The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 107

tune operated through complex and apparently rigid codes much

3. The construction of court ritual: the preoccupied with the imitation of canonical models. The same
Byzantine Book of Ceremonies theory of government had held since the fourth century AD, when
the Emperor Constantine founded Constantinople and gave his
support to Christianity as the imperial religion. It presented the
AVERIL CAMERON
emperor as God's special representative on earth, who was to be
regarded by his subjects as the visible image of God, and whose
authority thereby gained an overwhelmingly powerful heavenly
sanction.2
Tenth-century Byzantium has left us with a remarkably detailed These ideas (in fact a Christianised continuation of existing
documentary source for royal ritual — the work known as the Book tendencies in the Roman Empire)3 were given full expression in
of Ceremonies. It seems to consist of elaborate prescriptions for imperial art, which commonly depicted emperors and empresses in
court ceremony; since it was compiled by a Byzantine emperor, close association with Christ, the Virgin or the saints of the
Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (AD 913-59),' who presumably Christian church.4 Moreover, the emperors themselves acted out
himself took part in the rituals that he describes, it is naturally a regular rituals which frequently had religious content, and which
document of the highest importance for understanding royal cere- served to display the sense of unchanging imperial majesty and to
monial in Byzantium. We seem to have in it a direct record of court underline the link between emperor and God expressed in dozens
procedure whose accuracy is guaranteed by its authorship. It ought of literary and theoretical works. One of the most highly valued
surely to be possible to use its evidence as a basis for wider imperial virtues was in fact that of impassivity, hieratic calm (Greek
conclusions about Byzantine society, and it has indeed usually been galene, cf. the earlier Latin term tranquillitas), whereby the
used by scholars in this way. unchanging face of the imperial office was thought to be revealed.5
The issues I shall raise, therefore, are these: what is the real Not surprisingly, many modern historians have taken these
nature of this text, and what meaning can be assigned to the royal factors at face value. Byzantium has traditionally been regarded as
rituals which it describes? Before addressing either, it will be Byzantine imperial ceremony from a wider perspective: 'Analyzing imperial
helpful to set out two contrasting ideas of Byzantium in modern ceremonies', Jahrbuch der eisterr. Byzantinistik 35 (1985), 1-20.
2 For Byzantine political theory see F. Dvornik, Early Christian and Byzantine
scholarship, and in so doing to give some idea of the development Political Philosophy, 2 vols. (Washington D.C., 1966) and cf. also the emphasis of
of Byzantine studies to date. H. Ahrweiler, Videologie politique de l'empire byzantin (Paris, 1975), pp. 129-47.
For the divinisation of Roman emperors see S. R. F. Price, chap. 2 in this volume,
and his Rituals and Power: the Roman Imperial Cult in Asia Minor (Cambridge,
THE NATURE OF BYZANTINE CULTURE
4 A. Grabar, L'Empereur dans fart byzantin (Strasburg, 1936, repr. 1971) is
1984).
One standard view of Byzantine culture and society sees it as standard. Emperors were so depicted in the restored St Sophia of Constantine
essentially static, dominated by a weighty concern for tradition. VII's day (see below). I have confined myself in this paper to the period of the
Book of Ceremonies and earlier, but the same tendencies were continued in later
Most Byzantine art, for instance, and all Byzantine formal litera- Byzantine art: for a full and interesting discussion see P. Magdalino and R.
1 Editions: I. I. Reiske, Corpus Scriptorum Historicorum Byzantinorum, 2 vols. Nelson, 'The Emperor in Byzantine Art of the Twelfth Century', Byzantinische
(Bonn, 1829-30); A. Vogt, Rude, 2 vols. in 2 parts each (Paris, 1935-40), Forschungen viii (1982), pp. 123-83.
containing Greek text, commentary and French translation of i, chaps. 1-83 only. I have collected examples of this complex of ideas in my commentary on the Latin
In general, see A. Toynbee, Constantine Porphyrogennetos and his World sixth-century imperial panegyric by Corippus on the Emperor Justin II (AD
(Oxford, 1973), pp. 575-605; H. Hunger, Die hochsprachliche Profaneliteratur der 565-78): Averil Cameron (ed.), Flavius Cresconius Corippus, In laudem lustini
Byzantiner, 2 vols. (Munich, 1978), i, pp. 364-7. A similar treatise was put minoris libri quattuor (London, 1976); for imperial calm see p. 192. The fourth-
together in the fourteenth century and goes under the name of George Codinos century historian Ammianus Marcellinus' description of the entry of Constantius
(see J. Verpeaux, Pseudo-Kodinos, Trait4 des offices (Paris, 1906). Since this II into Rome in AD 357 (xvi.10.2 1.) is a famous passage illustrating the value
paper was written Michael McCormick has published an excellent introduction to placed on this notion.

106
 II

108 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 109

a static `theocracy'.6 The tone of such characterisations, moreover, intrigue and corruption. The elaboration of the rituals laid down in
has often been hostile. Take for example these words of Norman the Book of Ceremonies has seemed only to reinforce such a
Baynes, actually one of the most sympathetic students of Byzantium: conception.
a state which for more than a millennium continued to vegetate This dispute (recent in the traditionalist context of modern
without originality, living on a tradition inherited from the past.? Byzantine studies) is ,really therefore about the definition of
But in contrast to these traditional views, some recent Byzanti- `Byzantine'. Typically, scholars are even divided about the starting
fists have put forward a very different kind of description. Far from point of the period. Many make 'Byzantium' begin with Con-
being static and backward-looking, Byzantium now appears as an stantine the Great and the inauguration of Constantinople in AD
exceptionally fluid society unusually open in the possibility of 330, others only with the reign of Heraclius in the seventh century,
access to office and power. Prominent among these scholars is when major Persian inroads into Asia Minor, followed by the loss
Alexander Kazhdan, who stresses the extent of upward mobility of large areas of territory to Islam, brought important changes in
and the instability of the imperial throne, and sees a major divide the social and economic structure, including the virtual dis-
between antiquity and Byzantium — a break in the continuity of appearance of the antique cities (though even this is subject to
tradition — occurring in the seventh century, and closely tied to the dispute). The former view goes with an emphasis on continuity and
collapse of the classical city.8 Kazhdan also protests against the sameness in Byzantine civilisation.") The latter however is now
hitherto common tendency to look only for 'classical' elements in finding more support from both historians and archaeologists, and
Byzantine culture and to regard them as the most important, fits the conception now current among many late Roman historians
denigrating or ignoring its other aspects (which are often catego- of the essential continuity of late Roman government in the east
rised in extremely pejorative language).9 On the view which he until at least the sixth century." Thus the debate about terminology
criticises, Byzantium is seen essentially as a poor and decadent arises from a very real disagreement about the nature of Byzantine
imitation of Rome, as the alien 'other', locked into sterile aping of culture. It is currently probably too much polarised along the lines
the past and doomed to develop only in the direction of 'Byzantine of change or continuity; we should rather recognise that there was
6 For criticism of this view see A. Kazhdan, 'In search for the heart of Byzantium. both change and continuity at every stage, and concentrate on how
About several recent books on Byzantine Civilization', Byzantion li (1981), and why the balance shifts at particular times instead of attacking or
pp. 320-32; A. Kazhdan and G. Constable, People and Power in Byzantium defending the idea of near-total breaks.
