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MARY MARGARET FULGHUM
Under Wraps: Byzantine Textiles as Major
and Minor Arts
Mary Margaret Fulghum is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of the History of Art and
Architecture at Harvard University.
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14 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
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Byzantine Textiles 15
form beneath. They can also physically protect from touch and gaze. In
short, textiles can become a second skin. Unlike wood, metal, or stone,
textiles easily absorb scent and moisture. Perhaps because of this "trans-
fer" of physical nature, they seem to have been endowed with special
spiritual qualities by the Byzantines. After being in contact with a saint,
relic, or miraculous icon, textiles were thought to possess the healing
power of the source. Some of the most famous and revered relics in
Constantinople were textiles, such as the Veil of the Virgin and the
Mandylion or "Holy Towel" on which the face of Christ was thought to
be impressed. The place of textiles in the Empire may be illuminated by
their most potent role in Byzantium: as a transitive medium in both the
physical and the spiritual worlds.
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16 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
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Byzantine Textiles 17
Silk, the most important cloth produced in the Empire, has always
dominated discussions of Byzantine textiles, which were often placed
under the heading of luxury goods, as in Jean Ebersolt's Les arts somf>-
tuaires de Byzance, published in 1923.14 As a result, due consideration has
not been given to the importance of many textiles made of less expensive
materials, such as wool and linen. Many interesting primary sources on
wool and linen production and use exist, even though these types of
textiles survive predominately from the Early Byzantine period in
Egypt.15 Few studies of Byzantine art history have looked at the medium
of textiles comprehensively. An exception is the catalogue-style mono-
graph of 1969 on extant Early to Middle Byzantine textiles by Wolfgang
Volbach, who covers all types of textiles, focusing on iconography and
chronology rather than economic value.16
Robert Lopez and David Jacoby have each published seminal articles
on silk weaving from an economic perspective. Robert Lopez's funda-
mental study of 1945 focuses on the commercial importance of silk for
Byzantium as well as the production of silk, which was highly organized
and regulated through a guild structure.17 Mainly using primary sources,
Lopez did not base his conclusions on extant textile evidence, which at
the time of his writing may have been unpublished or difficult to access.
In 1991, Jacoby examined silk production in the Greek Péloponnèse
during the Middle Byzantine period, but, like Lopez, he concentrated on
the economic and political implications of the silk industry, such as the
dispensation of production rights to aristocratic families.18 Jacoby did,
however, consider what extant silk textiles add to the discussion.
For art historians working with extant Byzantine textiles, physical
analysis and dating continue to be problematic. In an essay written in
1971, the prominent British art historian John Beckwith offered a thor-
ough explanation of different weaving styles, with a probable chronology
and provenance for Byzantine silk textiles. His frustration with the topic
is evident: "For all the thoroughness of technical analysis, for all the
checking of inventories, records and historical texts, for all the breadth
of art historical learning and stylistic appreciation, the result of years of
intensive labor tends to amount to very little."19
New approaches have enabled scholars to overcome or sidestep some
of the limitations outlined in Beckwith's article. Textile studies in
general have benefited from the recent interest in female roles in textile
production, in particular the interest among scholars of women's studies.
Most notable among them is Rozsika Parker in The Subversive Stitch:
Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine (New York, 1984). Parker
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18 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
FIGURE 1
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Byzontine Textiles 19
FIGURE 2
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20 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
evidence,
Sinai Archive, University of Michigan, Starensier argues that garments were often fashioned like
Ann Arbor.
banners or tapestries to create a grand backdrop. According to Nikodim
Pavlovich Kondakov, this alternative use of garments indicates that
FIGURE 4
court dress was the property of the palace. Both hangings and parade
Textile pattern on reverse of icon with
dress were stored in the oratory of St. Theodore, which also housed the
Heavenly Ladder of John Klimax, late
emperor's wardrobe, and they were under the supervisory care of the same
twelfth century. Monastery of St.
