Women and Violence in the Late Medieval Mediterranean, ca. 1100-1500

Lidia L. Zanetti Domingues, Lorenzo Caravaggi, Giulia M. Paoletti, Lidia L. Zanetti Domingues, Lorenzo Caravaggi, Giulia M. Paoletti

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• eBook ISBN: 9781000523492
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

This pioneering work explores the theme of women and violence in the late medieval Mediterranean, bringing together medievalists of different specialties and methodologies to offer readers an updated outline of how different disciplines can contribute to the study of gender-based violence in medieval times.

Building on the contributions of the social sciences, and in particular feminist criminology, the book analyses the rich theme of women and violence in its full spectrum, including both violence committed against women and violence perpetrated by women themselves, in order to show how medieval assumptions postulated a tight connection between the two. Violent crime, verbal offences, war and peace-making are among the themes approached by the book, which assesses to what extent coexisting elaborations on the relationship between femininity and violence in the Mediterranean were conflicting or collaborating. Geographical regions explored include Western Europe, Byzantium, and the Islamic world.

This multidisciplinary book will appeal to scholars and students of history, literature, gender studies, and legal studies.

Part I

Women and war

1

‘Both general and lady’

The 1135 defence of Gangra by its Amira

Maximilian Lau

DOI: 10.4324/9781003098430-3

Introduction

Though many Muslim Women, including several close kin of the Prophet, had been involved in warfare at the foundation of Islam, by the sixth-century AH/twelfth-century AD their participation appears to have been consigned to epic tales rather than contemporary reality.¹ Indeed, a ninth-century AD text related that a woman had once asked the Prophet why women were forbidden from winning the same rewards in battle that men could, and the Prophet is alleged to have answered that women could simply gain those rewards if they obeyed their husbands and stayed at home.² The marginalisation of Muslim women warriors was, however, as at odds with the realities of twelfth-century middle eastern warfare as it is with conflict in the modern middle east: when necessity or opportunity arose, women were and are still more than willing to take up the sword in the tradition of their martial predecessors. This study intends to throw the spotlight on one such figure, uniquely known not from an Arabic source but a Byzantine one: the unnamed woman who led the defence of Gangra from the assault of the Emperor John II Komnenos (1118–1143) in 1135. This previously understudied text functions at both a more literal level, giving us a snapshot of the events of this year as they were presented to the imperial court, and also displays unique literary elements, on which this paper will offer preliminary analysis.³

Genre and author

To briefly introduce this type of poem, it is one of the many so-called ‘rhetorical’ Greek texts from the twelfth century that were primarily written or order to be presented to either the court or the people of Constantinople as part of a public ceremony, though some also show signs of being academic exercises intended for use in teaching rhetoric. They were produced to glorify the emperor and his regime, using biblical, classical and more recent historical similes and references not only for literary flourish, but also to emphasise specific meanings that were of particular relevance to the regime, in addition to simply relating the latest doings of the emperor to the capital.⁴ Indeed, because these sources have a known, specific, political agenda that influences their transmission and presentation of events, they often act as a time capsule containing the messages the regime wished to be known in the capital, allowing us to take the political pulse of the regime and, thus, assess what the emperor and his government were attempting to accomplish. The overt bias is therefore profoundly useful in assessing these contemporary messages, in addition to adding some colour and detail to often-sparsely documented historical events, such that they could certainly be characterised as twelfth century official press releases, wrapped in literary allusions.⁵

To briefly comment further on the interplay between event and text, in practical terms messages were sent from the emperor on campaign to Constantinople, and perhaps the cities of the empire as a whole, keeping the people informed of developments, and we have one direct example of this from Anna Komnene’s Alexiad.⁶ With the Byzantine court and wider citizenry being as much a social and cultural organisation as a political and bureaucratic one, this information was then converted into the form of poems to be propagated and digested by the court and people, with specific forms of poetry directed towards different audiences.⁷ Specifically: the high style of hexameter was for elites, and the so-called dekastich (ten-line verse) was designed to be sung to a wider audience. Unfortunately, no verbatim battlefield communiqué survives, but we have the process of propagating imperial success described in two letters by Michael Italikos and Theodore Prodromos to the Logothetes ton Dromon (Minister for the Imperial Post), Stephen Meles, and then it is also referred to in the orations themselves. Italikos mentions how he heard a letter from the emperor and knew the words were by Meles, such was their eloquence describing the battles and deeds of the Cilician campaign.⁸ Italikos then mentions how he went to the ‘platform of the didaskaloi’ to pass on such deeds himself, and we are fortunate to have this exact oration preserved, during which he mentioned that giving orations was his public service, δημοσιεύ ων, where he passed on the news and instilled support for the regime in those listening. Prodromos corroborates this process in his own letter to Meles, where he looks forward to the logothete’s return so that Meles can ‘sing’ of the emperor’s deeds and then Prodromos can accompany and continue that song.⁹ Prodromos then boasts in Poem XIX that though many were working on poems for the emperor, only he had finished his, suggesting that speed of propagation was also important.¹⁰

