Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in Byzantium and the Medieval Mediterranean

Alexander D. Beihammer, Ph.D. (1999), Vienna, is Associate Professor of Byzantine history at the University of Cyprus. He has published on Byzantine diplomatics and on political and cross-cultural relations between Byzantium and the Muslim World and recently on the Seljuk Turks of Anatolia.Stavroula Constantinou, Ph.D. (2003), Free University Berlin, is Assistant Professor of Byzantine Philology at the University of Cyprus. She has published a monograph, and many articles on Byzantine hagiographical literature, including Female Corporeal Performances: Reading the Body in Byzantine Passions and Lives of Holy Women (Uppsala, 2005).Maria G. Parani, D.Phil. (2000), Oxford University, is Assistant Professor in Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Art and Archaeology at the University of Cyprus. She has published on Byzantine material culture, especially on dress as a mirror of cultural and social identity.

• Acknowledgments ... ixList of Maps and Illustrations ... xiList of Contributors ... xvComparative Approaches to the Ritual World of the Medieval Mediterranean ... 1Alexander BeihammerPart One: Rituals and the Transformation of the Roman World1. Imperial Birthday Rituals in Late Antiquity ... 37Maria Kantirea2. Phthonos: A Pagan Relic in Byzantine Imperial Acclamations? ... 51Martin Hinterberger3. Ritualized Encounters: Late Roman Diplomacy and the Barbarians, Fifth–Sixth Century ... 67Walter Pohl4. The Architecture of Allegiance in Early Islamic Late Antiquity: The Accession of Muʿāwiya in Jerusalem, ca. 661 CE ... 87Andrew MarshamPart Two: Succession Procedures and their Ritual Articulations5. Describing Rituals of Succession and the Legitimation of Kingship in the West, ca. 1000–ca. 1150 ... 115Björn Weiler6. Ritual and Reality: The Bayʿa Process in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Islamic Courts ... 141Eric J. Hanne7. Comnenian Imperial Succession and the Ritual World of Niketas Choniates’s Chronike Diegesis ... 159Alexander D. Beihammer8. Coronation Speeches in the Palaiologan Period ... 203Antonia GiannouliPart Three: Invention, Appropriation and Transformation between East and West9. Ritual, Politics, and the City in Mamluk Cairo: The Bayna l-Qaṣrayn as a Mamluk ‘lieu de mémoire’, 1250–1382 ... 227Jo Van Steenbergen10. Court Ceremonies and Rituals of Power in the Latin Empire of Constantinople ... 277Stefan Burkhardt11. Featuring the King: Rituals of Coronation and Burial in the Armenian Kingdom of Cilicia ... 291Ioanna Rapti12. Adventus, Arrivistes and Rites of Rulership in Byzantium and France in the Tenth and Eleventh Century ... 337Jonathan ShepardPart Four: Ritual Performances and their Reflections in Art and Literature13. V iolence in the Palace: Rituals of Imperial Punishment in Prokopios’s Secret History ... 375Stavroula Constantinou14. The “Court of Amorous Dominion” and the “Gate of Love”: Rituals of Empire in a Byzantine Romance of the Thirteenth Century ... 389Panagiotis A. Agapitos15. Parodies of Imperial Ceremonial and Their Reflections in Byzantine Art ... 417Henry Maguire16. Look like an Angel: The Attire of Eunuchs and Its Significance within the Context of Middle Byzantine Court Ceremonial ... 433Maria Parani17. Designing Receptions in the Palace (De Cerimoniis 2.15) ... 465Christine Angelidi18. Tented Ceremony: Ephemeral Performances under the Komnenoi ... 487Margaret MullettBibliography ... 515Index ... 565