10 She
has clarified construction and dating issues for Byzantine silks, laying the
foundation for the work of other scholars more interested in theoretical
or subject-based studies. One of the most valuable aspects of Muthesius's
work is her careful analysis, collection, and cataloguing of a great number
of Byzantine silks previously unstudied because they were poorly pre-
served and less accessible.11 Using an interdisciplinary approach to the
material and employing impressive technical expertise, Muthesius has
been able to clarify economic and political issues involving silks, such as
the role of serikarioi or factory owners supervising silk production work-
shops.12 Regrettably, Muthesius focused almost exclusively on silks,
which limits the body of evidence for many of her studies, such as the
role of textiles as diplomatic tools.
A broader political approach than Muthesius's is represented by
Adele LaBarre Starensier's 1982 dissertation, "An Art Historical Study of
the Byzantine Silk Industry." This is heavily based on the references to
textiles in Middle Byzantine primary sources, such as the Book of Cer-
emonies (a tenth-century treatise by Emperor Constantine VII on court
ceremony), to demonstrate the important role that silks played in Byz-
antine society.13
Silk, the most important cloth produced in the Empire, has always
dominated discussions of Byzantine textiles, which were often placed
under the heading of luxury goods, as in Jean Ebersolt's Les arts somf>-
tuaires de Byzance, published in 1923.14 As a result, due consideration has
not been given to the importance of many textiles made of less expensive
materials, such as wool and linen. Many interesting primary sources on
wool and linen production and use exist, even though these types of
textiles survive predominately from the Early Byzantine period in
Egypt.15 Few studies of Byzantine art history have looked at the medium
of textiles comprehensively. An exception is the catalogue-style mono-
graph of 1969 on extant Early to Middle Byzantine textiles by Wolfgang
Volbach, who covers all types of textiles, focusing on iconography and
chronology rather than economic value.16
Robert Lopez and David Jacoby have each published seminal articles
on silk weaving from an economic perspective. Robert Lopez's funda-
mental study of 1945 focuses on the commercial importance of silk for
Byzantium as well as the production of silk, which was highly organized
and regulated through a guild structure.17 Mainly using primary sources,
Lopez did not base his conclusions on extant textile evidence, which at
the time of his writing may have been unpublished or difficult to access.
In 1991, Jacoby examined silk production in the Greek Péloponnèse
during the Middle Byzantine period, but, like Lopez, he concentrated on
the economic and political implications of the silk industry, such as the
dispensation of production rights to aristocratic families.18 Jacoby did,
however, consider what extant silk textiles add to the discussion.
For art historians working with extant Byzantine textiles, physical
analysis and dating continue to be problematic. In an essay written in
1971, the prominent British art historian John Beckwith offered a thor-
ough explanation of different weaving styles, with a probable chronology
and provenance for Byzantine silk textiles. His frustration with the topic
is evident: "For all the thoroughness of technical analysis, for all the
checking of inventories, records and historical texts, for all the breadth
of art historical learning and stylistic appreciation, the result of years of
intensive labor tends to amount to very little."19
New approaches have enabled scholars to overcome or sidestep some
of the limitations outlined in Beckwith's article. Textile studies in
general have benefited from the recent interest in female roles in textile
production, in particular the interest among scholars of women's studies.
Most notable among them is Rozsika Parker in The Subversive Stitch:
Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (New York, 1984). Parker
FIGURE 1
The Palace Mosaic, mid-sixth century. San

Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna. Photo
courtesy Deutschen Archaeologischen
Institut, Rome.
studies female embroiderers through the ages, including the skil

dieval artisans who were commissioned to create embroidery
upper-class women of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries w
compelled to practice it in order to be considered proper ladies, E
Barber's Women's Work: The First 20,000 Years (New York, 1994
an expansive archaeological approach to the subject of wom
weaving, emphasizing women's important economic role in the
tion of fabric, an aspect that is relevant to Byzantine society (p
Although considered secondary for many years by art histo
textiles seem to be receiving more serious attention, because of
recent status as "material culture." Much of the most innovative
textiles has been undertaken by anthropologists, such as An
Weiner and Jane Schneider, editors of Cloth and Human Exp
(Washington, D.C., 1989). This approach remains to be integrate
scholarship on Byzantine textiles. There are still opportunities a
need for fundamental research on the social, economic, and
aspects of textiles, such as studies on household furnishings, trad
ments, and the process of dyeing fabrics.
Textiles as a Transitive Medium: The Physical Wor

Byzantine textiles did not exist in a vacuum and should
studied as an isolated medium, particularly since much of the p
Byzontine Textiles 19
FIGURE 2
House of Eglon, King of Moab, Octateuch,

Vat. gr. 746, fol. 473v, twelfth century.
Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vatican
City.
evidence is fragmentary or lost. By considering textiles in their original

context and examining the relationship of textiles to other media,
scholars can better understand the role of textiles themselves.
In a physical sense, Byzantine textiles may be labeled "transitive."