(Washington D.C., 1982), pp. 117 f. What is at stake is the correct description of
Byzantine society, as realised also for instance by the French Byzantinist The Book of Ceremonies is central to any attempt to define
G. Dagron (see the preface to his collected papers, La Romanite chretienne en Byzantine culture, just because it seems so well suited to reinforce
Orient (London, 1984), pp. i-iii), where he describes Byzantium as 'un vaste the conservative view. I shall argue that its complex nature in fact
champ d'experimentation' for modern scholars, who must abandon their comfort-
able preconceptions and decide for themselves where they will place their demonstrates both the continuity and the change. The ceremonies
emphasis and hence their definition of Byzantine culture. which it records have their roots in the Roman Empire (as I still call
7 N. H. Baynes, 'The Thought-world of East Rome', in Baynes, Byzantine Studies
and Other Essays (London, 1955), pp. 25-46.
the period from the fourth to the sixth centuries AD). But at the
B
A. Kazhdan and A. Cutler, 'Continuity and Discontinuity in Byzantine History', same time the book itself represents a particular set of circum-
Byzantion lii (1982), pp. 429-78; see too C. Mango, Byzantium. The Empire of stances in the tenth century, a deliberate revival of tradition
New Rome (London, 1981), stressing the seventh-century collapse though laying la See Kazhdan and Cutler, 'Continuity and Discontinuity' (n. 8); Kazhdan and
emphasis also on the idea of the unity of the Byzantine 'thought-world'. See Constable, People and Power (n. 6), pp. 117 1.
further P. Speck, 'Waren die Byzantiner mittelalterliche Altgricchen, odcr glaub- ' h For a strong statement of the continuity of the eastern empire up to the seventh
ten sic es nur?', Rechtshirtorisches Journal ii (1983), pp. 5-11. century see G. E. M. de Ste Croix, The Class Struggle in the Ancient Greek World
An attitude which has led for example to the persistent over-valuation of the (London, 1981), and for a 'survey of recent archaeology sec R. Hodges and
sixth-century historian Procopius for his supposedly classical approach: see my D. Whitehouse, Mahomed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe (London,
Procopius and the Sixth Century (London, 1985). For Kazhdan's views see 1983). The standard view of Byzantium is synchronic to excess; there is in fact
also A. Kazhdan and S. Franklin, Studies on Byzantine Literature of the Eleventh considerable change, even in ceremonial (for the twelfth century see Magdalino 11
and Twelfth Centuries (Cambridge, 1984), ch. 1. and Nelson, 'The Emperor' (n. 4)).
110 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 111
springing from a new set of circumstances. It is not possible simply Fortunately these problems need not concern us too seriously here;
to lift the mass of rituals here described from their context and what matters for now is that it is clearly a tenth-century work of an
regard them without further ado as indicative of the nature of official character. There may be difficulties with individual sec-
Byzantine society as a whole. And yet it was the Byzantine tions, but its main thrust, and the tone of Constantine's intro-
emphasis on tradition and order that inspired the compilation of the duction, are sufficiently clear to enable us to locate it in a context
book itself and made royal ceremonial an appropriate field for and to pose questions of interpretation.
further development. In general terms, then, book i, as far as chapter 83, is fairly
clearly divided into court ritual for religious ceremonies and civil
THE BOOK OF CEREMONIES
imperial ceremonies, such as prescriptions for imperial deport-
ment at the races in the Hippodrome, or at receptions. But book ii
In the Book of Ceremonies, then, the Emperor Constantine VII is far less orderly: its material often overlaps with subjects already
Porphyrogenitus put together a collection of material mainly relat- covered, without any attempt at clarifying the relation between
ing to imperial ceremonial as part of the large number of works two different accounts. Some of this raggedness may be due to
either written or commissioned by him on provincial administra- revisions and additions to the text; but minor discrepancies
tion, imperial government, military ceremony and recent history; between parallel accounts of the same ceremony may equally arise
he also made collections of extracts on selected subjects from from the fluidity of the ceremonial itself and from differences in
earlier writers, especially historians. t2 There are two main parts to the sources available, which were both oral and written and of
the work, each conventionally known to us as a 'book', but very varying dates and quality. It would be a mistake to assume that
uneven in content, and consisting partly of earlier written material there was one fixed form of any particular ceremony. Rather, the
and partly of apparently contemporary description, as well as a rituals themselves naturally changed over time, and Constantine's
third section, the `Appendix' to Book i, a separate treatise on treatise only partially fixed a norm or harmonised differing
imperial expeditions and the ceremonies appropriate to them. versions.
Some of the material is not about ceremonial at all, while other Were we to take all this material as a direct record of the
parts are only loosely connected with the main theme, if such it is.13 ceremonial life of Byzantine emperors in the tenth century, we
Since this is clearly a compilation rather than a carefully construc- would have to conclude that a very large part of their time indeed
ted unitary work, and since the manuscript tradition is still under was taken up in ritually prescribed occasions. Some of the protocols
investigation, we must be careful not to assume too readily that its would only have been needed when the specific occasion arose —
original arrangement and purpose can be easily reconstructed." those for imperial marriages, for instance, or the births of imperial
12 For Constantine's scholarly work see Toynbee, Constantine Porphyrogennetos
offspring. Others would have arisen more often, but still irregu-
(n. 1), pp. 575 f. larly, for instance the bestowal of codicils of office on ministers of
13 Toynbee, Constantine Porphyrogennetos (see n. 1), p. 601 describes the work as state, or the appearances of the emperor at games or races. But the
being like a file in some department of state. Cf. p. 602: 'De Administrando
Imperio and De Caerimoniis, in the state in which Constantine has bequeathed
imperial calendar was also dictated by the liturgical year and the
them to posterity, will strike most readers as being in lamentable confusion.' exact prescriptions for the days of the major Christian festivals gave
According to Toynbee, part at least of the reason was simply that 'a disorderly a regularity to imperial ceremony which Constantine VII con-
sheaf of new documents would come tumbling in, and then the work of
rearrangement would have to be begun all over again'. There is at least some
sidered an important demonstration of order (taxis). However,
truth in this colourful account. even within the section of book i concerned with religious cere-
14 Since the edition by Vogt new material has been discovered; see C. Mango and
I. Sevtenko, 'A New Manuscript of the De Cerinionlif, Dumbarton Oaks Papers 0. Kresten disproves the conclusions of Vogt (e.g, pp. xv f.) on possible
xiv (1960), pp. 247-9. Sec too I. Rochow, 'Bemerkungen zu der Leipziger later additions in the text. I am very grateful to John Haldon for information on
Handschrift des Zeremonien buches des Konstantinos Porphyrogennetos and zu this point and for other help; he should not be taken as endorsing all my argu-
der Ausgabe von J. J. Reiske', Klio (viii (1976), pp. 193-7. Recent study by ments,
112 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 113
monies, we cannot tell how many of the rituals were actually
carried out from year to year.
