CONTEXTUALIZING GENDER IN XII CENTURY BYZANTINE DISCOURSE: WOMEN AND POWER IN IOANNES ZONARAS’ EPITOME HISTORIARUM
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.2298/GEI2102365OKeywords:
Byzantine Gender, widowhood, motherhood, Ioannes Zonaras, Byzantine sexuality, sophrosyneAbstract
The paper investigates Ioannes Zonaras’ Epitome Historiarum, a Byzantine XII century world chronicle for normative conceptions of gender in Byzantium. The article explores two gender-appropriate women’s roles in Byzantine society. It focuses on the behaviors, activities, and attributes attached to and prescribed for the widows and mothers to reiterate the patriarchal social structures. Also, this research intends to uncover the interplay between text and language through crucial gender signifiers, which influenced the balance of social and political power in the Medieval Roman Empire.
Downloads
References
Andreas Cretensis Poeta et Scr., Eccl. Canon Magnus, TLG.
Ioannes Zonaras, Annales, ed. Moritz Pinder, Tomus I-II, Bonnie 1841–44.
Ioannes Zonaras, Epitome Historiarum, Libri XIII–XVIII, ed. Theodorus BüttnerWobst, Bonnae 1897.
Hesiod, The Homeric Hymns and Homerica, trans. Hugh G. Evelyn-White. Cambridge, MA.:Harvard University Press; London:William Heinemann Ltd. 1914.
Kekaumenos, Consilia et Narrationes, English translation (Sharing Ancient Wisdoms / SAWS, 2013). https://ancientwisdoms.ac.uk/mss/viewer.html?viewColumns=greekLit%3Atlg3017.Syno298.sawsEng01
John Chrysostomos, Ad Viduam Juniorem, Patrologia Graeca: 48.338-349.
John Chrysostomos, In Genesin Homilia XVII, Patrologia Graeca: 53.134-148.
Ioannis Malalae Chronographia, ed. Ludovici Dindorfii, Bonnae 1831.
Origen, In Leviticum Homilia I, Patrologia Graeca: 12.185-188.
Michaelis Psellis Historia Syntomos, ed. Willem J. Aerts, CFHB: De Gruyter 1990.
Dio Cassius: Roman History (Books 51–55), ed. Earnest Cary. William Heinemann Ltd.; Harvard University Press 1955.
Meletius the Monk, De Natura Hominis 24. Transl. and ed. by S. Holman, “On Phoenix and Eunuchs: Sources for Meletius the Monk’s Anatomy of Gender”, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Volume 16, Number 1, Spring 2008, 79–101.
The Rhetorical Exercises of Nikephoros Basilakes. Progymnasmata from TwelfthCentury Byzantium. Ed. and trans. By Jeffrey Beneker and Craig A. Gibson. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press 2016.
Seneca, L. Anneus. Moral Essays: volume 2.ed. John W. Basore. London and New York: Heinemann. 1932.
Tertullian: Disciplinary, Moral, and Ascetical Works, trans. Rudolph Arbesmann, Emily Joseph Daly & Edwin A. Quain, in The Father of the Church, 40: 117: 49, Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press. Tertullian, De Cultu Feminarum, https://www.tertullian.org/latin/de_cultu_feminarum_2.htm (pristupljeno 10. februara 2021).
Álvarez Rodríguez, Adelino. 2006. Juan Zonaras: Libro de los Emperadores (versión Aragonesa del Compendio de Historia Universal, Patrocinada por Juan Fernández de Heredia). Edición crítica. Zaragoza.
Banchich, Thomas & Eugene Lane. 2009. The History of John Zonaras: From Alexander Severus to the Death of Theodosius the Great. London & New York: Routledge.
Baughman, Karl E. 2017. “Mamaea’s Little Man: Alexander Severus, His Mother, and the Germanic War”. In Motherhood in Antiquity, Ed. Dana Cooper & Claire Phelan, 107–122. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Boyarin, Daniel. 1997. A Radical Jew: Paul and the Politics of Identity. Oakland, California: University of California Press.
Brine, R. Kevin, Elena Cilletti & Henrike Lähnemann, eds. 2010. The Sword of Judith: Judith Studies Across the Disciplines. Judith Across Disciplines. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Cloke, Gillian. 1995, ‘This Female Man of God’ Women and spiritual power in the patristic age, AD 350–450. London & New York: Routledge.
Dixon, Sussane. 2001. Reading Roman Women: Genres and Real Life. London: Gerald Duckworth&Co.Ltd.