officers.25
Catherine, Sinai, Egypt. Photo courtesy
Michigan-Princeton- Alexandria ExpeditionByzantine churches were adorned with hangings for special occa-
to Mount Sinai. sions, as noted in a tenth-century source describing the decoration of
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Byzantine Textiles 21
FIGURE 5
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22 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
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Byzantine Textiles 23
FIGURE 7
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24 Studies in the Décorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
very coarse fibers of flax that had been rejected and the useless wool
tossed into the dung heaps, she would make bags."42 The tenth-century
Life of St. Athanasia of Aegina states: "One day while sitting and
weaving at the loom by herself, she saw a shining silver star descend as
far as her chest."43 The contemporary Life of St. Thomaïs of Lesbos notes:
"She put her whole hand to the spindle. She worked skillfully and artfully
to weave on the loom fabrics of various colors. . . . Her hands labored for
the sake of the poor and wove tunics for the naked."44
While the imagery of the Virgin and holy women weaving may have
done nothing directly to confine women to their traditional domestic
roles, as Nicholas Constas discussed, these were the examples of domestic
female passivity that Byzantine women were compelled to follow if they
FIGURE 8
wished to please God.45 The situation is complex, for as Elizabeth Barber
The female landowner Danielis being
points out, the activities of spinning and weaving were well suited to
carried on a litter, Chronicle of John
women as
Skylitzes, Vitr. 26-2, fol. 102r(a), 1150-75. child-bearers and child-rearers. Spinning, for example, does
Biblioteca Nacional, Madrid. not require undivided attention: it is relatively sedentary and can be
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Byzantine Textiles 25
easily picked up and put down when interrupted, for example, to care for
children.46 While the work of weaving was, in reality, often shared by
men and women, spinning historically remained a female activity per-
formed in the home.47 In Byzantium, the woman was usually responsible
for weaving all the linens and clothing to be used in her household. In
this sense, it could be argued that such activities of the Byzantine woman
not only confined her to the physical space of the home but also may
have further circumscribed her space, as she produced curtains for the
windows and doorways of her own home. She was probably also obliged
to weave the fabrics used to conceal her body from others, such as veils.
There is little specific visual or literary information about the aver-
age Byzantine women's dress. In general, it seems that there was almost
no indication or revelation of the female form in public. Typical Byzan-
tine women's wear from the Middle Byzantine period can be schemati-
cally reconstructed from the few visual representations of nonimperial
women. The usual female apparel consisted of a full-length, long-sleeved
tunic with a veil fitting over a headdress. One example of this female
costume can be found on a folio from the twelfth-century Chronicle of
John Skylitzes, which depicts the female landowner Danielis being car-
ried on a litter (Fig. 8).48 Nuns, who represented a substantial female
population in urban areas, drew their veils around their necks, so that no
part of their body was visible other than their faces and hands. In the
Middle Byzantine period, these modest dressing practices may have been
influenced by constant contact with Islamic neighbors since the seventh
century. Another equally important influence may have been the ever-
popular writings of Church Fathers such as John Chrysostom, a promi-
nent theological figure in Byzantium who lived in the late fourth century.
Fearing the power of the female, he states that the well-brought-up girl
"is relieved of every reason which might compel her to come into the
gaze of men . . . the virgin must be walled- in on all sides, in the course of
the whole year leaving the house only rarely - only when urgent and
pressing reasons compel her."49 When she did leave the house, she was
expected to cover her entire body, especially her eyes. Chrysostom
argued that "the eye not only of the wanton but even the modest woman
pierces and disturbs the soul."50 While Chrysostom should not be read as
reflecting daily life or mainstream public opinion (it is known that,
despite protests by the Church, women in his time were present at the
theater, races, and baths), other sources do provide evidence for the
practice of veiling. In the tenth century, for example, a nobleman argued
against custom that it was necessary for his daughter to go to the bath
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26 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
every week because her beauty was related to her cleanliness; when she
went out, however, he promised that she would always be veiled and
chaperoned.51
During certain periods of Byzantine history, women attending
church were restricted to the upper galleries of the building, where they
were separated and concealed from the congregation of men in the nave.