Nevertheless, exact protocols are prescribed for numerous occa- Church of the Virgin k
BLACHERNAE,
sions, for every great feast and saint's day and for many lesser ones.
They often extend over more than one day, with prescriptions for
the eve of the feast as well as the day itself. Broadly, the protocols
consist of rules for imperial progresses to and from specified
gas
churches in Constantinople and the imperial palace, with fixed
stopping places (stations) and rules for ritual actions or accla- a Church of the
mations at these points from specified participants — members of Holy Apostles
the senate, ministers, the leaders of the 'Blues' and 'Greens', the Forum Tauri or
Forum of
groups in charge of the Hippodrome races and now the major Theodosius Forum of
Forum of
orchestrators of imperial ritual too.15 Not merely do Christmas, Arcadius It`"
Constantine St Irene*
Forum of t Sophia
Epiphany, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day and the Ox rent
Hippodrom
so on have their own prescriptions, but also for instance the feasts Palace

of the dedication of the Nea church built by Basil I (AD 867-886), SS Sergius
St Demetrius, St Basil, the Elevation of the Cross, the Feast of • and Bacchus

Orthodoxy and so on. The greatest concentration of ritual pre-

scribed for the emperor relates to the Easter period, beginning with
Golden Gate
Palm Sunday and continuing until the end of the first week after
Easter, but it differs only in intensity, not in kind, from that Sea of Marmara
prescribed for the rest of the liturgical year.

fi
It may be helpful to summarise the elements common to most of
the prescriptions. First, movement, either real or symbolic, mile
between sacred and profane contexts; not only the direction but o son moo moo metres
also the manner is laid down, whether on foot, mounted, by boat or
whatever other means. Secondly, dress: the costume of the
imperial participants is strictly regulated. Thirdly, the identity of 17 Constantinople. (The hatched area is shown in more detail in figure 18.)
those taking part — specified officials and clergy take part at fixed
points during the ritual. Fourthly, acclamation: elaborately pre-
scribed acclamations are laid down for particular places and dinner, also closely regulated and attended by specified guests,
moments during the ceremony, to be performed by particular often concludes the day. In these rituals, then, sacred and profane
groups — the senate, the people, the factions. Finally, food: a are brought together, the emperor even coming near at times to
playing the role of Christ; and the imperial palace is used as the
t' The 'Blues' and 'Greens', originally the professionals concerned with the teams in setting for ceremonies that are undeniably religious. In the palace
the chariot races, with their supporters, had already by the end of the sixth
century acquired a recognised role in imperial ceremony in general, a natural and the city, imperial ceremony is also religious ceremony.
development in view of the long-standing use of the Hippodrome and the races Some examples will best illustrate how it worked. They are
held there as a show-place of imperial display, and the need for experienced chosen not because they are special, but because they are typical.
performers to lead the imperial rituals as they grew more complex. See Alan
Cameron, Circus Factions (Oxford, 1976); and now G. Dagron, Constantinople In the first, the emperor processes on Holy Saturday to and from
imaginaire (Paris, 1985). St Sophia, the great church next to the imperial palace:
 The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 115
0
It should be known that the procession on Holy and Great
Saturday takes place in the same manner as this procession for
the Annunciation. The sovereigns dress in their robes called
'pagana' in the apartment in the Daphne part of the palace and
U
tJ go into the Octagpnal Chamber. There they remove their ordi-
dr.41L.ILAJL.-.47. nary cloak and leave by the Augusteus. Inside the great door of
the afore-said Augusteus stands a cubicularius [eunuch of the
C0 V bedchamber] carrying on his shoulders a bag containing a
0 hundred pounds and walking close behind the sovereigns. The
C
usual order for the reception is followed, as far as the procession
M of the Annunciation [already described]; both the notaries and
the choir leaders of the factions recite iambics in their special
2 4,
In c7 places, as has been said in the case of the Annunication. The
C
o. cs sovereigns pass by the Holy Well, as has been said, and enter the
t: • 0. c 7)
* 7,3 sanctuary, as we have said, and when the altar cloth has been
% il lni!
E spread according to ecclesiastical rite, the praepositus takes the
c bag from the cubicularius's hand and gives it to the emperor, and
0 the emperor places it on the lower part of the water bowl of the
9„ holy altar. Then the emperor censes it according to the manner
C laid down for the Annunciation, and they pass by the right side of
C
o
E the sanctuary and enter the sacristy, and there when the emperor
5
has censed the holy vessels they sit on their golden thrones and
E the patriarch sits on the throne placed there. t6
1(5 • c In this relatively simple ceremony the emperor processes in
(4 0
< formal dress to the church of St Sophia, performs ritual actions
a there and processes back to the palace, greeted with acclamations
6 la on the way. Other more elaborate processions stopped at fixed
2
O 0 7')
O <3 places, where the choirs of the Blues and Greens sang greetings,
11 while the emperor stopped and listened. Many protocols specify in
• =
o n_
v.1 wh
detail which secular officials are to be present and take part in the
0 ✓ 0 ceremony. On the Wednesday after Easter and on other days the
x emperor invited the patriarch to the ceremonial dinner, according
• • c to a prescribed formula.I7
8- E
0 if, Vogt, i (Texte, 1935), p. 27 (or Bonn edn (n. 1), i, p.34). Many of the technical
expressions are explained by Vogt in his commentary. The Holy Well, for
CO. instance, was a relic of the well which featured in the story of Christ and the
Samaritan woman. The water bowl was a basin under the altar for washing sacred
vessels; it was known as 'the sea'. Note the importance attached to dress: as well
oo as his literary scholarship, Constantine VII restored both the ceremonial apart-
ments and the imperial vestments, crowns and diadems (Theophanes
Continuatus, ed. I. Bekker, (CSHB, Bonn, 1838), pp. 447-8).