Textiles were associated with transitional spaces, such as doorways.
Archaeological evidence for textiles at doorways in the form of curtain
hooks and rods in architectural structures is confirmed by representations
of textiles in other media, such as miniatures or mosaics.20 In the
mid-sixtlvcentury mosaic representation of the palace of Theodoric in
San Apollonaire Nuovo, Ravenna, decorated curtains are hung from rods
and knotted or pulled back and fastened to the columns of a long arcade
(Fig. I).21 In an illumination of the House of Eglon, King of Moab, in a
twelfth'century Octateuch at the Vatican, a red and blue curtain with
fringe hangs from a clearly visible curtain rod in the doorway and is held
back at the door frame with what appears to be a curving metal curtain
hook (Fig. 2).22
Further evidence for the function of textiles in highly significant
spaces can be found in manuals of court protocol such as the Book of
Ceremonies. In this late tenth-century text, one passage describes in
great detail the silks hung in the main reception room of the imperial
palace (the Chrysotriclinos, literally the "Golden Dining Hall"), on the
occasion of a visit of a legation from Tarsus in southeast Asia Minor. The
octagonal Chrysotriclinos had several doorways leading to different parts
of the palace, and each opening was hung with a silk with imperial
insignia. These included a silk bearing crowns in the doorway from the
Chrysotriclinos to the Theotokos Pharos (the "Madonna of the Pharos"

Church), a silk decorated with lions and griffins in the doorway to the
FIGURE 3
oratory of St. Theodore in the palace, and a silk with equestrian figures
Textile pattern on reverse of icon with
in the Kabellarios, the emperor's equestrian entrance.23 Not only silk
Annunciation, late twelfth century.
Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai, Egypt.
panels but also garments may have been used as hangings in the palace.
The
Photo courtesy Michigan- Princeton- Book of Ceremonies 2.15 states that large skaramangia or unfitted
Alexandria Expedition to Mount tunics
Sinai,were hung in arches surrounding the Chrysotriclinos.24 On this
evidence,
Sinai Archive, University of Michigan, Starensier argues that garments were often fashioned like
Ann Arbor.
banners or tapestries to create a grand backdrop. According to Nikodim
Pavlovich Kondakov, this alternative use of garments indicates that
FIGURE 4
court dress was the property of the palace. Both hangings and parade
Textile pattern on reverse of icon with
dress were stored in the oratory of St. Theodore, which also housed the
Heavenly Ladder of John Klimax, late
emperor's wardrobe, and they were under the supervisory care of the same
twelfth century. Monastery of St.
officers.25
Catherine, Sinai, Egypt. Photo courtesy
Michigan-Princeton- Alexandria ExpeditionByzantine churches were adorned with hangings for special occa-
to Mount Sinai. sions, as noted in a tenth-century source describing the decoration of
FIGURE 5
"Green Carpet" mosaic from Antioch, fifth

century. Byzantine Collection, Dumbarton
Oaks, Washington, D.C.
Hagia Sophia for the visit of an ambassador: "They decorated Hagia

Sophia splendidly and hung it all about with gold cloth."26 Already in
Early Byzantine churches, architectural decoration could be used to
imitate textiles when they were not available or practical for permanent
display. In the fifth-century Mausoleum of Galla Placidia in Ravenna, a
barrel vault with a textile-like pattern in mosaic frames the figurai mosaic
depicting the martyrdom of St. Lawrence.27 "The effect is that of a
sumptuous tent cover with a view into the open space at the end," as
noted by Ernst Kitzinger.28 In important locations in the church, occa-
sional attempts may have been made to evoke the presence of textiles
even where there were none. For example, in the late twelfth-century
Church of St. Neophytos in Cyprus a stone panel below each icon was
painted with a textile-like pattern evocative of a drawloom silk.29 An
icon with a cloth in a pattern similar to the slabs below the icons in the
Church of St. Neophytos is depicted in the fourteenth-century fresco at
the Church of the Pantokrator in Decani in present-day Serbia. Textile
patterns were even painted on icons, such as two twelfth-century exam-
ples from Mount Sinai; the reverses of the wooden icons, one of the
Annunciation and one of the "Heavenly Ladder," are decorated with
designs commonly found on textiles (Figs. 3 and 4)-30
No comprehensive study has been done to date on the imitation of
motifs from textiles by other media during the Middle to Late Byzantine
Period (mid-eighth to mid-fifteenth century), although Ernst Kitzinger,

Anna Gonosovà, and James Trilling address the borrowing of motifs
across media, including textiles, for the Early Byzantine period (fourth to
mid-eighth century).31 The direction of "borrowing," however, more
often originated with textiles. Using the fifth-century "Green Carpet"
mosaic from Antioch as an example, Anna Gonosovà argues that some
early Byzantine decorative patterns represent an attempt to achieve a
visual effect similar to that of textiles (Fig. 5).32 As an example of direct
imitation of silk or another textile in stone, Gonosovà also cites the
diaper pattern that covered the columns in the sixth-century Constanti-
nopolitan church of St. Polyeuktos.33 Later examples include a thir-
teenth-century south Italian wooden panel in the Fogg Museum, Cam-
bridge, Massachusetts, that is carved with a design of griffins and lions in
roundels clearly derived from a silk, probably Byzantine (Fig. 6).34 The
design is very similar to that in a cope dating to the twelfth century from
Anagni Cathedral outside Rome.35
The liminal quality of textiles is apparent in their association with
women in Byzantium, who were somewhat marginalized in that patriar-
chal society. In Byzantium, women had an important role as spinners and
weavers in the home. In the early period, they also worked in male-run
silk factories, although they seem to have been restricted to spinning.36
A text by the eleventh-century Byzantine historian Psellos describes a
scene of female textile workers. Entitled "On the Female Festival of
FIGURE 6
Agathe," his short treatise briefly describes a procession and celebration
South Italian wooden panel, with a design
that took place annually on May 12 in Constantinople.37 It has been
of griffins and lions based on a textile,
thirteenth century. Fogg Art
suggested that because the female participants were divided into the
Museum,
Harvard University, Alpheus Hyatt ranks
Fund, of carders, spinners, and weavers, they might have been profes-
Cambridge, Mass. sional cloth-makers, possibly even members of a guild. This hypothesis
FIGURE 7
Temptation of Joseph, women spinning,

Vienna Genesis, Cod. theol. gr. 31 pict. 31,
sixth century, österreichische
Nationalbibliothek, Vienna.
seems to be supported by the ninth-century Book of the Eparch, a legal

text codifying the rules and regulations of the Constantinopolitan guilds
under the supervision of the prefect of the city. Part of chapter 7 is
devoted to regulations applying to the raw silk dressers, "whether men or
women."38
Weaving has been considered "women's work" for millennia, as

