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From Chariots to Light in Komnenian Imperia Celebrations (1139 – 1159)

    Elisabeth Jeffreys, Michael Jeffreys

Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 74, pp. 299, 2025/03/05

doi: 10.1553/joeb74s299

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doi:10.1553/joeb74s299

Abstract

Tue ways in which the Byzantines celebrated their emperors changed from those in the tenth-century Book of Ceremonies to the fourteenth-century protocols of Pseudo-Kodinos, from chariot-racing to brightly lit imperial appearances with poetic accornpaniment. When did this occur? Was it a result of the Latin Empire? When were bright appearances first regularly used for some of the most solemn moments in the imperial calendar? This article answers these questions using poems of "Manganeios Prodromos" (MP). Tue first evidence dates from 1148, during the Second Crusade: MP poems 21 and 22. The best evidence is from MP poem 4, which is a first-person account of the poet's participation with Manuel I in a prok:ypsis (spring, 1150). Many of the Manganeios poems are in the public domain, but in an edition which seems provisional and careless. After examining several other poems and listing some of the many questions that remain, we end by adding one exarnple of another approach, now using material culture, in fact sculpture. Tue answer to the question set above is "after 1148", less than a decade after the last poem of Theodore Prodromos which gives no hint of an impending break in the continuity of chariot racing.

Keywords: Imperial Celebration; Komnenian Dynasty; Manganeios Prodromos; prok:ypsis