In his tenth-century Life of John Chrysostom, Symeon Metaphrastes
notes the use of curtains in the upstairs galleries of a church in order to
hide the women, who, he says, otherwise may have been distracting to
the men.52 It seems, however, that the curtains could function as "one-
way" screens. A Russian witness to the coronation of Manuel II in 1391
specifically remarks on the selective transparency of curtains hanging in
the galleries of Hagia Sophia: "and it is rather clever that the women
stand behind silk curtains and no one can see their adorned features, but
the men and everything else are visible to them."53 The curtains, there-
fore, were similar to a scrim in a theater: the light from the interior of the
church reflected off the fabrics, making them appear opaque to the men
standing below, but transparent to the women standing behind them.
Curtains in a church could also hide those shameful in the face of God.
In a miracle story, an ex-prostitute named Martha would sit behind a
curtain at the entrance to the shrine of Cosmas and Damián outside the
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Byzantine Textiles 27
These textiles could have come to represent the women whom men
concealed. Two recently published poems, attributable to the twelfth-
century Byzantine poet Pródromos, provide evidence for this hypothesis.
The first poem addresses the Sebastokratorissa Irene (wife of the Sebas-
tokrator, an office immediately below the emperor) and praises the
exterior decoration of her tent, with its mythological scenes:
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28 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
Certain "relic" textiles such as the Mandylion were known for their
capacity to transfer power. According to a legend first attested in the
sixth century, King Abgar of Edessa (modern Urfa in eastern Turkey) fell
ill and asked that Christ come to heal him. Instead, Christ used a towel
to wipe his face, and then sent it to the king. This towel, which in the
Byzantine tradition came to be known as the "Mandylion" (from the
Arabic mandil, "towel"), absorbed the image of Christ, and supposedly
cured Abgar. The city of Edessa honored the cloth as a holy relic, and,
when a Persian invasion was imminent, the Mandylion was hidden in a
wall. When it was recovered, the image of Christ was found impressed
into the tile against which the Mandylion rested. This secondary relic
became known as the Keramion, "the brick." During the Middle Byzan-
tine period, both relics were brought to Constantinople (the Mandylion
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Byzantine Textiles 29
in 944, the Keramion in 968) and stored in the Church of the Theotokos
at the Pharos palace, where other important relics, including the burial
cloths of Christ, the nails from the Crucifixion, and the crown of thorns
were also kept. On its entrance into the city, the Mandylion is recorded
as performing several miracles, such as restoring the sight of a blind
man.63
Because of its powers to heal and protect, the Mandylion was often
depicted above doorways and windows in churches as an amule tic image.
In the late twelfth-century Church of Panagia tou Arakou in Lagoudera,
Cyprus, an image of the Mandylion is painted on the triumphal arch
before the apse, a highly charged location. The Mandylion is also
depicted on the exterior of the church at Humor in modern Moldova
above an apse window.64 As "transitional" or liminal spaces, doorways
and windows were considered weaker and more vulnerable to evil, as
were people who crossed them, since they, too, were experiencing a
transition. These types of spaces were often protected with images or
apotropaic objects buried in the threshold.65 To emphasize the protective
qualities of the Mandylion, Hans Belting points out that as recently as
World War I, the Mandylion was replicated on the field banner of the
Russian and Bulgarian armies, like a "new Gorgone ion."66 Another
FIGURE 9
important textile relic in Constantinople, the Veil of the Virgin, was
Second Parousia (Second Coming of
used as a talisman by the Byzantine emperor Photius in 860 to fight an
Christ, on Judgment Day), miniature in
attack of the Rus' (a Scandinavian/Slavic people whose center of au- Christian Topography, Vat. cod. gr. 699, fol.
thority was in Kiev).67 89r, ninth century. Biblioteca Apostolica
The supernatural powers attributed to textile relics and their depic- Vaticana, Vatican City.
tions may have been supported by the symbolic use of textiles in the
liturgy. The liturgical use of textiles is discussed in detail by a variety of
Byzantine texts, and in-depth research on the subject has been done by
Robert Taft and by Hans Belting.68 Important liturgical textiles include
the endyti or altar cloth; the aër> a veil that covered elements of the
Eucharist; the epitaphios, a large veil depicting the body of Christ used
especially in Good Friday processions; the podea, a cloth that hung at the
base of icons; and the iwtapetasma, the iconostasis curtain covering the
"Royal Door," which concealed the holy mysteries from the congregation
during the service.69 The katapetasma is one of the oldest types of textiles
used in the liturgy. Its use seems to have been restricted to the East
(Syria, Egypt) until the Middle Byzantine period, when it became more
widespread, most importantly in Constantinople, via monastic custom.