Elizabeth Barber demonstrates in her 1994 book, and the notion that a
virtuous woman spins and weaves is also ancient. From Penelope in
Homer's Odyssey to the good wife in the Book of Proverbs, spinning and
weaving have long been the activities par excellence for the ideal female.39
It is not surprising that the female role model for Christianity is no
different: the Virgin is often shown spinning in scenes of the Annunci-
ation in Byzantine art; and apocryphal stories about her life discuss, for
example, how as a young girl she was given a skein of purple wool to
weave the veil for the temple.40 In a folio from the sixth-century Vienna
Genesis, "ideal" women spinning and taking care of children in the lower
and upper right registers are opposed to Potiphar's wife, who attempts to
seduce Joseph in the upper left register (Fig. 7).41
Byzantines venerated the Mother of God as the most virtuous of
women, and the lives of many female saints also often refer to their
spinning and weaving as demonstrations of their virtue. From the ninth-
century Life of St. Theodora of Thessalonike comes the following tab-
leau: "She set her hands to the spindle; and preparing and spinning the
24 Studies in the Décorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
very coarse fibers of flax that had been rejected and the useless wool
tossed into the dung heaps, she would make bags."42 The tenth-century
Life of St. Athanasia of Aegina states: "One day while sitting and
weaving at the loom by herself, she saw a shining silver star descend as
far as her chest."43 The contemporary Life of St. Thomaïs of Lesbos notes:
"She put her whole hand to the spindle. She worked skillfully and artfully
to weave on the loom fabrics of various colors. . . . Her hands labored for
the sake of the poor and wove tunics for the naked."44
While the imagery of the Virgin and holy women weaving may have
done nothing directly to confine women to their traditional domestic
roles, as Nicholas Constas discussed, these were the examples of domestic
female passivity that Byzantine women were compelled to follow if they
FIGURE 8
wished to please God.45 The situation is complex, for as Elizabeth Barber
The female landowner Danielis being
points out, the activities of spinning and weaving were well suited to
carried on a litter, Chronicle of John
women as
Skylitzes, Vitr. 26-2, fol. 102r(a), 1150-75. child-bearers and child-rearers. Spinning, for example, does
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. not require undivided attention: it is relatively sedentary and can be
easily picked up and put down when interrupted, for example, to care for
children.46 While the work of weaving was, in reality, often shared by
men and women, spinning historically remained a female activity per-
formed in the home.47 In Byzantium, the woman was usually responsible
for weaving all the linens and clothing to be used in her household. In
this sense, it could be argued that such activities of the Byzantine woman
not only confined her to the physical space of the home but also may
have further circumscribed her space, as she produced curtains for the
windows and doorways of her own home. She was probably also obliged
to weave the fabrics used to conceal her body from others, such as veils.
There is little specific visual or literary information about the aver-
age Byzantine women's dress. In general, it seems that there was almost
no indication or revelation of the female form in public. Typical Byzan-
tine women's wear from the Middle Byzantine period can be schemati-
cally reconstructed from the few visual representations of nonimperial
women. The usual female apparel consisted of a full-length, long-sleeved
tunic with a veil fitting over a headdress. One example of this female
costume can be found on a folio from the twelfth-century Chronicle of
John Skylitzes, which depicts the female landowner Danielis being car-
ried on a litter (Fig. 8).48 Nuns, who represented a substantial female
population in urban areas, drew their veils around their necks, so that no
part of their body was visible other than their faces and hands. In the
Middle Byzantine period, these modest dressing practices may have been
influenced by constant contact with Islamic neighbors since the seventh
century. Another equally important influence may have been the ever-
popular writings of Church Fathers such as John Chrysostom, a promi-
nent theological figure in Byzantium who lived in the late fourth century.
Fearing the power of the female, he states that the well-brought-up girl
"is relieved of every reason which might compel her to come into the
gaze of men . . . the virgin must be walled- in on all sides, in the course of
the whole year leaving the house only rarely - only when urgent and
pressing reasons compel her."49 When she did leave the house, she was
expected to cover her entire body, especially her eyes. Chrysostom
argued that "the eye not only of the wanton but even the modest woman
pierces and disturbs the soul."50 While Chrysostom should not be read as
reflecting daily life or mainstream public opinion (it is known that,
despite protests by the Church, women in his time were present at the
theater, races, and baths), other sources do provide evidence for the
practice of veiling. In the tenth century, for example, a nobleman argued
against custom that it was necessary for his daughter to go to the bath
every week because her beauty was related to her cleanliness; when she
went out, however, he promised that she would always be veiled and
chaperoned.51
During certain periods of Byzantine history, women attending
church were restricted to the upper galleries of the building, where they
were separated and concealed from the congregation of men in the nave.
In his tenth-century Life of John Chrysostom, Symeon Metaphrastes
notes the use of curtains in the upstairs galleries of a church in order to
hide the women, who, he says, otherwise may have been distracting to
the men.52 It seems, however, that the curtains could function as "one-
way" screens. A Russian witness to the coronation of Manuel II in 1391
specifically remarks on the selective transparency of curtains hanging in
the galleries of Hagia Sophia: "and it is rather clever that the women
stand behind silk curtains and no one can see their adorned features, but
the men and everything else are visible to them."53 The curtains, there-
fore, were similar to a scrim in a theater: the light from the interior of the
church reflected off the fabrics, making them appear opaque to the men
standing below, but transparent to the women standing behind them.
Curtains in a church could also hide those shameful in the face of God.
In a miracle story, an ex-prostitute named Martha would sit behind a
curtain at the entrance to the shrine of Cosmas and Damián outside the
walls of Constantinople. From behind this curtain, she would exhort