17 Vogt, i (Texte, 1935), pp. 83 (or Bonn edn, i, p.90),
116 AVER1L CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 117
Of the explicitly religious rituals, perhaps the most interesting in mangion like those invited; for after the procession all change
terms of the identification of the emperor with the Christian their dress.2°
mythology is the ceremonial for Palm Sunday. is Preceded the It is expressly said that on this occasion the empress also receives
previous night by the giving of palms with crosses of gold and silver entries and is given crosses in the same manner as the emperor.
by the emperor to the senators, patricians and officials according to There is therefore, a complete intertwining of royal ceremony
rank in the church of St Demetrius, the ritual for Palm Sunday itself with the Christian liturgical year. The 'secular' ceremonies share in
takes place within the palace, in the throne-room known as the these religious overtones too. On the promotion of a cubicularius,
Chrysotriklinos (`Golden Chamber'), where an icon of Christ stood for example, the emperor sits on the throne in the Chrysotriklinos
above the imperial throne, a visual symbol of the theoretical and the new cubicularius is robed and sworn in in the oratory of St
relation between emperor and Christ.'9 The members of the Theodore, then brought before the emperor to perform homage.21
government and court gather as the emperor is seated below the The installation of the leader of the senate involves the same robing
icon, and salute him in turn together with representatives of the in the oratory and then a move to St Sophia and a benediction from
church. The emperor receives crosses from certain groups as they the patriarch; on the way through the Chalke vestibule the new
prostrate themselves, and then leaves in procession to the singing of leader is hailed by the factions with the acclamations usually given
hymns to the churches of the Virgin and St Stephen, then back into to patricians. His duties will include being at the emperor's side
the Chrysotriklinos, where when he wishes to put on or take off the diadem.22 To the extent
the emperor goes to take up his place on the right of the that the spatial setting of most of the rituals combines religious and
Chrysotriklinos, near the arch leading to his apartments. The secular areas, and that movement between them is an integral part
patricians stand on the left of the Chrysotriklinos and in front of of the rituals, even ceremonies like these will tend to look partly
the throne, holding their processional candles and their crosses, `religious', especially as clergy are normally present. But we find a
and the priests come to the middle of the Chrysotriklinos and similarly religious overtone even in more apparently secular pres-
stand near the throne. The deacon places the Gospels on the criptions such as those pertaining to the emperor's appearance at
imperial throne and the usual litany is recited. The emperor goes the Hippodrome. Yet that is not surprising if we reflect that the
with the people of his Bedchamber and the clergy to the church Hippodrome adjoined the palace, and that the emperor's appear-
of the Holy Virgin in Pharos, and the patricians leave after ances there had for centuries been a major aspect of imperial
acclaiming the emperor. Then, if the emperor so orders, they display, perhaps his most impressive appearances in public.23
summon the patricians and they take part with the emperor in the 20 Vogt, i (Texte, 1935), pp. 163-4 (in Bonn edn, i, p. 175). The scaramangion was a
liturgy at the church of the all-holy Virgin: if not, they celebrate ceremonial tunic worn by the emperors; the Pharos chapel, perhaps dating from
the reign of Constantine V (AD 741-775), became the repository for Constanti-
the liturgy outside at the church of St Stephen in the Hippo- nople's most holy relics, and it was here that in AD 941 Constantine VII
drome. The list of those invited is read out and the signal is given, deposited the famous `Mandylion' of Edessa, the most celebrated of the so-called
and after the ending of the divine liturgy the emperor leaves and `images not made by human hands' after its recovery from Arab control. See my
article 'The History of the Image of Edessa: the Telling of a Story', in C. Mango
sits at his costly table in the Iustinianos dressed in the scara- and 0. Pritsak (eds.), Okeanos. Festschrift for I. Seveenko, Harvard Ukrainian
Studies vii (1983), pp. 80-94.
11 Bonn edn, i, p. 625. 22 Ibid., pp. 440 f.
18 Vogt, i (Texte, 1935). pp. 160 f. (or Bonn edn, i, pp. 171 f.). Many details from ?-1 For instance, compare the ceremonial ordering of the figures of the emperor and
this and other ceremonies are noted and discussed in 0. Treitinger, Die ostriimi. court on the base of the obelisk of Theodosius; early sixth-century inaugurations
sche Kaiser- and Reichsidee nach ihrer Gestaltung im hofischen Zeremoniell actually took place in the Hippodrome, and after that of Justin II (which took
(Darmstadt, 1956), place inside the palace) the emperor appeared there and received acclamations of
19 On this throne-room see I. Lavin, 'The House of the Lord', Art Bulletin xliv the people (see my edition and commentary on Corippus' poem (n. 5), pp. 171 f.
(1962), pp, 1-27. It was one of the apartments decorated by Constantine VII (see for discussion); further, Magdalino and Nelson, 'The Emperor in Byzantine Art
n. 16); see further below for its fate during the period of Iconoclasm and its of the Twelfth Century' (n. 4), pp. 164 f.; M. McCormick, Eternal Victory
subsequent restoration when the sacred images, which had been removed, were (Cambridge, 1987).
put back.
118 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 119
RITUAL IN TENTH -CENTURY BYZANTIUM and was worried that others did not. He felt also that it was not
always performed in the right spirit or with as much punctilio as it
The prescriptions of the Book of Ceremonies, together with its demanded, and his compilation is presented as a guide for future
descriptions of actual royal occasions, seem to indicate a highly emperors and officials. It is not a straightforward record of actual
developed and highly regulated court ritual, often uniting secular ceremonies performed at any one time. Further, its compilation
and religious elements within a single protocol. We would like to belongs squarely in a context of codification and antiquarianism. It
know just how many of these ceremonies were regularly per- is only one of several works sponsored by the emperor, in an age
formed. Constantine VIPs introduction might seem at first sight to which saw a notable output of scholarly and encyclopaedic works.
suggest that they had fallen into a state of decay, which he hoped to Codifying imperial ritual was seen as a task on a par with drawing
rectify. up lists of imperial officials or collecting extracts from earlier works
He identifies two of the good effects that would follow in his view on such important political topics as diplomacy or military tactics.
from the proper observance of court rituals: first, the enactment of More importantly, it was a question of the relation of tenth-century
`the harmonious movement with which God the Creator has Byzantium to its past.