According to one eleventh-century source:
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30 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
The shutting of the doors and the closing of the curtain (kata-
petasma) over them, as they are accustomed to do in the monaster-
ies, and the covering over of gifts with the so-called aër, signifies, I
believe, the night on which took place the betrayal of the disciple,
the bringing [of Christ] before Caiaphas, the arraignment before
Annas, the false testimonies, the mockery, the blows, and the
rest. . . . But when the ae'r is taken away and the curtain drawn back,
and the doors opened, this signifies the dawn on which they led him
away and handed him over to Pontius Pilate-70
lurked; this remedy succeeded in driving away the evil spirit.72 A similar
story is found in the eleventh-century Life of St. Nikon, who lived in the
tenth century. Loukas cured a priest's mother from a chronic disease. The
saint gave the priest a piece of his clothing, and told him to dip the cloth
in holy water from the liturgy of the Epiphany and then to give the water
to his mother to drink.73 A tenth-century source tells the story of the
mistress of Emperor Leo VI, Zoe Karbonopsina (late ninth-early tenth
century), who wished to have a child. She prayed to an icon of the Virgin
of the Zoodochos Pege ("Life-Giving Source"), a spring outside the walls
of Constantinople. In an early version of the story, she measures the
dimensions of the icon on a piece of cloth, and then wears the cloth as
a girdle. Zoe's prayers were answered. In a later version of the story, Zoe
hung a cloth in front of the mosaic, and then wore it as a girdle, with the
same result.74
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Byzantine Textiles 31
NOTES
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32 Studies in the Decorative Arts/F all-Winter 2001-2002
12. Muthesius, Studies, 285. For further specifics 26. Theophanes Continuatus (a ninth-century and the Loom of the Flesh," Journal of Early Chris-
on the contribution of Muthesius, see Jonathan Byzantine historian), Chronographia, cited in tian Studies 3, no. 2 (Summer 1995): 185-88.
Shepard, "Silks, Skills, and Opportunities in Byz- Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople, 164,
40. See the Protoevangelion of James in Wilhelm
antium: Some Reflexions," Byzantine and Modem 175 n. 54.
Schneemelcher and Edgar Hennecke, New Testa-
Greek Studies 21 (1997): 246-57.
27. Ernst Kitzinger, Byzantine Art in the Making ment Apocrypha, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1963), 1:
13. Adele LaBarre Starensier, "An Art Historical (Cambridge, Mass., 1977), 55, fig. 95. 21-25. Mary receiving the wool is depicted in mo-
Study of the Byzantine Silk Industry" (Ph.D. diss., saic in the narthex of the Chora church in Con-
28. Ibid., 54.
Columbia University, 1982). stantinople. See Paul Underwood, The Kariye
29. Cyril A. Mango and Ernest J W. Hawkins, Djami, vol. 2 (New York, 1966), pls. 130-34.
14. Jean Ebersolt, Les arts somptuaires de Byzance
"The Hermitage of St. Neophytos and Its Wall
(Paris, 1923), 77-82. 41. See the description in Maguire, Art and Holy
Paintings," Dumbarton Oaks Papers 20 (1966): figs.
Powers, 141-43 (the Vienna Genesis, Cod. theol.
15. Cf. Florence D. Friedman, ed., Beyond the Pha- 50-51.
gr. 31, pict. 34; the Vatican Virgil, Cod. Lat. 3225,
raohs: Egypt and the Copts in the 2nd to 7th Centuries
30. See Evans and Wixom, The Glory of Byzan- fol. 58r). Through the Middle Ages, the motif of
A.D., exh. cat. (Providence, R.I.: Museum of Art,
tium, cat. nos. 246, 247; Konstantinos Manafis, ed., weaving could also have an ambiguous or evil
Rhode Island School of Design, 1989).
