Download PDF | Henry Maguire - Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204-Dumbarton Oaks (1997).
349 Pages
Introduction
In 1950 a symposium was held at Dumbarton Oaks on the topic of “The Emperor and the Palace,” with a roster of speakers that included Andreas Alféldi, Francis Dvornik, André Grabar, Ernst H. Kantorowicz, Hans P. L’Orange, and Paul A. Underwood. Forty-four years later, in April 1994, this subject was revisited by a new generation of scholars in another Dumbarton Oaks symposium held in the same room but with a different title, “Byzantine Court Culture from 829 to 1204.”
The limiting dates, which reflect the increasing specialization of Byzantine studies in the intervening years, were chosen to encompass the golden age of Byzantine court life. This period began with the reign of Theophilos, the “lover of adornment” who was responsible for the revival of palace construction and for automata such as the fabled golden tree with its singing birds; ic ended with the Fourth Crusade and the destruction of the court in Constantinople. For the most part, the same chronological limits are observed in this publication of the symposium, which thus records the Byzantine court at its apogee.
The subject of this book is both old and new. Ever since the Middle Ages, the imperial court in Constantinople has been central to the outsider’s vision of Byzantium. However, in spite of its fame in literature and scholarship, there have been relatively few attempts to analyze the Byzantine court in its entirety as a phenomenon. While there have been important studies of different aspects of court life, such as its art or its ceremonial, these aspects have seldom been integrated into a composite picture. The studies gathered together in this volume aim to provide such a unified composition by presenting Byzantine courtly life in all of its interconnected facets.
The authors discuss the imperial palaces, gardens and parks, the ceremonials and liturgies, the costumes and regalia, the relics kept in the palace, the court icons, the courtly rhetoric, the intellectual life of courtiers, the social composition of the court, the hierarchy of titles, including the incomes of the title holders, and the iconography and ideology of court art. At the same time, attention is paid to the relationships between the court of the Byzanune emperors and those of other medieval rulers, Islamic, Armenian, and Norman. Finally, consideration is given to the interaction of the imperial court on earth with the supreme court in heaven, especially as expressed in panegyric and art.
Without attempting to summarize the papers collected here, which need no amplitication as an account of the rich and complex mechanisms of Byzantine court culture, | would like to draw attention to one important theme that runs through a majority of the discussions. As many of the authors show, a fundamental change took place in the character and role of the court in the course of the eleventh century. This change affected all levels and al] aspects of palace life. It had its basis in the social makeup of the court. In the Macedonian period, the emperor selected his top administrators without paying great attention to their birth, but under the Komnenian emperors the elite posts were given to members of a hereditary aristocracy or, in the case of the highest positions, to the emperor’s own relatives. Consequently there was more vertical mobility in the tenth and early eleventh centuries than in the later part of our time frame.
However, the courtiers of the Macedonian period, promoted and salaried by the emperor, were more dependent on him, whereas by the twelfth century the ethos of the court had changed. Under the Komnenoi, the individual courtiers had acquired a more detached and individualistic attitude toward their roles with respect to the monarch, a shift that is detectable even in the literary productions of the intellectuals. Moreover, the formal segregation of women at court that is revealed by sources such as the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies seems to have been to some extent abandoned by the twelfth century.
These social changes within the Byzantine court were also reflected in the spheres of art and architecture. The change is best symbolized by the relocation of the court from the pavilions, gardens, and terraces of the Great Palace to the castlelike environment of the Blachernai at the city walls, overlooking the hunting grounds of the Philopation. In the realm of small objects, the tightly choreographed high-level exchanges of gifts between courts, characteristic of the tenth and eleventh centuries, were replaced in the twelfth century by a much broader and more decentralized distribution of similar but more commercially produced items for a wider clientele of aristocratic and mercantile purchasers. These changes in the social composition, mentality, and material culeure of the court demonstrate that, as in so many other aspects of Byzantine civilization, the image of permanence and immutability projected by the forms of palace life was more apparent than real. Behind the golden facade of ceremonial, rhetoric, and art, there was constant development and renewal.
