Byzantine Empresses provides a series of biographical portraits of the most significant Byzantine women who ruled or shared the throne between 527 and 1204. It presents and analyses the available historical data in order to outline what these empresses did, what the sources thought they did, and what they wanted to do.

This book reconsiders a wide array of images of Byzantine empresses on media as diverse as bronze coins and gold mosaic from the fifth through to the seventh centuries A.D. The representations have often been viewed in terms of individual personas, but strong typological currents frame their medieval context. Empress Theodora, the target of political pornography, has consumed the bulk of past interest, but even her representations fit these patterns. Methodological tools from fields as disparate as numismatics as well as cultural and gender studies help clarify the broader cultural significance of female imperial representation and patronage at this time.

The role of the Byzantine emperor has been exhaustively analyzed; the place of the Byzantine empress -- often perceived as an appendate to male imperial power -- is more problematic. Elizabeth James begins her study with Helena, mother of the first Christian emperor, Constantine the Great, and ends with Eirene, the only woman to rule as an "emperor" in Byzantium. More than simply a biography of each empress in the period between the fourth and eighth centuries, this book analyzes the nature of female imperial power during that time. What rights and responsibilities, what access to power, if any, did the office of empress carry?

The Empresses of Constantinople by Joseph McCabe, first published in 1913, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.

This volume brings together a group of international scholars, who explore many unusual aspects of the world of Byzantine women in the period 800-1200. The specific aim of this collection is to investigate the participation of women - non-imperial women in particular - in supposedly 'masculine' fields of operation. This new research across a range of disciplines attempts to provide an analysis of the activities of and attitudes towards Byzantine women in this period. Using evidence from sources as diverse as tax registers, monastic foundation documents, twelfth-century novels, historical texts, art history and the writings of women themselves, such as the hymnographer Kassia and the historian Anna Komnene, these papers elucidate the context in which Byzantine women lived. They emphasize the variety of female experiences, the circumstances that shaped women's lives, and the ways in which individual women were perceived by their society. Contributions focus on women's dress, their participation in the street life of Constantinople, their appearance in Byzantine fiscal documents, their monastic foundations, their engagement with entertainment at the imperial court, and the way heroines are portrayed in the Byzantine novels. Analysis of the writings of the hymnographer Kassia, the networking of Mary 'of Alania' and the ways she overcame the disadvantages of being a foreign-born empress, and the family values reflected in Anna Komnene's Alexiad, draw attention to specific problems. All these aim to expand our understanding of the circumstances that shaped women's lives and expectations in the Middle Byzantine period and to analyze the range of women's experiences, the roles they played and the impact they made on society.