other women to "resist temptation" of sin.54
The connection of curtains and veils to women must have been
strong. The ex-prostitute Martha may have been placed behind a curtain
as an indicator of her shame; other women stood behind curtains in
church in order not to distract the men; and virgins veiled their eyes in
order not to disturb the resolve of the men in the street. Veiling could
have the opposite effect of the one intended, however. As Blake Leyerle
points out, John Chrysostom astutely notes that "the chastely veiled eye
itself exercises an irresistible attraction" and that the mind "had a
marvelous ability to re-create in its interior spaces spectacles once
seen."55 Leyerle argues that the main result of hiding the female body was
to eroticize it: "As a locus of desire, women's bodies demanded and
justified a policy of social containment."56 The curtains used to separate
women from men or to hide Martha from visitors to the shrine were
much like the curtains used to reveal the emperor to an audience. In the
last case, curtains were used precisely to heighten anticipation and
revelation. Based on this conditioning of the Byzantine eye, the mere
sight of any curtain must have piqued the interest of the viewer.
These textiles could have come to represent the women whom men
concealed. Two recently published poems, attributable to the twelfth-
century Byzantine poet Pródromos, provide evidence for this hypothesis.
The first poem addresses the Sebastokratorissa Irene (wife of the Sebas-
tokrator, an office immediately below the emperor) and praises the
exterior decoration of her tent, with its mythological scenes:
My lady, Muse of Muses, akropolis of beauty,

the porch of your tent is filled with delights.
Cupids are plucking strings and quietly strumming the kithara,
satyrs seem to play, the hippokratai gambol,
the Muses join in the dance, the nereids are leaping ....
Who then could look at this porch and curtain
and not be amazed, in fact dumbfounded?
For if the delights in the entrance are so great,
how great must be the inside of the tent,
she who is absolutely unique and first of the Graces? . . .
And thanks be to your graces and your supremacy,
and glory to your brilliance and the virtues that adorn you.
You were born Cupid of Cupids and Grace of Graces,
you have become Siren of Sirens, you have proved Muse of Muses.
You cannot be compared with mortal women.57
Another short poem by the same author, contemporary with the

first, also refers to tents (emphasis added):
These tents which are now pitched, whenever I see them

lying collapsed on the ground and repositioned,
I think of the temporary sojourn of human life,
and the mutability of the tent of the earthly body.58
Based on Prodromos's comparison of the tent to the human body in the

second poem, it can be argued that a similar comparison was intended in
the poem about Irene. Her beauty and virtues are compared to the beauty
and skill displayed in the decoration of the exterior of her tent; in short,
she is symbolized by this textile.
Textiles as a Transitive Medium: The Spiritual World

Owing in part to their physical properties, textiles were thought to
be a transitive medium in a spiritual sense. Many of the most famous
relics in Constantinople were textiles, and multiple miracle stories in
Byzantium featured textiles as what anthropologists would call "power
objects." The supernatural powers attributed to actual textiles also rely

on the important roles assigned to textiles in the Gospel and in exeget-
ical literature and art-
Christ Himself was compared to a textile by Proclus, a mid-fifth-

century priest in Constantinople. He described the Virgin's womb as a
workshop that contained a loom on which the body of Christ was woven.
This body was wrapped around the formless divinity, making it visible to
man.59 The concept elaborates on the Christian interpretation of the
curtain of Moses' tabernacle described in Exodus and Leviticus; accord-
ing to the New Testament, Mary spun the purple wool for the equivalent
of the tabernacle curtain for the Jerusalem temple, which spontaneously
ripped in half when Christ died on the cross.60 As Hebrews 10:19-20
states, "So now, my friends, the blood of Jesus Christ makes us free to
enter boldly into the sanctuary by the new, living way which he has
opened for us through the curtain, the way of his flesh." The best-known
visual representations of these texts come from Constantine of Antioch's
Christian Topography (formerly attributed to Kosmas Indikopleustes).61
Herbert Kessler has compared the depiction of the tabernacle and the
central placement of its curtain with an illustration of the Second
Parousia (Second Coming of Christ, on Judgment Day) on the last page
of a ninth-century manuscript version of the Christian Topography (Vati-
can, cod. gr. 699). In the Parousia miniature, Christ sits enthroned
against a diapered golden cloth bearing fleur-de-lis and pearl decoration
(Fig. 9). Kessler notes that in Jewish exegetical tradition, the temple veil
represented the division between earth and heaven.62 In the Parousia
miniature, Christ is now identified with that veil and the means of access
to heaven for those on earth.
Certain "relic" textiles such as the Mandylion were known for their
capacity to transfer power. According to a legend first attested in the
sixth century, King Abgar of Edessa (modern Urfa in eastern Turkey) fell
ill and asked that Christ come to heal him. Instead, Christ used a towel
to wipe his face, and then sent it to the king. This towel, which in the
Byzantine tradition came to be known as the "Mandylion" (from the
Arabic mandil, "towel"), absorbed the image of Christ, and supposedly
cured Abgar. The city of Edessa honored the cloth as a holy relic, and,
when a Persian invasion was imminent, the Mandylion was hidden in a
wall. When it was recovered, the image of Christ was found impressed
into the tile against which the Mandylion rested. This secondary relic
became known as the Keramion, "the brick." During the Middle Byzan-
tine period, both relics were brought to Constantinople (the Mandylion
in 944, the Keramion in 968) and stored in the Church of the Theotokos
at the Pharos palace, where other important relics, including the burial
cloths of Christ, the nails from the Crucifixion, and the crown of thorns
were also kept. On its entrance into the city, the Mandylion is recorded
as performing several miracles, such as restoring the sight of a blind
man.63
Because of its powers to heal and protect, the Mandylion was often
depicted above doorways and windows in churches as an amule tic image.
In the late twelfth-century Church of Panagia tou Arakou in Lagoudera,
Cyprus, an image of the Mandylion is painted on the triumphal arch
before the apse, a highly charged location. The Mandylion is also
depicted on the exterior of the church at Humor in modern Moldova
above an apse window.64 As "transitional" or liminal spaces, doorways
and windows were considered weaker and more vulnerable to evil, as
were people who crossed them, since they, too, were experiencing a
transition. These types of spaces were often protected with images or
apotropaic objects buried in the threshold.65 To emphasize the protective
qualities of the Mandylion, Hans Belting points out that as recently as
World War I, the Mandylion was replicated on the field banner of the
Russian and Bulgarian armies, like a "new Gorgone ion."66 Another
FIGURE 9
important textile relic in Constantinople, the Veil of the Virgin, was
Second Parousia (Second Coming of
used as a talisman by the Byzantine emperor Photius in 860 to fight an
Christ, on Judgment Day), miniature in
attack of the Rus' (a Scandinavian/Slavic people whose center of au- Christian Topography, Vat. cod. gr. 699, fol.
thority was in Kiev).67 89r, ninth century. Biblioteca Apostolica
The supernatural powers attributed to textile relics and their depic- Vaticana, Vatican City.
tions may have been supported by the symbolic use of textiles in the
liturgy. The liturgical use of textiles is discussed in detail by a variety of
Byzantine texts, and in-depth research on the subject has been done by
Robert Taft and by Hans Belting.68 Important liturgical textiles include
the endyti or altar cloth; the aër> a veil that covered elements of the
Eucharist; the epitaphios, a large veil depicting the body of Christ used
especially in Good Friday processions; the podea, a cloth that hung at the
base of icons; and the iwtapetasma, the iconostasis curtain covering the
"Royal Door," which concealed the holy mysteries from the congregation
during the service.69 The katapetasma is one of the oldest types of textiles
used in the liturgy. Its use seems to have been restricted to the East
(Syria, Egypt) until the Middle Byzantine period, when it became more
widespread, most importantly in Constantinople, via monastic custom.
According to one eleventh-century source:
The shutting of the doors and the closing of the curtain (kata-
petasma) over them, as they are accustomed to do in the monaster-
ies, and the covering over of gifts with the so-called aër, signifies, I
believe, the night on which took place the betrayal of the disciple,
the bringing [of Christ] before Caiaphas, the arraignment before
Annas, the false testimonies, the mockery, the blows, and the
rest. . . . But when the ae'r is taken away and the curtain drawn back,
and the doors opened, this signifies the dawn on which they led him
away and handed him over to Pontius Pilate-70
The allegorical interpretation of liturgical and biblical textiles in