Regarding Theodore Prodromos himself, recent scholarship has named him the Constantinopolitan ‘poet laureate’: a master of his craft who wrote more than 17,000 verses across multiple genres, from hagiography to classical romance, Aristotelian philosophy to satire.¹¹ His life is only known through his work, where we can track how he began writing in the service of John’s mother, Empress Eirene Doukaina, in the 1120s before being taken on by John’s regime in the 1130s, having a lean period in the 1140s when he considered moving to Trebizond, before writing again for John’s son Emperor Manuel I Komnenos.¹² When not supporting himself through commissions, he made his living by teaching, though he is also known for a number of so-called ‘begging poems’, often of a satirical nature as he parodied the extent of his own poverty, though the extent to which he was truly poor rather than wealthy and simply writing yet another genre is certainly up for debate.¹³ Either way, Prodromos was a writer of the highest calibre, with knowledge and writing interests across multiple genres, though the poem this study is focused upon is particularly exceptional even for him.

Text

Though this 292–line poem is addressed to the emperor, it opens by informing the emperor that the poet is actually recounting his deeds to the citizens of ‘Young Rome’, Constantinople (lines 1–2). The poet informs the people that the emperor had set out on campaign, ‘rushing upon the east, face to face with evildoers’ when ‘insufferable pain blunted the glorious assault’, as John’s beloved wife, Empress Eirene-Piroska, had died (lines 8–11, with her funeral mentioned in lines 11–17). This opening usefully confirms one of the three contradictory chronologies for this campaign related by different historical chronicles, but also introduces us to the first of the prominent women in this text.¹⁴

Princess Piroska Árpád of Hungary had been married to John when the two of them were teenagers, when she was also given the name Eirene, and unusually their marriage shows every sign of being a genuine love match.¹⁵ This is demonstrated particularly well in the foundation charter for the monumental monastery of Christ Pantokrator, which Eirene-Piroska had begun to found and which John completed after her death, in which he writes:

for through [God’s] help I found someone to share [the monastery’s] planning, construction, and completion, my partner and helper in life, though before the complete establishment of the task she left this world by thy mysterious decision and by her departure cut me apart and left me torn in two.¹⁶

It is therefore unsurprising that the poem relates how the emperor called off his campaign for her funeral, and to mourn, but the poem continues that, as emperor, John had to place the living before the dead (lines 17–20). Prodromos then mentions that the Lord of Gangra, known from another text as a certain Amir Alp-Arslan when he was captured by John,¹⁷ had died, and a Lady now ruled Gangra (lines 25–26).

This information is unique to this source, as is all further information concerning this unnamed Amira, as I have named her in this poem for clarity. From this point on she is attributed many verses of speech where she appears alternately as a savage enemy and cunning nemesis to John, and yet also a noble and worthy lady and general.

Going through the poem’s highlights, she is contrastingly presented not only as ‘a raving mad bitch grinding her teeth’ but also ‘a pure maiden, both general and Lady’ whilst also insulting the Theotokos:

κούρην δ᾽ὑλάασκεν ἄνασσαν, παρθένον ἁγνοτόκειαν, ὁμοστράτηγον ἄνακτος, λυσσήτειρα κύων, ὀλοοὺς δ᾽ὑποτέτριγ᾽ὀδόντας.

(lines 45–47)

Specifically, when John sent his ‘finest men’ as ambassadors to negotiate a surrender, she laughs, defying their ultimatum (lines 27–35). In her speech, she describes herself as a woman who puts forth the strength of a man, and willingly embraces the joys of battle rather than surrendering to John. She declares that she will not yield as she sits secure in a lofty citadel with well-armed soldiers, and then follows with a possible taunt by specifically mentioning that she is not ‘without allies’ (lines 26–44). Though Prodromos relates that these words did not anger or alarm John, despite their ‘arrogance’, and the poem moves swiftly on to John’s capture of the other major regional city of Kastamon and then arrival at Gangra in person (lines 51–57), this stands in direct opposition to our later written historical...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents Page
• List of contributors Page
• Acknowledgements Page
• Introduction: Medieval and modern gender-based violence
• Part I Women and war
• Part II Women and criminal courts
• Part III Violence and female social roles
• Conclusion: women and violence in the Mediterranean, ca. 1100–1500. A few conclusive reflections from the Medieval past to our days
• Index