Medieval Academy of America

Byzantine Women and Their World by Ioli KalavrezouReview by: Judith HerrinSpeculum, Vol. 80, No. 2 (Apr., 2005), pp. 598-599Published by: Medieval Academy of AmericaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20463328 .

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598 Reviews IOLI KALAVREZOU et al., Byzantine Women and Their World. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Art Museums; New Haven, Conn., and London: Yale University Press, 2003. Paper. Pp. 335 plus maps on inside covers; color frontispiece and many black-and-white and color figures. $40.

Byzantine Women and Their World is an exceptionally well documented exhibition cata logue, put together by loli Kalavrezou and her graduate students at Harvard University. The publication grew out of a research seminar on representations of women in Byzantine art, which provoked such curiosity and enthusiasm that it led to the exhibition. The book's strength derives from the students' papers devoted to material accumulated for the exhi bition, which developed into the entries in the catalogue. Whatever the shortcomings of such a project, it remains an admirable way to plan and execute a major exhibition.

The problems of putting together such an exhibition and of studying women in the Byzantine world are presented most eloquently by the editor and her colleague at Harvard Angeliki Laiou. In the first of two helpful introductory essays, Kalavrezou explains the difficulty of identifying "the unexceptional individual" and gaining "a better understanding of women's everyday experiences." Byzantine artists were not interested in representing normal domestic occupations, which occur only incidentally in manuscript illustrations, mosaics, frescoes or on small objects. When they do portray the more significant occasions in the life of women, marriage or birth, for example, these are usually set in biblical times: the marriage at Cana, the Nativity. Kalavrezou suggests these are ways in which "the contemporary secular environment finds expression."

The second essay provides a general introduction to women in the history of Byzantium, which shows how dangerous it is to assume an unchanging continuum of women's exis tence from the fourth to the fifteenth century. In particular circumstances imperial women

were able to exercise considerable influence on political and religious developments. Al though female slaves are well documented in Byzantium and reference is made to them in the section of the book on work, there is no discussion of slaves or of wills made by women,

who often freed their slaves and endowed them with possessions. Kalavrezou stresses those domestic chores that preoccupy women in all premodern so

cieties: fetching water, baking bread, and care of the family's health. These tasks are doc umented mainly through archaeological finds; there is virtually no evidence for them in the visual record. Only the famous, powerful, and rich are portrayed, and they of course have servants to do the daily routine work for them. The sections devoted to elite women and civic life by Elizabeth Gittings have portraits of individuals, although empresses are often made to conform to a stereotype. Those concerned with the domestic activity of women have to depend on objects related to female lives. In these sections, Molly Fulghum Heinz and Alicia Walker have done particularly well in seeking out material that illustrates how women coped. For public devotion Bissera Pentcheva draws on the established cult of the Virgin and the ritual processions of icons, which must have attracted women as well as men.

All the contributors note the same hiatus between the more fully documented women of late antiquity and their counterparts of the Middle Byzantine period. Yet there is a tendency to repeat the statements of John Chrysostomos and other early church fathers as if they defined female behavior for all time. Clearly, for the church these recommendations re mained in force and were regularly emphasized, but did they have any effect on ordinary women? Did the male construction of an ideology of behavior appropriate to Christian women have any practical consequences? How can we judge its success? Because of the loss of source material, this is a major problem. But on the basis of what has survived, we can posit greater variety in late-antique art, with female goddesses, nymphs, maenads, and personifications all prominently displayed, as well as some ordinary women. The continu

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Reviews 599

ing popularity of ancient themes seems to indicate a clear preference on the part of patrons and competence among artists. Both parties ignored the church's strictures on what was suitable, for instance, on tableware or ivory caskets.

From the seventh century onwards, there is less exuberance, less variety, and women are most often portrayed in biblical scenes. There is no equivalent to the portraits of the im perial family among the poor; there are no pictures of unimportant families. Yet it is often assumed that these normal people feature in manuscript illustrations of scenes such as the Crossing of the Red Sea or the Entry to Jerusalem. In both, women are depicted with children being carried across the waves or held up to witness Christ's arrival. Are these representations of tenth-century Byzantine women?

Similarly, in the background to the crowning of David, as painted in the Paris Psalter, who are the two figures in the background? They look out from a colonnade, witnessing the scene, a man and a woman. The woman with her hair covered glances at the coronation performed by a classical figure. Is she the archetypal wife, obedient to her husband, seen but not heard, a modest and devoted Christian? Or could she be a Byzantine woman on her way to the market or the bathhouse, who just happens to be passing?

It may be the case that there is a shift in the Middle Byzantine period to a new direct visual language, which can portray the social and private lives of women, abandoning the classical prototypes of gods and mortals. And if this occurs in the eleventh century, when women are shown in contemporary dress, rather than as images of the past, it would be interesting to know why. The suggestion that artists were less familiar with mythology and classical traditions does not square with eleventh-century scholarship, which continued to devote much attention to the ancient past.

In the case of Manuel Panselinus's image of the presentation of the Virgin in the Temple, painted in the 1290s at the Protaton Monastery at Karyes, it is difficult to argue that the young women accompanying the Virgin and her parents, Anna and Joachim, fall into the category of "ordinary women." Their arms are bare to above the elbow; they wear neck laces quite clearly visible on the bare throats; some have hair bands, but none wears a head covering. They are dressed quite differently from Anna and the young Virgin, who are appropriately covered. Since we have no comparanda, it is impossible to prove that they represent local women of the late thirteenth century. While there may be greater freedom in the style of this period, a wider survey of female representations is necessary to make the case. In this period new and more overtly erotic themes emerged, for example, on the

marriage plates from Cyprus showing couples joined in love or the silver gilt bowls from Moscow. This raises the issue of possible foreign influence as the empire became more familiar with western and northern peoples, a development that culminated in the conquest of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204. But that question is not answered.

This exhibition, nonetheless, presents a treasure trove for scholars interested in medieval women. Through small objects used in sewing and amulets worn to prevent ill-health, the authors have extended our knowledge about ordinary women of the Middle Ages. It is a most valuable collection of material beautifully presented.

JUDITH HERRIN, King's College London

EVELYN KARET, The Drawings of Stefano da Verona and His Circle and the Origins of Collecting in Italy: A Catalogue Raisonne. (Memoirs of the American Philosophical So ciety, 244.) Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society, 2002. Pp. xiv, 210; color fron tispiece, black-and-white and color plates, 33 black-and-white and color figures, and tables.

Evelyn Karet's monograph on the drawings of Stefano da Verona and his circle makes two important contributions to the literature on Italian fifteenth-century drawings. First, in her

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