Sinai: Treasures of the Monastery (Athens, 1990), meaning, in reference to the belief that women
16. Wolfgang Fritz Volbach, Early Decorative Tex- 107-8; also John Osbourne, "Textiles and Their could be crafty or even witches, reciting spells as
tiles, trans. Yuri Gabriel (London and New York, Painted Imitations in Early Medieval Rome," in they wove, which were then "trapped" in the cloth.
1969). Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 60 (Lon- Cf. Maria Tatar, The Hard Facts of the Grimms'
don, 1992), 309-51, who discusses painted church Fairy Tales (Princeton, N.J., 1987), 106-33.
17. Robert Lopez, "The Silk Industry in the Byz-
decoration intended to represent textiles.
antine Empire," Speculum 20, no. 1 (January 1945): 42. Alice-Mary Talbot, ed., Holy Women in Byz-
1-42. For an in-depth review of Lopez's article, see 31. Kitzinger, Byzantine Art, 54-57; Anna antium: Ten Saints' Lives in English Translation
Muthesius, Studies, 255-314. Gonosovà, "The Formation of Early Byzantine Flo- (Washington, D.C., 1996), 200.
ral Semis and Floral Diaper Patterns Reexamined,"
18. David Jacoby, "Silk in Western Byzantium Be- 43. Ibid., 142.
Dumbarton Oaks Papers 41 (1987): 227-37; James
fore the Fourth Crusade," Byzantinische Zeitschrift
Trilling, The Medallion Style: A Study in the Origin
44. Ibid., 303-4.
84/85, no. 2 (1991): 452-500.
of Byzantine Taste (New York, 1985).
34-36; De cer 1.11: Vogt, Le livre de cérémonies, 39. Nicholas P. Constas, "Weaving the Body of 1993): 163. Cf. Leyerle, "John Chrysostom on the
1.78. God: Proclus of Constantinople, the Theotokos, Gaze," 163 n. 25, for a list of other references in
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Byzantine Textiles 33
which Chrysostom advocates the enclosure of 60. Ibid., 181-82. 66. Belting, Likeness, 215.
women.
67. Belting,
61. Herbert L. Kessler, "Gazing at the Future:Theophanes
TheContinuatus, trans. Cyril
Parousia
50. Leyerle, "John Chrysostom on the Gaze,"Miniature
163; A. Mango
in Vatican gr. 699," in and Roger Scott
Byzan* (Oxford, 1997),
Chrysostom, De sac., 6.8. 674.23. Moss and
tine East, Latin West, ed. Christopher
Katherine Kiefer (Princeton, 1995), 365-76. Also
51. Judith Herrin, "In Search of Byzantine Wom- 68. Robert Taft, The Great Entrance (Rome,
see Hélène Papastavrou, "Le voile, symbole de
en: Three Avenues of Approach," in Images of 1978); Hans Belting, "An Image and Its Function
l'incarnation," Cahiers archéobgiques 41 (1993):
Women in Antiquity, ed. Averil Cameron and Ame- in the Liturgy: The Man of Sorrows in Byzantium,"
141-68.
lie Kuhrt (Detroit, 1983), 169. Herrin makes the Dumbarton Oaks Papers 34-35 (1980): 1-16. Also
62. Kessler,
important point: "for every institution for "Gazing at the Future," 368.
women, see Mathews, Early Churches of Constantinople,
162-63.
such as the public bath, there had to be female
63. See Hans Belting, Likeness and Presence, trans.
attendants, and these are well-documented." In
Edmund Jephcott (Chicago, 1994), chap. 11, 208- 69. Other symbolic textiles, such as the garments
other words, at segregated institutions, the employ-
15. Also see Averil Cameron, "The Mandylion in worn by priests, are listed in Johnstone, The By?:-
ees serving the women were necessarily women.
Byzantine Iconoclasm," in The Holy Face and the antine Tradition in Church Embroidery, 129-30. The
(Rome,
164; Symeon Metaphrastes, Vita et 1998), 33-54. S.
conversio For full accounts of the dif- ally "icon stand," separated the nave from the
ferent versions
loannis Chrysostomi, chap. 27 in Patrobgiae of the legend, see Ernst von Dob-
cursus sanctuary and altar, and the lay congregation from
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