This session examines maternal experiences and select female transgressions in Byzantium and its cultural sphere, seeking to propose alternative approaches to analyzing them. It places emphasis on various aspects of motherhood that deviated from established religious and societal norms, and covers a wider variety of the damned women represented in monumental art. Dr. Despoina Ariantzi will introduce the concept of motherhood in Byzantium and discuss its current place in gender studies. Going beyond questions of childbirth and breastfeeding, her paper examines selected hagiographical and historiographical examples from the 6th to the 12th century, aiming to elucidate a variety of maternal experiences and the status of mothers within the family and society. Briana Grenert will present the specific case of Jezebel as the murderous mother and her legend’s legacy and development in late antique Greek and Syriac texts. Dr. Larisa Santini’s study analyses linguistic, semantic, and semiotic aspects of birth control, specifically contraception and abortion, in the early and middle Byzantine periods. Her paper argues for non-neutrality of language and the complex individual and societal perceptions embedded in words. Caitlin Mims will discuss the physical dangers of becoming a mother in Byzantium, which could be attributed to the actions of various demons. She examines this non-conventional but popular belief through the surviving reproductive amulets that were likely used to ward off these demonic attacks. Moving beyond maternal issues, the last two talks will continue exploring the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine material culture. Marina Mandrikova will investigate images of the damned women from medieval Serbia within broader Byzantine legal, social, and artistic frameworks. Dr. Angeliki Lymberopoulou will analyze images of female sinners from churches of Venetian Crete. Her paper focuses on representations of the damned who committed various verbal transgressions and the potential impact of these transgressions on small rural communities.
While contraception and abortion are often regarded as modern concerns, Byzantine sources address these practices more frequently than is usually assumed. They do so through a rich and varied vocabulary, employing different words, verbs, expressions, and periphrases. This paper examines the linguistic, semantic, and semiotic dimensions of fertility control in the early and middle Byzantine…
Bearing a child in Byzantium was a dangerous choice. Each stage of the process—from conception, to pregnancy and childbirth—presented its own unique challenges. Written sources are filled with accounts of reproductive issues, from persistent infertility to stories of difficult labor. In some cases, these challenges and dangers were directly attributed to the interference of demons….
Research on the portrayal of women in Byzantine and related Orthodox medieval societies usually focuses on images of female saints and secular women of high status. However, a wider array of depictions existed, and representations of damned women might offer new insights into medieval societal perspectives regarding women, power, control, sexuality, and morality. This paper…
Representations of sinners punished in Hell as depicted in Byzantine monumental decoration in churches of rural Venetian Crete, include at least twenty-five damned tormented in the afterlife for having engaged in various forms of gossip during their life. While these sinners are predominantly female, the fact that they are not exclusively women, certainly challenges long-standing…
Motherhood and mothering in Byzantium remain underexplored topics. Despite decades of rich feminist scholarship intersecting with gender studies, these areas continue to be marginalized, and to date, there has been no systematic study. The goal of this paper is to explore the concept of mothering in Byzantium from the 6th to the 12th centuries and…
At her core, Jezebel is a killer. Jezebel’s children die, and their names are blotted out from the genealogies of Jesus according to late ancient readers because of her monstrosity. In this paper, I analyze two Byzantine sources, Cyril of Alexandria’s Commentaries on the Twelve Prophets (written 412–428) and Jacob of Serugh’s On Elijah the…