imbued the world .. . to make the imperial power seem more It would be a mistake to assume too readily that Byzantine
awesome to its subjects and at the same time more agreeable and imperial ritual had really fallen into such a state of decay as
more impressive';24 and second, the strictly functional aim of Constantine implies. When Bishop Liutprand of Cremona visited
impressing foreigners and subjects with the splendour and dignity Constantinople in AD 968 he was impressed (though not taken in)
of the Byzantine court. He implies that not all take the rituals as by the glories of the imperial court and the theatrical stage-
seriously as he does himself: 'some who do not share our great management of his reception. The audience was interrupted by the
concern for weighty affairs might think this enterprise a waste of start of one of the emperor's solemn processions to St Sophia,
time'. To Constantine himself, however, the imperial rituals are which Liutprand then describes. He reports with scorn the accla-
like 'flowers picked in the fields to decorate the imperial splen- mations greeting the emperor (Nicephorus II Phocas) as the
dour'. So long as they are observed, and the imperial power is duly morning star and the prostrations to the ground as he enters the
exercised with rhythm and order (rhythmos and taxis) they will church.26 Persian envoys in earlier periods had been equally
display the harmony of divine and imperial dispensation. 'To us it carefully handled, and the Book of Ceremonies preserves a set of
seems very important and worthy of effort, and is closer to us than instructions for such a reception from the sixth century. Detailed
anything else, since as a result of this praiseworthy order the rules are laid down for the escort and lodging of the ambassador on
imperial power is revealed as more majestic and awe-inspiring and the long journey to Constantinople, and then on arrival. The high
for that reason is honoured by foreigners and by our own subjects'. point is his reception by the emperor, for which there are elaborate
At least part of Constantine's purpose, then, as he wants it to be regulations for the dress and positions to be adopted by the
seen, is to impress foreign envoys. Byzantine officials and courtiers. The doors are curtained, a sign of
But there are other aspects to it as well. To judge from the mystery, and the envoy advances gradually, escorted by the Master
statements of its compiler, it would seem that the Book of Cere-
Liutprand, Legatio, 9-10 (ed. J. Bekker, Monutnenta Germaniae Historica,
monies reflected, if not the invention of tradition,25 then certainly Script. rerum Germanicarum, 3rd cdn (Hanover and Leipzig, 1915). Liutprand's
its conscious revival. Constantine VII took royal ritual seriously description of his earlier reception by Constantine VII in AD 949 is even more
famous: the Magnaura was fitted out with mechanical birds and beasts and a
24 Vogt, i (Texte, 1935), p. 2 (in Bonn cdn, i, p.5). throne which could be raised or lowered at will (Liutprand, Antapodosis, vi.5).
25 See further below, pp, 125-7, and for the idea of the `invention of tradition',
The banqueting hall of the Nineteen Couches, also restored by Constantine VII,
E. Hobsbawm and T. Ranger (eds.), The Invention of Tradition (Cambridge, (see n. 16), was equipped with a system of pulleys to get the food from the
1983), especially the paper by D. Cannadine, 'The Context, Performance and trolleys that brought it onto the tables (ibid., vi.8). For such devices see G. Bret,
Meaning of Ritual: the British Monarchy and the "Invention of Tradition", c. 'The automata in the Byzantine "Throne of Solomon"', Speculum xxix (1954),
1824-1977', pp. 101-64. pp. 477-87.
120 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 121
of Offices, making prostrations at fixed intervals, until eventually
he reaches the emperor for the formal exchange of gifts— provision
having been duly made in case the gifts should include horses." II
—•, Ro.i.
The development of ceremonial at Byzantium was however a r _
living thing. It is clear from various examples that in fact innova-
tions in ceremony were being made in the years immediately
preceding the compilation of Constantine VII's book. On Easter ti
Monday, for example, the prescription concludes with the remark J¢ ..14
that in Leo VI's time (Constantine's father) it was customary for ref-
the emperor to ride on horseback to the church of the Holy
Apostles, wearing his crown, and to return the same way, but
wearing a different crown and costume.28 Constantine's grand-
father, Basil I, was commemorated by his son Leo in homage paid I

to his image during a ceremony which he had instituted.29 New

ceremonies marked particular events such as the foundation of the
Nea ('New') church in the imperial palace by Basil I: thereafter the
day was celebrated annually with a formal procession with the
LT
senate and patriarch from the Chrysotriklinos throne-room to and
from the Nea; inside the church the sovereigns kissed the doors, •

then the altar-cloths of the various altars, before lighting candles in

front of the image of Basil and hearing the reading of the gospels in
the adjoining oratory."
Another ceremony comparatively new when Constantine wrote . 11 twfX..
was that for the Feast of Orthodoxy, celebrated on the first Sunday
in Lent to commemorate the return of images and the ending of the 19 Late twelfth-century roundel showing an emperor in stylised court dress against
a disc evoking solar associations. The use of sun imagery for emperors began
iconoclast schism in AD 843.31 In the surviving account there are early and was also a way of assimilating emperor and Christ (the latter as the sun
clear traces of two different ceremonies, an earlier and a later of justice). The elegant economy of this piece conveys much of Constantine VII's
version, the latter postdating the death of patriarch Theophylact in imperial ideal.
AD 956; presumably the earlier dates from 843 or soon after. In
each case, the ritual consisted of a formal progress to St Sophia, of the ceremonies was followed by the usual dinner, and the
now formally recovered from Iconoclast control, and in which the reading of the list of those invited was an important part of the
famous apse mosaic of the Virgin had been set up in AD 867. Each formal proceedings. In book ii, finally, alongside the timeless
27 Bonn edn, i, pp. 398ff. prescriptions there are records of particular occasions, several from
211 Vogt, i (Texte, 1935), p. 77 (in Bonn edn, i, pp. 85-6). the reign of Heraclius (AD 610-641) as well as, for instance,