In conclusion, I would like to thank the speakers who agreed to participate in the symposium and who contnbuted their papers for inclusion here. I am also grateful to Hedy Schiller and to Allison Sobke, who helped in various ways to prepare this book for publication, and to the staff of the Publications Office at Dumbarton Oaks, who saw the book through the press.
Henry Maguire Universiry of Hlinois, Urbana-Champaign
The Emperor in His Church: Imperial Ritual in the Church of St. Sophia
George P. Majeska
That the Byzantine emperor 1s a “sacred” figure is as commonplace in modern scholarship as in ancient sources. The basic texts involved in this question, beginning with Constantine the Great’s reputed claims to be “bishop of those outside” and “general bishop,” to Leo III's claim that he is “priest and emperor” (a statement that the pope, at least, found shocking), are well known.' Exactly what is meant by the emperor's “sacred nature” is a question that has generated volumes ot scholarship, and will continue to do so; the topic is fundamental to understanding Byzantium.” The present study joins the ongoing discussion of Byzantine political theory by analyzing the ritual behavior of the Middle Byzantine emperor in his “official” public church, namely, the great cathedral of St. Sophia in Constantinople.
The focus is not merely on what the emperor does in certain regularly recurring ceremonial situations in the Great Church, but also on what these elements of ritual behavior mean to those who witness them or hear about them. This study, then, is intended to be an analysis of the significance of the ritualized behavior patterns of an emperor, particularly in the hturgical context of worship at sacred functions in St. Sophia.
Although there are many occasions during which the emperor publicly participates in services at the Great Church, three seem to be especially useful for an analysis of the significance of the emperor's participation in hrurgical activity: the coronation of the emperor; the solemn patriarchal liturgy on dominical festivals; and an unusual once-ayear Holy Saturday rite of censing the sacred vessels of the church’s treasury. Studying the emperor's behavior in these three specific contexts provides some insight into the “liturgical” character of his sacred charisma and suggests how an emperor is perceived to combine sacerdotiue and imperium.’
Coronation by the patriarch is obviously the appropriate place to begin. It was by his coronation, one would assume, that the emperor acquired his special liturgical charisma.*
The emperor, with his entourage, arrives for his coronation at the southwest portal of St. Sophia (1 on Fig. 1) much as he does on major feasts (see below), and is met by the patriarch at the entrance to the inner narthex (2). From there they enter the nave together through the central (“imperial”) doors (3) and go onto the solea (4), the raised balustraded pathway leading from the ambo, the great pulpit in the center of the church, to the chancel barrier.> When they arrive at the central gates to the sanctuary (5), the emperor, with a lighted candle in his hand, prays with the patriarch before the holy doors of the sanctuary but does not enter the sanctuary precincts.” Rather, he and the patriarch turn and walk back to mount the ambo (6), where the coronation paraphernalia, the crown and the chlamys and fibula, lay ready on a small table (avtiutvotov).” After a litany intoned by the deacon, the patriarch reads a special prayer over the imperial chlamys and fibula and then hands them to courtiers, who vest the emperor in them.
The patriarch then reads a prayer over the imperial crown and, making the sign of the cross with it, places it on the emperor’s head, saying, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,” and then intoning “Worthy!” The congregation repeats the patriarch’s chant of the word “Worthy” three times.’ The ritual here would strike a Byzantine as quite familiar. Except for the lack of actual “laying on of hands” (a quite fundamental element, of course), its form is that of ordination to holy orders, the sacramental act that distinguishes clergy from laity:'° the ceremony is assigned to a specific moment in the eucharistic liturgy, the first or “little entrance” (N LiKkp& elcoboc),!! and a specific place in the church, the clerical territory of the ambo;’? it is performed by a bishop, who, after specified prayers, makes the sign of the cross over the ordinand and invests him with the robe or robes peculiar to his office to the accompaniment of an exclamation of “Worthy!” repeated three times by the congregation to signify its agreement in the consecration of the candidate.”* Later in the liturgy during which the ordination is performed, the newly ordained clergyman performs for the first tme a task specific to his new rank.
