Great Is The Imperial Dignity Voices, Adventus, and Power of the First Macedonian Empresses1
Great Is The Imperial Dignity Voices, Adventus, and Power of the First Macedonian Empresses1

Summary/Abstract: Interpretations of lives and roles of Byzantine empresses tend to be saturated with preconceived assumptions about gender and power. By looking at female imperial voices in late 9th and early 10th-century texts, as well as discursive traces of female imperial adventus, the article examines the rhetorical space that a Byzantine empress was able to occupy. The discursive practices of the period suggest an intriguing level of authority for the empress and call for a reexamination of the resilient hierarchical patriarchal paradigm.

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