29 Vogt, p. 106 (in Bonn edn, i, pp. 114 1.). contemporary rules for addressing foreign governments.
3° Vogt, p. 109. On Basil's Nea Ekklesia ('New Church'), sec also the Life of Basil,
83-4 (trans. Mango, in C. Mango, The Art of the Byzantine Empire, 312-1453 It is certain then that whereas any particular emperor (though
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1972), p. 194). Leo VI was also a builder: sec P. Magda- probably not either Basil I or Leo VI, who seem to have been
lino, 'The Bath of Leo the Wise', in Ann Moffatt (ed.), Maistor. Classical, innovators in this regard) might have laid less stress on ceremony
Byzantine and Renaissance Studies for Robert Browning (Canberra, 1984),
pp. 225-40. than Constantine VII did, the general level of royal ritual was
31 Vogt, pp. 145-48 (= Bonn edn, i, pp. 156-60). indeed high, and that ceremonies of roughly similar kind to those
122 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 123
envisaged in the protocols laid down by Constantine had been relation between the emperor and the office-holding class as that
performed more or less regularly since at least the fifth and sixth between the emperor and God. It is his actual relation to the church
centuries.32 Codified or not, court ceremonial mattered at and its living representatives, again, that is expressed here just as
Byzantium. much as the theology of Byzantine rule. We can provide a fuller
context: not long before the compilation of Constantine VII's
THE CONTEXT OF THE BOOK OF CEREMONIES
work, the so-called Cletorologion of Philotheus was drawn up — a
detailed list of Byzantine officials and foreign guests in strict order
I shall return later to the social context within which these rituals of precedence, and another example of the contemporary zeal for
had developed in their early stages. We must now ask what listing and codifying applied to the very real and important question
meaning if any might be attached to the mass of ritual to which the of the structure of the governing class.34
Book of Ceremonies testifies. Of course we have an obvious The compilation of the Book of Ceremonies coincided with what
explanation — Constantine VII's own — namely that they displayed has been seen as a thrust from the government towards an even
the desired sense of divine and human order, thus that they were a greater degree of autocracy. I quote from the standard history of
symbolic enactment of the theory about the Byzantine state which Ostrogorsky: 'The omnipotence of the emperor and the trans-
had barely changed since it had first been voiced about Constantine formation of the state into a bureaucracy now realized their full
I, according to which the emperor was the earthly representative of development.'35 That is certainly how the emperors wanted it to be
God. seen. To that end, strict control of the official class was essential,
Much of the ritual is indeed religious, just as much Byzantine and the Book of Ceremonies codified that theoretical control. The
imperial art is also religious art. But there were also exact prescrip- reality might be less harmonious. Skylitzes criticises Constantine
tions for secular occasions — imperial appearances at the races, VII himself for poor selection of officials, and his wife for selling
imperial birthdays and so on. Moreover, many of the rituals were offices. Similarly, the actual relations between emperor and church
concerned with the ratification of the bureaucratic structure of the belied the official theory. Theoretically a layman and unable to
Byzantine state, in conferring promotion to particular offices.33 dictate directly to the church, the emperor in fact frequently
Those who attended the court rituals were, if they were not clergy, deposed patriarchs and overruled or ignored ecclesiastical oppo-
office-holders appointed through the patronage of the emperor. sition. The long Iconoclast controversy, beginning in the reign of
These were not hereditary nobles, idling away a life at court. They Leo III in the early eighth century and lasting until the middle of the
were the members of the very class from which emperors often ninth, was only one of the most dramatic and long-lasting of such
themselves sprang, men whose status derived from office, to which episodes. Constantine VII's father, Leo VI, for instance, had
emperors have the key; their participation in the rituals was as caused a crisis in relations between emperor and church when we
essential as that of the emperor himself, and as minutely regulated. went against his own recent law and took a third and then even a
Thus these court rituals are as likely to tell us about the political fourth wife; in the final stages of this crisis he defied the then
32 See below, p. 129, and for signs of the continuity of ceremony in the seventh and patriarch and married his last wife, already the mother of his son,
eighth centuries see Averil Cameron and Judith Herrin (eds.), Constantinople in the future Constantine VII; when he was forbidden entry to St
the Eighth Century: the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai (Leiden, 1984), pp. 170, 34 See J. B. Bury, The Imperial Administrative System in the Ninth Century with a
209-10,212. Revised Text of the Kletorologion of Philotheos (London, 1911); the Cletorolo-
33 For ceremonial in relation to the official or bureaucratic structure of a state see gion is appended at De Caer., Bonn edn, pp. 702-91. For the evolution of new
M. Fortes, 'Ritual and Office in Tribal Society', in M. Gluckmann (ed.), Essays offices in this period see also N. Oikonomides, Les Listes de preseance byzantine
on the Ritual of Social Relations (Manchester, 1962), pp. 53-88, emphasising, des IXe et Xe siecles (Paris, 1972), and in general, R. Guilland, Recherches sur les
among other relevant observations, the importance of prescribed dress (p. 66), institutions byzantines, 2 vols. (Berlin-Amsterdam, 1967).
and citing R. Redfield, The Primitive World andits Transformations (Ithaca, NY, 35 G. Ostrogorsky, History of the Byzantine State, trans..1. Hussey (Oxford, 1980),
1953), for the technical (i.e. utilitarian) and moral (i.e. symbolic) aspects of p. 245 (this book, of which this is a translation from the third German edition of
office. For the Roman background see S. R. F. Price, above chap. 2 pp. 82-91. 1963, is still the main textbook of Byzantine history).
124 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 125
Sophia at Christmas, AD 906 and Epiphany, 907, papal help harmony, that does not mean that the dissonance was equally
enabled him to dethrone the patriarch and appoint a more amen- obvious to the participants themselves. They were not cynical
able successor. This is exactly the kind of situation which the Book manipulators, however much we may be tempted to see them in
of Ceremonies entirely conceals, in its bland assumption that all is that way.
well if only the due forms are preserved. Convenient, however, it certainly was. Yet neither the theory
A particular dissonance between the world of imperial ceremony nor the ceremony was a creation of the Byzantine period itself.
and that of real life arose over the matter of imperial succession, Both went back to the Roman Empire.
where the theory that emperors were divinely elected and pro- When Augustus had become effective ruler of the Roman world,
tected by God coexisted with a situation in which there was in fact after the battle of Actium in 31 BC, he had evolved an uneasy
no constitutional procedure for choosing an emperor. Every acces- concept of himself as first citizen rather than autocrat.36 Thus the
sion posed the threat of usurpation, and emperors were in practice notion of consent was retained, with the consequence that govern-
frequently made by murder and intrigue. Again we can take our ment was always vulnerable, as it was also to military coups if an
examples from Constantine VII's own experience. He himself was emperor was unable to control the armies sufficiently tightly. Nor
unusual in having been born in the purple — even if illegitimately. did imperial adoption of Christianity change the situation, as the
His epithet, Porphyrogenitus, literally means just that: 'Born in the blood bath which followed the death of Constantine I proved. It did
Purple Bedchamber' of the imperial palace. He was raised to the however bring to the imperial office a whole new set of moral and
title of Augustus at an early age. Yet his father, Leo VI, was religious sanctions; it could not prevent usurpation, but it could
actually succeeded by his brother, and Constantine was later imply that it was a sin. From Constantine I on (AD 306-337), all
displaced when his father-in-law, who, though not of the ruling emperors, with only one exception, were Christian, and all profited
house, had been elevated by Constantine himself to Caesar and from his decision to identify himself with the institutional church
then to Augustus, raised his own sons above Constantine and made and from the moral advantage it gave to their own position.
himself senior emperor. Constantine did not assume sole power Without ever fully specifying the relation between emperor and
until this man had been deposed by his sons and the sons then church, and without essentially altering the relations of army,
arrested and exiled. Two generations earlier, Basil I, the founder of emperor and governing class, a specifically Christian theory of
the dynasty and himself the son of a peasant, had seized power also government emerged, and with it a correspondingly impressive
after the murder of the reigning emperor. presentation of the emperor. It was this that Byzantium inherited
This vulnerability, and the rapid change of dynasties, was the and intensified.