religious texts and in the practice of the liturgy, as well as the number of
important textile relics in Constantinople in the Middle Byzantine
period, may have imbued this medium with special powers in the minds
of the Byzantines- The twelfth-century chronicler Zonaras bears witness
to this in his description of a cloth taken from a miraculous icon at the
gate of the Great Palace in Constantinople. The cloth, having been
wrapped around the ailing emperor Alexios I, is reported to have cured
him of a serious illness.71 There even existed a special verb in Byzantine
Greek, apomurizo, meaning to wipe off an icon with a cloth, transferring
the holy substance perceived to be exuded by the icon to that cloth.
Textiles could also transfer miracle-working power from saints. The
eleventh-century Life of St. Loukas the Stylite tells how the tenth-
century saint gave his linen hand towel to a bath attendant who was
threatened by a demon. The saint told the attendant to cut the linen into
crosses and nail them to the walls of the bathhouse where the demon
lurked; this remedy succeeded in driving away the evil spirit.72 A similar
story is found in the eleventh-century Life of St. Nikon, who lived in the
tenth century. Loukas cured a priest's mother from a chronic disease. The
saint gave the priest a piece of his clothing, and told him to dip the cloth
in holy water from the liturgy of the Epiphany and then to give the water
to his mother to drink.73 A tenth-century source tells the story of the
mistress of Emperor Leo VI, Zoe Karbonopsina (late ninth-early tenth
century), who wished to have a child. She prayed to an icon of the Virgin
of the Zoodochos Pege ("Life-Giving Source"), a spring outside the walls
of Constantinople. In an early version of the story, she measures the
dimensions of the icon on a piece of cloth, and then wears the cloth as
a girdle. Zoe's prayers were answered. In a later version of the story, Zoe
hung a cloth in front of the mosaic, and then wore it as a girdle, with the
same result.74
As demonstrated in the stories above, textiles could have a healing

or apotropaic function.75 This potent role was probably based on certain
characteristics of textiles: their pliable nature, which allowed close
contact with people and objects; their association with transitive spaces
such as doorways, which lent them an important protective status; and,
in the Byzantine period, their transmittal of their patterns to other
media, which may have allowed the perception that textiles might absorb
or give power from icons or saints. Primary sources, such as vitae and the
Book of Ceremonies, as well as visual evidence, permit a deeper under-
standing of the Byzantines' view of textiles as a unique artistic medium
capable of transmitting power. By using an interdisciplinary approach,
like that which Muthesius advocates for the study of silks, new scholar-
ship can begin to explore more fully the broad role of all types of textiles
in Byzantium.
NOTES
4. Maguire, Art and Holy Powers, 46.