Perhaps in the case at hand we should note several actions performed by the emperor during the liturgy at which he is crowned that would seem to be specific to the new ecclesiastical (clerical?) rank of the emperor, actions he will perform with some regularity once crowned: he participates in the procession of the great entrance” (1 weYGAN Eloodoc) in the liturgy; he is commemorated by the clergy as they enter the sanctuary in the same way they commemorate the celebrating bishop or patriarch; he exchanges the kiss of peace with the patriarch; and he partakes of the eucharist, not like a layman with the consecrated bread and wine together in a spoon, but like a priest or deacon, receiving the consecrated bread in his hand from the patriarch and drinking the consecrated wine from the chalice held by the patriarch (the once universal custom, but now restricted to higher clergy and emperors).'* It is, however, precisely in the reception of communion that the ambiguity of this “imperial ordination” manifests itself. Unlike bishops, priests, and deacons, the newly crowned emperor does not communicate inside the sanctuary at the holy table itself, but rather at a special small table set before the central entrance to the sanctuary.'® His “ecclesiastical” rank, then, would seem to be below that of higher clergy (bishops, priests, and deacons—all ordained inside the sanctuary), who take the bread and wine of communion separately at the altar itself, but above the traditional ranks of the lower clergy (‘‘ordained,” like the emperor, outside the sanctuary), who take communion outside the sanctuary but in both forms together (like lay people).
To summarize here what members of the congregation in St. Sophia would have seen at a normal imperial coronation and how they would have interpreted what they saw: the imposition of ceremonial regalia (the chlamys and crown) by the patriarch to the chant of “Worthy!” would have been perceived as an ordination to sacred clerical office, an interpretation that would have been confirmed by the newly crowned emperor’s taking part in the great entrance procession, being commemorated at that moment like a priest or bishop, sharing the kiss of peace with the celebrating clergy, and then taking communion as the higher clergy do. The emperor's ritually programmed actions are those of a clergyman (albeit a clergyman of indeterminate rank).'*
Many of these symbolically powerful ritual acts were performed by emperors as part of their traditional behavior when they made major ceremonial appearances in St. Sophia, particularly on the major dominical feasts. It would be very useful to describe the emper-or’s actions in conjunction with the patriarchal liturgy on these great holidays in St. Sophia."”
Having crossed from the palace through the Augusteon square to the accompaniment of stylized acclamations (sung at least on solemn occasions in ecclesiastical liturgical “tones,” according to the Book of Ceremonies)'® from representatives of the demes gathered specifically for this purpose, the emperor arrives at the south encrance to the inner narthex of St. Sophia, at the so-called beautiful door (fj @paia nAn) (1 on Fig. 1), near the horologion. There he is divested of his crown in a draped booth (a metatorion)’” in the southwest vestibule (1) (the emperor apparently wears his impemal crown inside St. Sophia only at his coronation).”” Bareheaded, he enters through the south door of the inner narthex (walking beneath the famous mosaic of Constantine and Justinian on the two sides of the enthroned Mother of God with the Chnst Child) (2), and is greeted by the patriarch and clergy. The emperor kisses the Gospel book and cross*! presented by attending clergy, and then he and the patriarch kiss each other on the cheek and go hand in hand to the imperial doors (at BaotAtkai m0Aa1), the centra] doors leading from the narthex into the nave (3).