Dixon, Sussane. 2013. The Roman Mother. London & New York: Routledge.
du Boulay, Juliet. 1974. Portrait of a Greek Mountain Village. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Ilan, Tal. 1999. Integrating Women Into Second Temple History. Tuebingen: Mohr Siebeck
Irigaray, Luce. 1985. This Sex Which Is Not One. Trans. Catherine Porter & Carolyn Burke. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.
Kaldellis, Anthony. 2010. “The Study of Women and Children. Methodological challenges and new directions”. In The Byzantine World, Ed. Paul Stephenson, 61–71. London & New York: Routledge.
Kaldellis, Anthony. 2015. The Byzantine Republic: People and Power in New Rome. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kampianaki, Theofili. 2017. John Zonaras’ Epitome of Histories (12th Cent.): A Compendium of Jewish-Roman History and Its Readers. DPhil in Medieval and Modern Languages, University of OxfordTrinityTerm.
Levine Gera, Deborah. 2010.“The Jewish Textual Traditions”. In The Sword of Judith. Judith Studies Across Disciplines, eds. Kevin R. Brine & Elena Colletti and Henrike Lähnemann, 23–39. Cambridge: Open Book Publishers.
Magdalino, Paul. 1983. “Aspects of Twelfth-Century Byzantine Kaiserkritik”. Speculum 58 (2): 326–346.
Matthes, Melissa M. 2000. The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republics: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli, and Rousseau. Pennsylvania State University Press.
Mitić, Petra. 2017. Zašto Feminizam? Feministička teorija i problem identitea u sklopu kritičkih paradigmi savremenog doba. Beograd: Karpos.
Neville, Leonora. 2013. “Lamentation, History, and Female Authorship in Anna Komnene’s Alexiad.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 53: 192–218.
Neville, Leonora. 2014. “The Authorial Voice of Anna Komnene”. In The Author in Middle Byzantine Literature. Modes, Functions and Identities, ed. by Aglae Pizzone, 263–277 Berlin: De Gruyter.
Lederman-Daniely, Dvora. 2017. “I Arose a Mother in Israel: Power in the Biblical Stories of Miriam and Deborah”. In Motherhood in Antiquity, Eds. Dana Cooper & Claire Phelan, 9–27. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Purpura, Ashely. 2019. “Innovating ‘Traditional’ Women’s Roles: Byzantine Insights for Orthodox Christian Gender Discourse”. Modern Theology 36: 1– 21.
Rich, Adrienne. 1995. Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution. New York: Norton and Company.
Richlin, Amy. 2014. Arguments with Silence. Writing the History of Roman Women. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
Parker, Robert. 1996. Miasma. Pollution and Purification in Early Greek Religion. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Skinner, Marilyn. 1997. “Introduction. Quod Multo Fit Aliter in Graecla”. In Roman Sexualities, ed. by Judith P. Hallett and Marilyn B. Skinner, 3–25. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Smith, Julia. 2000. “‘Did Women Have a Transformation of the Roman World?”. Gender & History 12 (3): 552–571.
Vander Stichele, Caroline & Penner Todd. 2009. Contextualizing Gender in Early Christian Discourse. Thinking Beyond Thecla. London: T&T Clark, Bloomsbury Publishing.
Vilimonović, Larisa. 2019. Structure and Features of Anna Komnene’s Alexiad. The emergence of a Personal History. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Walcot, Peter. 1991. “On widows and their reputation in antiquity”. Symbolae Osloenses 66 (1): 5–26.
Walters, Jonathan. 1997. “Invading the Roman Body: Manliness and Impenetrability in Roman Thought”. In Roman Sexualities, eds. Judith P. Hallett & Marilyn B. Skinner, 29–43. Princeton – New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
White Crawford, Sidnie. 2003. “Esther and Judith: Contrasts in Character”. The Book of Esther in Modern Research, eds. Leonard Greenspoon & Sidnie White Crawford, 1–2. London, New York: T&T Clark.
Wills, Lawrence. 1999. “Judith.” In New Interpreter’s Bible, ed. Leander E. Keck, et al, 1073–1183. Nashville: Abingdon.
Xeravits, Geza G. 2013.“The Praise of the Widow? Change in Judith Narrative”. In Family and Kinship in the Deuterocanonical and Cognate Literature, ed. Angelo Passaro, 273–283. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Zsengellér, József. 2015. “Judith as a Female David: Beauty and Body in Religious Context”. In Religion and Female Body in Ancient Judaism and Its Environments, ed. Géza G. Xeravits, 186–213. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2021 Bulletin of the Institute of Ethnography SASA
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
