The Contest of Beauty and Sainthood: The Empress Bride as the Mirror of Perfection

Abstract

This article deals with the accounts of the imperial bride-show on Byzantine hagiographical sources from the ninth and the tenth centuries. Putting aside the discussion on the historicity of such a ceremony, which is dubious, it identifies as its literary origin the account of the Book of Esther about the search of a new wife for King Artaxerxes and as its purpose the justification of the marriage of a saint empress to a heretical husband. It proposes to read as an actualisation of the so-called ‘novel of Esther’ the narratives on the marriage of Theodosius II and Eudocia in Malalas’ Chronography (sixth century) and on the marriage of Theophilos and Theodora in the Life and encomium of Theodora (ninth century). The article also argues that the Life of Theodora could be the model for the other sources on this subject from the ninth century such as the Lives of St Philaretos, St Theophano and St Irene of Chrysobalanton, the Funeral Oration for Basil I attributed to Leo VI and the accounts on Cassia as a contender in the event for the search of a bride for Theophilos.