There the emperor receives a lit candle from the praipositos* and prays and bows three times before the doors (above which is depicted, of course, an emperor in the act ot bowing in proskynesis before the throne of Christ). Meanwhile the patriarch reads the prayer of the little entrance of the licurgy. When the prayer is over, the emperor returns the candle to the praipositos, again kisses the Gospel book carned by the archdeacon,"' and the emperor and patriarch enter the body of the church. Together they go around the ambo (6) and enter the solea (4), the low-walled walkway connecting the ambo to the area immediately before the chancel barner. They follow it to the holy doors (taayia 8dpia) (5) leading into the sanctuary, where once again they pray; the emperor, who stands on a porphyry disk set in the floor before the central doors of the chancel barner,”* again takes a candle from the praipositos and returns it to him after his prayer is completed. Then the patriarch enters through the holy doors and kisses the altar table (7). He is followed by the emperor, who does the same,” with the patriarch lifting the altar cloth (n @yta EvdutTH) so that the emperor may kiss it more easily.” The emperor then takes from the hands of the praipositos two white altar covers (eiA1td)”’ and places them on the altar along with an apokombion, that is, a bag of gold coins. These are his regular gifts to the church. On certain holidays (notably on Pentecost), he also lays on the altar one or more chalices and patens that he is contributing to the Great Church.* He then kisses the two chalices and patens on the altar, and then the “swaddling clothes of Chnst” (ta &yta ondpyava), which the patriarch presents to his lips.” He then accompanies the patriarch, who circles the altar censing it, and they go together into the apse (8), where, again with a candle in his hand, the emperor prays before the large cross.” He kisses it and then takes the censer from the patriarch and himself censes the cross. The patriarch then escorts the emperor to the south door of the sanctuary (9), where they kiss each other. Following this exchange of kisses, the emperor goes to his metatorion (a combination imperial box and private oratory attached to a reception room) in the southeast corner of the nave (10), which will be his normal station for the rest of the service.*!
This ceremony of imperial arrival looks very much like the ritualized arrival of higher clergy at church to prepare for the liturgy: the officiating higher clergy enter the church through the main door and go to the holy doors of the altar screen, where, after praying, they enter the sanctuary and kiss the altar. Laymen, of course, do not enter the sanctuary, and only those who “serve the altar” are allowed to kiss it: the emperor here clearly behaves as a clergyman serving the altar. Particularly telling is the emperor's kissing the altar cloth held up for him by the patriarch in exactly the same way the patriarch kisses the altar cloth held up for him by a church dignitary when he celebrates in St. Sophia.” Censing in the sanctuary is, of course, also a clerical prerogative. Once again the emperor publicly does things normally reserved to higher clergy. Indeed the ceremonial entrance of the emperor and the patriarch into the nave together after kissing each other on the cheek (as equals greet each other) would have been perceived as demonstrating a relationship of equality: clergy of the same rank walk together in pairs on liturgical occasions.» Still, it should be noted, the emperor’s normal place during the liturgy will be in the imperial box in the nave of the church, the area open to laity, not in the sanctuary.
When the emperor is summoned by the referendarius, a clergy aide to the patriarch,“ to participate in the ceremony of the great entrance, that is, the transferral of the bread and wine from the place of preparation to the high altar, the emperor resumes the chlamys, the ceremonial robe he had removed when he went to the metatorion, and, accompanied by his banners, bodyguards, and courtiers, goes to the center of the church, before the ambo (11), where he meets the clergy procession bringing the bread and wine to the altar. Carrying a lamp (Aaumdc or Knpiov) that was waiting for him at the ambo, he leads the procession as it moves into the solea (4) and up to the holy doors of the sanctuary barrier (5), where the patriarch waits. The civil officials follow along on either side of the solea as far as the chancel screen. Here the emperor stops and steps aside to allow first the archdeacon carrying the paten and then the priest carrying the chalice to enter the holy doors. As he passes, the archdeacon censes the emperor and the patriarch and then he censes the altar. As he passes the emperor, each clergyman says, “May the Lord God remember your majesty in his kingdom, now and ever and ever more.” After the bread and wine have been set on the altar, the emperor and the patriarch bow to each other, and the emperor returns to the metatorion (10). The liturgical prerogatives of the emperor displayed in these moments send mixed messages. Although leading the great entrance procession with a candle is a function often performed by someone in minor orders, being commemorated during the transferral of the gifts Just as the patriarch and officiating clergy are commemorated at this moment is extraordinary,** as is being censed by the deacon in the same way the patriarch and the altar are censed.