1. The elaborate "decoration" of rulers in Byzan-
tium may have been inflenced by earlier Sassanian
traditions from the East, where the dress of 5. Gottfried Semper, The Four Elements of Archi-
rulers
tecture, trans. Harry Francis Mallgrave and Wolf-
was costly and magnificent. See Paula Johnstone,
gang Herrmann (Cambridge, Mass., 1989), 103-4.
The Byzantine Tradition in Church Embroidery
(London, 1967), 2.
6. Wolfgang Herrmann, "Gottfried Semper," Dic-
tionary of Art, vol. 28, ed. Jane Turner (New York,
2. Pseudo-Codinos (an anonymous mid-four-
1996),
teenth-century writer formerly mistaken for an- 397-401, and idem, Gottfried Semper: In
Search
other writer named Codinos) (195.11-204.23) de- of Architecture (Cambridge, Mass., 1984),
400.on
scribes the ceremony as it took place
Christmas Eve in the mid-fourteenth century; see
7. Anna Gonosovà, "The Role of Ornament in
André Grabar, "Pseudo-Codinos et les cérémonies
the Late Antique Interior, with Special Reference
de la cour byzantine au XlVe siècle," in Art et
to Intermedia Borrowing of Patterns" (Ph.D. diss,
société à Byzance sous les Paléologues: Actes du
Harvard University, 1981), 10, observes that
Colloque organisé par l'Association internationale des
there was "definite deliberateness in the selection
études byzantines à Venise en septembre 1968, éd.
of designs that were capable of producing a spe-
André Grabar (Venice, 1971), 201-2. For the
cific effect."
emperor's concealment by curtains in church, see
De ceremoniis (hereafter De cer), 1.1, trans, in Le
8. Andreas Schmidt-Colinet et al., Palmyra: Kul-
livre des cérémonies (De ceremoniis), éd. Albert
turbegegnung in Grenzbereich (Mainz, 1994), 44ff.
Vogt, 2 vols. (Paris, 1935-1939), 10-12; and
Thomas Mathews, Early Churches of Constanti-
9. Ibid., figs. 66, 76.
nople: Architecture and Liturgy (University Park,
Pa., 1971), 164. 10. See Anna Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving,
A.D. 400 to A.D. 1200, ed. Ewald Kislinger and
3. Flavius Cresconius Corippus, In laudem Johannes
lustini Koder (Vienna, 1997), and her col-
Augusti minoris, trans, and ed. Averil Cameron
lected papers, Studies in Byzantine and Islamic Silk
(London, 1976), 3.204, 4.83-88. See EuniceWeaving
Dau- (London, 1995).
terman Maguire et al., Art and Holy Powers in the
Early Christian House, exh. cat. (Urbana-Cham-
11. Muthesius, Byzantine Silk Weaving, appen.
1-4.
paign: Krannert Museum of Art, 1989), 45-47.
12. Muthesius, Studies, 285. For further specifics 26. Theophanes Continuatus (a ninth-century and the Loom of the Flesh," Journal of Early Chris-
on the contribution of Muthesius, see Jonathan Byzantine historian), Chronographia, cited in tian Studies 3, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 185-88.
Shepard, "Silks, Skills, and Opportunities in Byz- Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople, 164,
40. See the Protoevangelion of James in Wilhelm
antium: Some Reflexions," Byzantine and Modem 175 n. 54.
Schneemelcher and Edgar Hennecke, New Testa-
Greek Studies 21 (1997): 246-57.
27. Ernst Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making ment Apocrypha, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1963), 1:
13. Adele LaBarre Starensier, "An Art Historical (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 55, fig. 95. 21-25. Mary receiving the wool is depicted in mo-
Study of the Byzantine Silk Industry" (Ph.D. diss., saic in the narthex of the Chora church in Con-
28. Ibid., 54.
Columbia University, 1982). stantinople. See Paul Underwood, The Kariye
29. Cyril A. Mango and Ernest J W. Hawkins, Djami, vol. 2 (New York, 1966), pls. 130-34.
14. Jean Ebersolt, Les arts somptuaires de Byzance
"The Hermitage of St. Neophytos and Its Wall
(Paris, 1923), 77-82. 41. See the description in Maguire, Art and Holy
Paintings," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966): figs.
Powers, 141-43 (the Vienna Genesis, Cod. theol.
15. Cf. Florence D. Friedman, ed., Beyond the Pha- 50-51.
gr. 31, pict. 34; the Vatican Virgil, Cod. Lat. 3225,
raohs: Egypt and the Copts in the 2nd to 7th Centuries
30. See Evans and Wixom, The Glory of Byzan- fol. 58r). Through the Middle Ages, the motif of
A.D., exh. cat. (Providence, R.I.: Museum of Art,
tium, cat. nos. 246, 247; Konstantinos Manafis, ed., weaving could also have an ambiguous or evil
Rhode Island School of Design, 1989).
Sinai: Treasures of the Monastery (Athens, 1990), meaning, in reference to the belief that women
16. Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, Early Decorative Tex- 107-8; also John Osbourne, "Textiles and Their could be crafty or even witches, reciting spells as
tiles, trans. Yuri Gabriel (London and New York, Painted Imitations in Early Medieval Rome," in they wove, which were then "trapped" in the cloth.
1969). Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 60 (Lon- Cf. Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms'
don, 1992), 309-51, who discusses painted church Fairy Tales (Princeton, N.J., 1987), 106-33.
17. Robert Lopez, "The Silk Industry in the Byz-
decoration intended to represent textiles.
antine Empire," Speculum 20, no. 1 (January 1945): 42. Alice-Mary Talbot, ed., Holy Women in Byz-
1-42. For an in-depth review of Lopez's article, see 31. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art, 54-57; Anna antium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation
Muthesius, Studies, 255-314. Gonosovà, "The Formation of Early Byzantine Flo- (Washington, D.C., 1996), 200.
ral Semis and Floral Diaper Patterns Reexamined,"
18. David Jacoby, "Silk in Western Byzantium Be- 43. Ibid., 142.
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 227-37; James
fore the Fourth Crusade," Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Trilling, The Medallion Style: A Study in the Origin
44. Ibid., 303-4.
84/85, no. 2 (1991): 452-500.
of Byzantine Taste (New York, 1985).
19. John Beckwith, "Byzantine Tissues," Actes du

