Women and Religious Life in Byzantium.
Oden, Amy G.
By Alice-Mary Talbot. Variorum Collected Studies Series. Aldershot:
Ashgate, 2001. xii + 310 pp. $105.95 cloth.
This volume is a collection of eighteen articles by Talbot,
previously published between 1983 and 2000. The focus of the collection
is religious life in Byzantium, with particular attention to the lives
of women, both within religious life and in the larger culture. However,
several essays address the religious life of men and the concept of
sanctity in Byzantium as well. This collection offers a scholarly
presentation and analysis of textual and material evidence relating to Byzantine holy women, men and religious life. Perhaps most beneficial
are the genuine questions Talbot brings to the material, including
whether women entered the convent in the late Byzantine period by choice
or necessity, whether the prohibitions listed in the many typika were,
in fact, strictly observed, and why there appear to be so many more
accounts of holy men than holy women in a given period. These analyses,
coming from a scholar who has worked with this period for two decades,
make for a rich feast.
The real strength of the book is the wealth of information
regarding Byzantine religious life ,in the articles. For example, the
opening essay, entitled simply "Women," offers a detailed
description of mundane aspects of women's lives both within the
household and outside it. It is especially helpful as an opening piece,
drawing a picture of such everyday domestic issues as the social
expectations at each stage of a woman's life in Byzantium, typical
ages of betrothal and marriage, the place of childbirth and
contraception in women's lives, the tasks of running a household,
and divorce. Too often, scholarship has stopped there, suggesting that
women functioned only within the home or entered convent life. Talbot
expands our understanding of women's lives in Byzantium, showing
the wide variety of activities in which women might engage outside the
home. These activities were both commercial and cultural, and included
participation in religious controversies. Women's engagement in
each depended on their social and marital status, region, and time
period. A virtually encyclopedic treatment of women's lives in
Byzantium, the opening essay represents the sort of concern with the
concrete details of religious life and culture one can find throughout
the book.
Similarly, "An Introduction to Byzantine Monasticism"
offers a broad yet careful overview of this central institution of
Byzantine religious life. She identifies the historical roots of
monasticism in the east and then offers a modest description of a
typical monastery. This concrete imaging helps us develop a picture of
what a monastery might have looked like, how many religious lived there,
why a person would choose to enter monastic life, what their familial
relationships might have been, what they ate and when, what sort of work
and responsibilities individuals might have had, and what the
organizational structure might have been within the life of the
monastery. While such imaginary reconstruction may be risky, Talbot
develops a working model that primes the imagination to ask more
questions. In this introduction Talbot also addresses the cultural and
charitable functions as well as the economic dynamics of Byzantine
monasticism. A subsequent essay turns specifically to a comparison of
the experience of men and women in Byzantine monasticism, including
tables of the numbers and sizes of nunneries and monasteries.
In "Women and Iconoclasm," Talbot, with A. P. Kazhdan,
chronicles the role of women in the iconoclastic controversy. Talbot
investigates "women's special attachment to icons" and
connects this phenomenon to women's experience of limits within
religion and culture. She documents every known instance in
correspondence, hagiography, and chronicles of women's involvement
in the iconoclastic controversy, primarily on the iconodule side. In
addition, her research shows that during one of the most active periods
of women's defense of icons, there were also an unprecedented
number of hymns written by women. Her careful tracing of women's
participation in this controversy brings an important gender analysis to
this central doctrinal question in Byzantine life. Perhaps the most
fascinating observation is of the proliferation of lead seals invoking
the Virgin Mary that peaks in the seventh century. She correlates the
invocations on the seals to the rise of iconoclasm. Talbot concludes,
interestingly, that women's roles were both curtailed and obscured
following 843, suggesting that the victors of the iconoclastic
controversy accommodated the prevailing anti-female views of iconoclasm.
Also particularly useful is her analysis of the whole concept of
female sanctity in Byzantium, with its attendant ambivalence about
women, offered here for the first time in English translation. Again,
Talbot's careful use and documentation of sources, even while
covering several historical periods, gives the reader access to issues,
claims, and patterns of signification given to the recognition of holy
women.
These are not new works. All the articles have been published
elsewhere. In fact, the pagination and type font has been preserved from
the previous publications, which may be visually disorienting or even
confusing for some. Talbot puts these essays under one cover with an
index to make a useful volume for students of religious life in
Byzantium. She does an admirable job of covering range without
sacrificing too much depth. This collection should be in every
university and seminary library.
Amy G. Oden
Wesley Theological Seminary