The ritual connected with the ceremony of the kiss of peace is also significant. Once more summoned by the patriarch’s referendarius, the emperor again puts on his chlamys and then goes with his entourage to the central entrance to the sanctuary (5). where hestands just to the right.** At the edge of the sanctuary, actually through the doorway, he exchanges the kiss of peace, first with the patriarch, and then one by one with all the higher clergy taking part in the liturgy as they are led up to him by the referendarius. The emperor exchanges the kiss of peace once more with the patriarch, and then, stepping down to the level of the nave from the level of the sanctuary, again he gives the kiss of peace, now to the members of the Senate and a number of other important officials in attendance as they are presented to him in turn by the master of ceremonies (6 tN¢ KataGTAGEWC).?” The perceived symbolism here is on many levels. Standing literally in the doorway between the sanctuary and the body of the church—symbolically, then, between heaven and earth—the emperor, this clerical-lay figure, mediates between the two worlds, bringing the pax of the altar to the lay world of the empire.
Once more the emperor returns to his metatorion (10), where he remains unul he is summoned to communion. Then he again puts on his ceremonial robe and goes to the holy doors of the chancel (5), in front and to the nght of which has been prepared a small table (antimension), at which he stops.** The patriarch brings the consecrated bread and wine out through the holy doors and places them on the small table and then puts a particle of the consecrated bread into the hand of the emperor, who steps down one step and eats it. The emperor then mounts the steps again, and the patriarch holds the chalice for him as he drinks some of the sacred wine while two ostiarii*? hold a napkin. The emperor here takes communion as deacons and priests do, receiving the bread in his hand and drinking from the chalice held by the bishop, not in the sanctuary, be it noted, but just outside it, where laymen do—although he receives the two species separately, whereas lay folk are communicated with the bread and wine together on a spoon.*? Once again we have an unclear set of symbols of the emperor's status, or, perhaps better, an ambiguity that all could interpret in their own fashion. The emperor’s treatment is neither wholly that of a clergyman nor wholly that of a layman.
After receiving the eucharist, the emperor returns to his metatorion (10) (actually, probably to the adjoining reception rooms), where he breakfasts with important officials. At the end of the service, the patriarch comes to join the emperor; they kiss, and then they proceed, together with their respective entourages, through the door at the south side of the east end of the church (12) into the shrine of the Holy Well (13).
Here the emperor presents bags of money (apokombia) to the archdeacon and to various officials of the church as well as to representatives of the poor as their names are announced by the imperial almoner (0 Gpyvpoc). The emperor and the patriarch then enter the small draped chamber in the shrine, where the patriarch places the crown on the emperor's head and gives him some of the blessed bread (antidoron) fom which the eucharistic matter had been cut and some perfumed oil. In return, the emperor gifts the patriarch with apokombia containing ten pounds ot gold coins. They exchange kisses and part, the patriarch returning to his residence through the church, the emperor returning to the palace via the short route (14), accompanied by acclamations from the assembled representatives of the demes, as when he arrived.
The leave-taking ceremony in the private and restricted space of the shrine of the Holy Well is pregnant with symbolic meaning. The gift of money to the ecclesiastical functionaries and the poor depicts the emperor as supporter and patron of the church. In return, the patriarch gives the emperor what laymen receive at the end of the hturgy, a eulogia (a token; literally, “a blessing”) of antidoron along with fragrant oil. The roles are clearer here than perhaps at any other ume in the service. The emperor 1s a lay patron of the church. How he received that position is symbolized by the patriarch’s crowning the emperor anew as he leaves the church building for the world where he wears the crown.
The final ceremonial appearance of the emperor in St. Sophia to be discussed is seemingly quite private, and the larger population is probably unaware of its occurrence. It comes on the morning of Holy Saturday and 1s connected with the tradition of stripping and washing the altar in connection with Good Friday. At the third hour (that is, about nine in the morning), the emperor comes to the southeast entrance to the Great Church (14), the entrance connected to the Holy Well shrine (13), where he lights a candle and prays.
