Women and Religious Life in ByzantiumVariorum
Alice-Mary Talbot
ISBN: 0860788733
price: $105.95 hardcover
After an introductory general essay on the life cycle and
status of women in Byzantine society, this volume focuses on
female religious life, with particular emphasis on the role of
convents - as spiritual sanctuary, refuge for women in need, or
provider of charitable services. Several essays compare Byzantine
nunneries with male monasteries, pointing out the relatively
small size and lack of intellectual and artistic activity in
convents, and more rigorous rules of enclosure and stability.
Such phenomena as double monasteries, the conversion of a
monastery to a nunnery, and women's economic and spiritual ties
with Mount Athos are also examined. Other articles investigate
issues of female sanctity and sanctification, analyzing types of
women saints, women during the era of iconoclasm, and the role of
the family in promoting the cult of a holy woman. In addition
there are studies on healing shrines in Constantinople in the
middle Byzantine and Palaiologan periods, and the resurgence of
hagiographical writing in the late Byzantine era, particularly
the reworking of the vitae of older saints.
Contents: Preface; Women and the Religious Life: Women; Byzantine
women, saints' lives and social welfare; Women and iconoclasm;
Women and Mt. Athos; Empress Theodora Palaiologina, wife of
Michael VIII; Sanctity and Hagiography: Female sanctity in
Byzantium; Family cults in Byzantium: the case of St. Theodora of
Thessalonike; The posthumous miracles of St. Photeine; The
Byzantine cult of St. Photeine; Old wine in new bottles: the
rewriting of saints' lives in the Palaeologan period;
Monasticism: An introduction to Byzantine monasticism; A
comparison of the monastic experience of Byzantine men and women;
The Byzantine family and the monastery; Healing shrines in late
Byzantine Constantinople; Nunneries: Women's space in Byzantine
monasteries; Affirmative action in the 13th c.: an act of John
Apokaukos concerning the Blachernitissa Monastery in Arta; Late
Byzantine nuns: by choice or necessity?; Bluestocking nuns:
intellectual life in the convents of late Byzantium; Indexes.
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