reality; only the political theory, emphasising the emperor's protec- At the same time public ceremony had also been steadily
tion by God, remained stable. An emperor could be made at any increasing. It was in some sense a replacement for the debate and
time by intrigue or force; an empress could be chosen like Cinder- competition that had characterised public life in the late Republic,
ella for her physical attributes. As for the officials invited to the before Augustus.37 As the remaining vestiges of discussion were
ceremonial banquets and commended to take up their positions for gradually extinguished, and the political tradition of Rome took on
this or that procession, they were of course the very group which more and more of the appearance and associations of kingship,
might at any moment throw up a usurper. The theory, and the political life came to be dominated by the visual display of power
ceremonial round remained. It helped to legitimate a new emperor, 3'1 For an interesting discussion of the implications of such a situation for imperial
and it effectively masked the real state of affairs. comportment, and the gradual change to a more monarchical, but hardly less
There are many parallels for this apparent discrepancy between precarious, style of rule, see A. Wallace-Hadrill, 'Civilis Princcps: between
Citizen and King', Journal of Roman Studies lxxii (1982), pp. 32-48. See too
theory and actuality in the study of both modern and traditional Price, above, chap. 2, pp. 73, 78ff.
societies. If it was to our eyes convenient to the Byzantines, and 37 On which see Mary Bcard and Michael Crawford, Rome in the Late Republic
especially in Constantine's VII's interest, to act out an ideal (London, 1985).
126 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 127
relations. Imperial ceremony was mirrored by a lesser but equally constant use of formulaic acclamation. It may seem surprising to
noticeable growth of ceremonial in the cities of the empire.38 And read in the Book of Ceremonies that on religious as well as secular
the patronage of Christianity by the emperors of the fourth century occasions the lengthy acclamations of the emperors were per-
and later opened up a powerful new dimension for imperial ritual, formed by choirs of the Blues and Greens, the old circus factions;
since it was now also able to absorb substantial elements from yet these too cliff* only in their degree of elaboration, and indeed
Christian liturgical and processional practice. In particular, the the professionalism of their performance from the many times
regular round of the Christian year, observed by the imperial family repeated cries of the senate recorded in the early fifth-century
and court, must have contributed to an increasingly standardised Theodosian Code, or from the third-century acclamations reported
imperial ritual. In the late fourth and early fifth centuries we by the collection of imperial biographies known as the Historia
already find emperors and empresses taking part in religious Augusta.42 In the tenth century, as in the Roman Empire, accla-
processions. The beginnings of their formal role in the liturgy at St mation on ceremonial occasions suited a society in which neither
Sophia, so prominent in the Book of Ceremonies,39 can now be the masses nor the governing class themselves had an official
clearly seen. By the sixth century, it is very clear that court political voice. In the context of court ceremony, they became
ceremony had decisively increased, for it is now possible for Peter increasingly elaborate and formalised. They are the complement to
the Patrician to think of codifying it.4° Thus the protocols in the endless formal panegyrics which in such a society had long been
Constantine VII's book are different in scale but not in kind from the dominant way in which one could write about an emperor.
the practice of the late antique period, and it was then, not later, However, while the roots of Byzantine ritual belong in the
that the ideological union of empire and church was formulated, Roman empire, that prescribed by Constantine VII is undoubtedly
both in political theory and in visual terms." more stylised and more complex. For this development, the sixth
The same sense of continuous development is suggested by century seems to have been the crucial period. It was only then, for
another prominent feature of the Byzantine rituals, namely their instance, that emperors began to be crowned in a fully developed
inauguration ritual of a completely religious nature.43 It was still
311 On this sec S. G. MacCormack, Art and Ceremony in Late Antiquity (Berkeley, possible under Justinian to hear the voices of the traditional elite
1981), and her article 'Change and Continuity in Late Antiquity: the Ceremony protesting against a too elaborate court protocol." But between
of Advenrus', Historia xxi (1972), pp. 721-52, for a discussion of central and local
ceremony in relation to one specific example. the reign of Heraclius (AD 610-641) and that of Constantine VII,
39 T. F. Mathews, The Early Churches of Constantinople (University Park, Pa, or indeed that of Basil I (AD 867-886), came a great divide, the
1971), demonstrates in relation to the churches of the capital how an increase in collapse of the old urban structure and the social patterns that went
the complexity of the liturgy went hand in hand with greater participation by the
emperors in religious occasions. For an early fifth-century example, see with it, and a drastic reshaping of the administrative and economic
K. Holum, Theodosian Empresses (Berkeley, 1982), pp. 103-4. organisation. The extent of this discontinuity has been much
40 For a brief discussion, see Averil Cameron, 'Images of Authority: Elites and disputed. Nevertheless, the limited literary sources for the eighth
Icons in Late Sixth-Century Byzantium', Past and Present lxxxiv (1979), pp. 6-7.
Peter the Patrician was Master of Offices, and thus responsible for the organi- century make it abundantly clear that even Constantinople was
sation of the ritual: he seems to have written a book about the subject, parts of
which probably survive in sections in the Book of Ceremonies about sixth-century 42 For the latter, see B. Baldwin, 'Acclamations in the Historia Augusta', Athe-
inaugurations and other contemporary matter (see J. B. Bury, 'The Ceremonial naeum, ns lxix (1981), pp. 138-49, and for a brief account of the development of
Book of Constantine Porphyrogennetos', English Historical Review xxii (1907), acclamation in the public life of the late empire, see C. M. Roueche, 'Accla-
pp. 209-27 and 417-39). This of course raises the important (but unanswerable) mations in the later Roman Empire: new evidence from Aphrodisias', Journal of
question of what effect the act of writing may have had on the ritual itself. the Roman Studies lxxiv (1984), pp. 181-99.
41 The fully Christianised conception of imperial rule was certainly apparent long 41 For an excellent analysis of the Christianisation of inaugurations in this period see
before the seventh century. See the interesting (if not very historically accurate) J. L. Nelson, 'Symbols in Context', Studies in Church History xiii (1976),
remarks of E. Leach, 'Melchisdech and the Emperor: Icons of Subversion and pp. 97-119.
Orthodoxy', Proc. Royal Anthropological Institute (1972), pp. 5-14 (in E. Leach 44 So Procopius, Secret History xxx.21 f. John the Lydian, a civil servant under
and D. A. Aycock, Structural Approaches to Biblical Criticism (Cambridge, Justinian, with similarly traditional views, was also critical of contemporary
1983), pp. 67-88). developments: see Averil Cameron, Procopius, chapter xiv.
