Download PDF | Judith Herrin - Women in Purple_ Rulers of Medieval Byzantium-Princeton University Press (2004).
329 Pages
Acknowledgements
I want to start by thanking those who have supported me the longest in the writing of Women in Purple: Portia, Tamara and Anthony, and Eleanor, whose passionat interest in history inspired my own. To them I express a deep appreciation for years of many forms of assistance, as well as their subversive distraction and not least their tolerance. My colleagues at King's College London provided substantial help in the form of a semester of sabbatical leave, which was extended by an award from the Arts and Humanities Research Board of the British Academy, making a total of seven months. This material assistance was further enhanced by the Program of Hellenic Studies and the Depart- ment of History at Princeton University, who invited me to spend six weeks there in the Spring of 1999.
The stimulus of that exciting envir- onment and the resources of Firestone Library made a significant differ- ence to the shape of the first half of the book. And for help on numerous occasions I would particularly like to thank Dimitri Gondicas, Phil Nord, Claire Myonas and Judith Hansen. At King's my colleagues also encouraged me with critical comments and useful references. Different versions of the chapter on Irene and many other ideas were floated at presentations in the subsequent months before a variety of audiences. In several instances, questions and doubts raised by persons unknown forced me to rethink what I had prepared. To all of them I am most grateful, since disagreement at this stage undoubtedly saved me some errors and avoided a few forced inter- pretations of ambiguous passages in the sources.
I am therefore very glad of the opportunity to thank the following friends and colleagues who invited me to speak, often in the most beautiful surroundings, and with their generous hospitality helped to improve this book in many ways: Costas Constantinides at the University of Ioannina; Dionysia Missiou, Thessaloniki; David Blackman, Director of the British School at Athens; Kari Børressen and the Norwegian Research Council, for sessions of the project 'Gender Models in For- mative Christianity and Islam' held in Oslo, Rome and Florence; John Matthews and the Classics Department, Yale University; Claudia Rapp and the History Department at the University of California, Los Angeles, and the Byzantine and Modern Greek seminar at King's College London. Towards the final stages, two invitations allowed me to visit Paris and Munich, where I had studied in the 1970s.
Returning to the Collège de France and the Institut für Byzantinistik und Neugriechische Philologie was not without anxiety, but also provoked vivid memories of seminars directed by Professors Paul Lemerle and Hans-Georg Beck. It is a special pleasure to acknowledge the debt I owe to these outstanding centres of Byzantine research run by such great teachers, and I am all the more grateful to their successors. In July 1999 Professor Armin Hohlweg made possible the journey to Munich and I would also like to thank Franz Tinnefeld for his help in arranging this, as well as a delightful evening in Pasing. In November 2000 Professor Gilbert Dagron arranged a particularly agreeable week in Paris, where the facilities of the Collège de France and his most generous hospitality made this a memorable trip.
In addition, many anonymous critics, students and colleagues at Princeton and London have discussed awkward matters with me in a most productive and helpful fashion. It is a privilege to have worked on Women in Purple in their company, often provoked by their questioning. Without the computer skills of the KCL experts Wendy Pank and Harold Short, the manuscript would have been lost more than once. I have also been assisted by many librarians and staff in the British Library, and the library of the Warburg Institute, University of London, whose kindness is rightly judged proverbial.
Colleagues on the editorial board of Past and Present had a decisive influence on my article "The Imperial Feminine in Byzantium' and I thank them for permission to reproduce some of its arguments. When publications were not available in the UK, colleagues abroad filled the gaps: Ralph-Johannes Lilie kindly provided proof copy in advance of publication from forthcoming volumes of the Prosopographie der mittelbyzantinischen Zeit; Christine Angelidi, Jeffrey-Michael Featherstone, Thalia Gouma-Peterson, Manuela Marín, Cécile Mor- risson, Jinty Nelson, Charlotte Roueché and Maria Vassilaki shared their research with me. For bibliographic references and practical help in the final stages of writing, I would like to thank Celia Chazelle, Scarlett Freund, Anna Kartsonis, Claudia Rapp, Teo Ruiz, Margaret Trenchard- Smith and Mona Zaki. For assistance with the illustrations I am most grateful to Charalambos Bakirtis, Christ Entwhistle, Helen Evans; Eury- dice Georgantelli and Andrew Burnett.
Friends performed an even more valuable service by reading the entire manuscript, and the comments of Anthony Barnett, Tamara Barnett- Herrin, Hugh Brody and Eleanor Herrin guided many revisions of its numerous drafts. Over many years Anthony's provocative questions have forced me to examine the broader implications of specific arguments and I thank him most particularly for his persistence and his generosity. All the errors remaining in the text are mine. Throughout the writing my agent, Georgina Capel, and my publisher, Anthony Cheetham, gave unstinting encouragement and support. port. I also want to thank my editor at Weidenfeld & Nicolson, Benjamin Buchan, and Jane Birkett for her expert copy-editing.
Judith Herrin, March 2001
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