45. Constas, "Weaving the Body of God," 186.
32. Gonosovà, "The Role of Ornament," 303;
XlVe Congrès International des études byzantines, ed.
Kitzinger, Byzantine Art, 88, fig. 162. 46. Barber, Women's Work, 87, also notes that
Mihai Berza and Eugen Stanescu (Bucharest,
spinning the thread for a piece generally takes
1974), 37-47. 33. Gonosovà, "The Role of Ornament," 305.
seven to ten times longer than weaving it, so
20. On the issue of extant curtain hooks in Hagia 34. Christine Verzar Bornstein and Priscilla Par- spinning would have occupied a large part of wom-
sons Soucek, eds., The Meeting of Two Worlds: The en's time.
Sophia, see Mathews, Early Churches of Constanti-
nople, 164. Crusades and the Mediterranean Context, exh. cat.
47. See Miriam B. Peskowitz, Spinning Fantasies:
(Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Museum of
21. The original mosaic was created in the time of Rabbis, Gender, and History (Berkeley, 1997);
Art, 1981), 72-73, cat. no. 47; William R. Tyler,
Theodoric and then altered by Justinian, at which Laura F. Hodges. "Noe's Wife: Type of Eve and
"An Early Italian Wood Panel," Bulletin of the Fogg
time the curtains were added. Wakefield Spinner," in Equally in God's Image:
Art Museum 10, no. 3 (November 1940): 49-55.
Woman in the Middle Ages, ed. Julia Bolton Hollo-
22. Vat. gr. 746, fol. 473v. Detail in Helen Evans way, Constance S. Wright, and Joan Bechtold
35. Tyler, "Early Italian Wood Panel," 50-51.
and William D. Wixom, eds., The Glory of Byzan- (New York, 1990), 30-39.
tium: Art and Culture of the Middle Byzantine Era, 36. Lopez, "Silk Industry in the Byzantine Em-
A.D. 843-1261, exh. cat. (New York: Metropoli- pire," 6. 48. Another example of female costume, probably
tan Museum of Art, 1997), 192. of aristocratic women, comes from a folio in an
37. Angeliki Laiou, "The Festival of 'Agathe':
eleventh-century psalter that depicts Miriam danc-
23. De cer 2.15: Johann Jacob Reiske, De ceremo- Comments on the Life of Constantinopolitan
ing with the Israelite women; see Ioli Kalavrezou in
niis aulae Byzantinae, vol. 1 (Bonn, 1829), 571; Women," in Vyzantion: Aphieroma ston Andrea N.
Evans and Wixom, The Glory of Byzantium, 206-7,
Starensier, "Silk Industry," 226-27. Strato, ed Nia A. Stratos, vol. 2 (Athens, 1986),
cat. no. 142.
111-22.
24. Starensier, "Silk Industry," 221; De cer 2.15:
49. John Chrysostom, De sacerdotia (On the
Reiske, De ceremoniis, 1.571. 38. Laiou, "Festival of 'Agathe,'" 116. Johannes
Priesthood; hereafter De sac.), 3.17, as cited in
Köder, ed., Das Eparchenbuch Leons des Wiesen (Vi-
25. Nikodim Pavlovich Kondakov, "Les costumes Blake Leyerle, "John Chrysostom on the Gaze,"
enna, 1991), chaps. 4-8.
orientaux à la cour byzantine," Byzantion 1 (1924): Journal of Early Christian Studies 1, no. 2 (Summer
34-36; De cer 1.11: Vogt, Le livre de cérémonies, 39. Nicholas P. Constas, "Weaving the Body of 1993): 163. Cf. Leyerle, "John Chrysostom on the
1.78. God: Proclus of Constantinople, the Theotokos, Gaze," 163 n. 25, for a list of other references in
which Chrysostom advocates the enclosure of 60. Ibid., 181-82. 66. Belting, Likeness, 215.
women.
67. Belting,
61. Herbert L. Kessler, "Gazing at the Future:Theophanes
TheContinuatus, trans. Cyril
Parousia
50. Leyerle, "John Chrysostom on the Gaze,"Miniature
163; A. Mango
in Vatican gr. 699," in and Roger Scott
Byzan* (Oxford, 1997),
Chrysostom, De sac., 6.8. 674.23. Moss and
tine East, Latin West, ed. Christopher
Katherine Kiefer (Princeton, 1995), 365-76. Also
51. Judith Herrin, "In Search of Byzantine Wom- 68. Robert Taft, The Great Entrance (Rome,
see Hélène Papastavrou, "Le voile, symbole de
en: Three Avenues of Approach," in Images of 1978); Hans Belting, "An Image and Its Function
l'incarnation," Cahiers archéobgiques 41 (1993):
Women in Antiquity, ed. Averil Cameron and Ame- in the Liturgy: The Man of Sorrows in Byzantium,"
141-68.
lie Kuhrt (Detroit, 1983), 169. Herrin makes the Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34-35 (1980): 1-16. Also
62. Kessler,
important point: "for every institution for "Gazing at the Future," 368.
women, see Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople,
162-63.
such as the public bath, there had to be female
63. See Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence, trans.
attendants, and these are well-documented." In
Edmund Jephcott (Chicago, 1994), chap. 11, 208- 69. Other symbolic textiles, such as the garments
other words, at segregated institutions, the employ-
15. Also see Averil Cameron, "The Mandylion in worn by priests, are listed in Johnstone, The By?:-
ees serving the women were necessarily women.
Byzantine Iconoclasm," in The Holy Face and the antine Tradition in Church Embroidery, 129-30. The
Paradox of Representation, ed. Herbert Kessler

52. Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople, templon, which later became the iconostasis, liter-
(Rome,
164; Symeon Metaphrastes, Vita et 1998), 33-54. S.
conversio For full accounts of the dif- ally "icon stand," separated the nave from the
ferent versions
loannis Chrysostomi, chap. 27 in Patrobgiae of the legend, see Ernst von Dob-
cursus sanctuary and altar, and the lay congregation from
completus: Series graeca, ed. Jacques-

schütz,Paul Migne,
Christusbilder: Untersuchungen zur christli' the priests.
vol. 114, col. 1113; Starensier, "Silk chen

Industry, 176.
Legende, vol. 13, pts. 1-2, of the series Texte
70. Nicholas of Andida cited in Mathews, Early
und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen
53. Mathews, Churches, 164; Ignatius of Smolensk Churches of Constantinople, 171. Also see Taft,
Literatur (Leipzig, 1899).
in Sofia Petrovna Khitrovo, comp., Itinéraires russes Great Entrance, 42.
en Orient, trans. B. de Khitrovo (Geneva, 1889),

64. André Grabar, Sainte Face de Loon (Prague,
71. Zonaras (an eleventh-century Byzantine histo-
143-44. Mathews, Early Churches of 1931), pl. 5.
Constantinople,
rian), 3.751, cited in Cyril A. Mango, The Brazen
175, n. 56, also suggests that the curtains may have
65. Protection of doorways has a long tradition in House: A Study of the Imperial Palace of Constanti'
been hung to conceal the imperial party, since the
the Mediterranean. From the Neo- Assyrian period, nople (Copenhagen, 1959), 132.
emperor and empress also seem to have been seated
protective dog figurines were found buried in the
in the gallery. 72. Hippolyte Delehaye, ed., Les saints stylites
palace of Assurbanipal at Nineveh. The dogs were (Brussels, 1923), 214.
54. Herrin, "In Search of Byzantine
inscribedWomen,"
with phrases such as "Evil, be gone!" See
170-71. Anthony Green, "Neo-Assyrian Apotropaic Fig- 73. See Dennis Sullivan, The Life of Saint Nikon
ures," Iraq 45 (1988): 87-96. From the Roman (Brookline, Mass., 1987), 144, line 41.
55. Leyerle, "John Chrysostom on the Gaze," 165.
period, a mosaic with a protective image of the Evil
74. Acta sanctorum boUandiana, November, no. 3,
56. Ibid., 164. Eye was found in the doorway of a public bath; see
col. 861, cited in Henry Maguire, "Magic and the
Josef Engemann, "Zur Vebreitung magischer Übe-
Christian Image" in idem, Byzantine Magic, 70.
57. Quoted in Jeffrey Anderson and Michael
labwehr Jef-
in der nichtchristlichen und christlichen
freys, "The Decoration of the Sevastokratorissa's
Spätantike," Jahrbuch für Antike und Christentum 18 75. In Maguire, "Magic and the Christian Image,"
Tent," Byzantion 64 (1994): 12-13. The
(1975): authors
23-48. Christians might carve a protective an argument for the apotropaic significance of early
note that the decoration on the tent could have
monogram on their threshold, such as the one for Byzantine textiles is made based exclusively on
been embroidered or painted. Kyrie Boethei ("Lord, help us"); see James Russell, their iconography. In the same vein, also see idem,
"The Archaeological Context of Magic in the "Garments Pleasing to God: The Significance of
58. Anderson and Jeffreys, "The Decoration," 13.
Early Christian Period," in Byzantine Magic, ed. Domestic Textiles in the Early Byzantine Period,"
Henry
59. Constas, "Weaving the Body of Maguire
God," (Washington, D.C., 1995), 37-38.
180. Dumbarton Oaks Papers 44 (1990): 215-24.

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Under Wraps: Byzantine Textiles as Major and Minor Arts

Author(s): MARY MARGARET FULGHUM

The study of Byzantine textiles, a field largely developed in the twentieth

Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002 13

production techniques or economic issues, but they may also be used to

Gottfried Semper and the Primacy of Textiles

In Der Stil, written in Germany at the end of the nineteenth century,

Wickerwork, the original space divider, retained the full importance

In Byzantium, textiles served the role of spatial dividers, often placed

ancient world, and sometimes it is possible to retrace its progress. Some

Scholarship on Byzantine Textiles

The Palace Mosaic, mid-sixth century. San

studies female embroiderers through the ages, including the skil

Textiles as a Transitive Medium: The Physical Wor

House of Eglon, King of Moab, Octateuch,

evidence is fragmentary or lost. By considering textiles in their original

In a physical sense, Byzantine textiles may be labeled "transitive."

Chrysotriclinos to the Theotokos Pharos (the "Madonna of the Pharos"

"Green Carpet" mosaic from Antioch, fifth

Hagia Sophia for the visit of an ambassador: "They decorated Hagia

Period (mid-eighth to mid-fifteenth century), although Ernst Kitzinger,

Temptation of Joseph, women spinning,

seems to be supported by the ninth-century Book of the Eparch, a legal

Weaving has been considered "women's work" for millennia, as

walls of Constantinople. From behind this curtain, she would exhort

My lady, Muse of Muses, akropolis of beauty,

Another short poem by the same author, contemporary with the

These tents which are now pitched, whenever I see them

Based on Prodromos's comparison of the tent to the human body in the

Textiles as a Transitive Medium: The Spiritual World

objects." The supernatural powers attributed to actual textiles also rely

Christ Himself was compared to a textile by Proclus, a mid-fifth-

The allegorical interpretation of liturgical and biblical textiles in

As demonstrated in the stories above, textiles could have a healing

4. Maguire, Art and Holy Powers, 46.

19. John Beckwith, "Byzantine Tissues," Actes du

Paradox of Representation, ed. Herbert Kessler

completus: Series graeca, ed. Jacques-

vol. 114, col. 1113; Starensier, "Silk chen

en Orient, trans. B. de Khitrovo (Geneva, 1889),

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