He is met there by the patriarch, who, after the usual exchange of kisses, goes with the emperor through the so-called door of the poor (12) to the main or holy doors of the chancel barrier (5). Both pray there, the emperor with a candle in his hand. The patriarch then enters through the holy doors, as does the emperor after giving the candle back to the praipositos. The emperor covers the altar table (7) with a new cloth cover or covers (quite likely that he has contributed) and then takes a large bag of gold coins (a hundred pounds!) from the praipositos and lays it on the step before the altar. He also takes another bag of gold (smaller) and places it on the altar table as an offering. He then takes the censer from the patriarch and circles the altar three ames, censing it in the form of a cross.**
The patriarch and emperor then leave the sanctuary through the north door of the chancel screen (15) and go to the skeuophylakion, the freestanding treasury building on the north side of the church, which functioned as the church’s sacristy (16).° There, candle in hand, the emperor prays, and then, taking the censer from the patriarch, he censes the holy vessels and relics in the cases, which have been opened for this purpose. The patriarch and the emperor then sit down on the thrones set up for them there. During this time the patriarch gives the emperor vessels of nard oil and pieces of cinnamon, apparently used to make the sacred chrism during Holy Week. The chartoularios of the skenophylakion, who had given these things to the patriarch to give to the emperor, now asks the patriarch’s blessing to distribute nard to the emperor's entourage, first to those who accompanied him into the building and then to the officials waiting outside.
After the nard has been distributed, the patriarch and the emperor leave the building and go through the north part of the church, through the women’s narthex, where the deaconesses of the Great Church have their station (17),” and through the corridor behind the apse (the “passage [StaBatiKd] of St. Nicholas”) (18), until they come to the Holy Well Shrine (13). There the patriarch gives the emperor a eulogia of blessed bread, as he had done when they entered the passage of St. Nicholas; they kiss and say good-bye. The patriarch returns to the church, and the emperor goes to the palace through the porticoes (14) as representatives of the demes acclaim him in a special tashion.
What is the nature of the role the emperor plays in this liturgical drama performed on Holy Saturday morning in company with the leading members of the imperial court? Certainly he is functioning here as patron of the Great Church: he lays a very significant gift at the foot of the altar and another gift on the altar table itself, and probably provides new altar coverings. One might also think that there the emperor also fulfills the role of a minor official of the church, a sort of sexton assisting at washing and covering the holy altar; he is, after all. in the rank of deputatus, at least according to fourteenth-century sources.*? But the sanctuary is the preserve of higher clergy, not of vergers like the deputatus, and indeed the emperor also fulfills the role of higher clergy by censing the altar, normally the prerogative of deacons, priests, and bishops.
Is it, then, as clergyman that the emperor censes not only the altar but also the holy vessels used in the liturgy while he is in the skeuophylakion? The Holy Saturday services are dedicated to renewal of life, the message of the resurrection of Christ. It is for this renewal that the altar, unused on Good Friday, is washed and revested in order to be revivified on Easter. [t would seem that the emperor's censing of the altar and the sacred vessels is a reconsecration ritual of the newly cleansed holy materials and that he is, by his censing, reconsecrating, as it were, these things, just as his predecessor Justinian actively participated in the original consecration of St. Sophia.
The answer to the question originally posed about the nature of the emperor's clerical charisma is fat from clear. Indeed it would seem that the exact nature of the role the emperor is seen to play in liturgical functions in St. Sophia is purposely ambiguous. The symbols are not meant to be decoded easily. The emperor's clerical status is demonstrated by his active participation in the ritual with che clergy. Still, although the exact nature of his clerical status is never spelled out, there are sacramental limits beyond which he clearly does not go.
He does not, for example, take communion himself but receives at: although he enters the sacred precincts of the sanctuary regularly, his normal place in the church is in the nave with the lay people. He is certainly a consecrated “holy emperor,” but, to judge from his participation in the liturgical life of the first church of Byzantine Christianity, he is no priest-king. His ritualized actions, in fact, can almost serve as a metaphor for the tensions inherent in the peculiar nature of the relations between church and state in Byzantium in the Middle Ages. The emperor is, perhaps. priest and king, but he is not priest-king.
University of Maryland at College Park
Link
Press Here
0 التعليقات :
إرسال تعليق