128 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 129
then in a pitiful state, its aqueduct in ruins and its population especially those which Constantine now sets forth and which he has
shrunken, while in the empire generally, It is a fact (though some only been able to discover through laborious searches in the palace
historians still refuse to recognise it) that all round the Mediter- and in monastic libraries; even then, when he did find the record he
ranean the cities, as they had existed in Antiquity, contracted and wanted, it was badly written in barbarous Greek.5°
then practically disappeared'.45 Contemporaneous with this So there was during this period a general enthusiasm for the
physical change went corresponding alterations in intellectual life; revival and recording of tradition, which naturally took in the
books were increasingly hard to find, or when found, to under- sphere of the theory and practice of imperial rule. Constantine's
stand, and the surviving classical monuments took on a threatening immediate predecessors had made some innovations in the court
and mysterious aspect.46 rituals, for they too were interested in consolidation. But even in
By the tenth century, however, the empire had recovered from the hard times of the seventh and eighth centuries, imperial
the worst — if in changed form — and was enjoying what has often ceremony seems to have been maintained.51 Despite Constantine's
been termed the 'Macedonian renaissance'. However unsatis- complaints in his introduction, this was one aspect of Byzantine
factory this term, especially in the field of visual art, 47 it remains government which persisted in a continuous, if at times a shaky,
true that the Macedonian dynasty founded by Basil I and to which line over many centuries.
Constantine VII belonged saw consolidation in many spheres. The We should not then conclude that the Book of Ceremonies is
physical environment of the capital itself began to improve.48 And witness to a phenomenon peculiar only to the tenth century when it
at the same time there was a conscious effort to recapture learning was compiled. A full explanation of these rituals would have to set
that had been in eclipse. The emperor himself, who directed the them against the context of Rome as well as Byzantium. Nonethe-
compilation of the Book of Ceremonies also instigated several other less they were now indeed given a new emphasis in the careful
major encyclopaedic works and had taken great pains to collect compilation of Constantine VII's record. It is worth asking, then,
materials from the recent past, the reigns of his father and grand- what social function, if any, they fulfilled.
father, as well as excerpting from major early Byzantine authors for
more utilitarian purposes.49 He was proud of his efforts, and
RITUALS AND MEANING
exhorts his son Romanos to heed the precepts of his father, and to
recognise the importance of knowing the examples of history, Who were the spectators of these ceremonies? Often enough it was
the people of Constantinople. They could frequently see the
45 Mango, Byzantium, The Empire of New Rome, p. 69. Hodges and Whitehouse,
Mahomed, Charlemagne and the Origins of Europe, conclude that the decline of emperors and the imperial family surrounded by officials and clergy
cities, accelerated by the Persian and Arab invasions of the early seventh century, in impressive processions from one part of the city or one church to
was well under way by the end of the sixth. another. The splendour of the imperial and official dress, carefully
46 On all of this see Averil Cameron and Judith Herrin (eds.), Constantinople in the
Eighth Century: the Parastaseis Syntomoi Chronikai (Leiden, 1984), intro- prescribed and sometimes changed even within the course of a
duction; G. Dragon, Constantinople imaginaire (Paris, 1985). day's ceremony, would contribute to a sense of awe, and the music
47 The notion of classicising renaissances as a means of explaining stylistic develop-
and singing of the factions must have added to the effect. But it is
ment in Byzantine art is now increasingly suspect; nevertheless, the term
`Macedonian renaissance' still has its uses (see Magdalino, `The Bath of Leo the not clear that the frequency of these occasions led to any such
Wise', (see n. 30), p. 238). See also W. Treadgold, 'The revival of Byzantine feelings of warmth and affection towards the emperors and their
learning and the revival of the Byzantine state', American Historical Review 81 families or such fervour as often accompanies contemporary British
(1979), 1245-66.
48 See C. Mango, Le developpemeni urbain de Constantinople (Paris, 1985), royal occasions.52 Was there a Byzantine Princess Diana? Conver-
pp. 61-2. ." Bonn edn, i, pp. 455-7. For military precedents he begins with Constantine the
49 See Vogt, i (Commentaire, 1935), pp. xix—xx, with Constantine's own remarks Great (pp. 444ff.).
(see n. 50). See P. Lemerle, Le Premier Humanisme Byzantin (Paris, 1971), 51 See n. 32.
pp. 267-300; Kazhdan and Constable, People and Power in Byzantium (see n. 6), 52 For which see Cannadine, 'The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual'
p. 135. (n. 25).
130 AVERIL CAMERON
The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 131

sely, the people of Constantinople were not of much concern to and titles that were now codified and recognised were for the most
their emperors, at least so long as they were giving no trouble. part relatively recent, the product of a lengthy transitional period
Political unrest of this kind was less of a worry, however, than the from the seventh century onwards when the state was evolving new
possibility of a palace plot and the hand of an assassin; in general, social and administrative forms to replace the old traditional
popular dissent in Byzantium took the form of heresy or religious structures inherited from Rome and appropriate to the urban
disputes rather than political upheavals. All these considerations civilisation of antiquity. Many of the details of this development
suggest that we must look elsewhere than to the population of the remain highly obscure for want of adequate source material from
capital for the meaning of these royal ceremonies. the intervening period,55 but we can assert in general terms that by
the ninth century a new bureaucratic structure had been formed.
At the same time, the collapse of the antique cities left Constanti-
The retreat to the palace nople much more isolated than it had previously been. It became to
In fact, their most important audience was to be found inside the a far greater extent than before the heart of cultural life and
palace, where most of the ritual took place. It was to be found administrative power. From this isolation the emperors gained in
among the officials who themselves took part, and who were at personal power, in contrast to the less centralised administrative
once the governing class of the empire and the people closest to the system of late antiquity, and their court ceremonial accordingly
emperors. The rituals themselves were a visual sign of the hierarchy acquired a focal position that was unchallenged. In this middle
of officialdom, an order which as we have seen had recently been Byzantine period, government went on in Constantinople and the
recorded in several handbooks, just as the ceremonies are now court in Constantinople was where the ambitious needed to be.
recorded by Constantine VII. We should remember that Con- The elaborate ceremonies of the tenth century are therefore at
stantine himself after the removal of his father-in-law and his sons least in part about power, the relation between the emperors and
had conducted a spectacular purge of their officials and other the governing class. Since access to the throne and to office was
potential or actual enemies; in AD 947, in particular, their downfall surprisingly open, the rituals of court also helped to iron out the
had carried with it public humiliation and parades through the city, consequent tensions by providing a reassuring impression of stabi-
the inverse of the processions in the Book of Ceremonies.53 It is not lity and tradition. It was a myth which all found it convenient to
surprising, in this context, that many of the rituals prescribed believe, most particularly those who had managed, by whatever
concern bestowal of office or the passage from one office to means, to advance themselves into office or onto the throne. The
another; all demonstrated publicly the relative positions of the more centralised government became, the more the rituals them-
officials in the pecking order of the court. selves would need to and tend to include all the officials who
Dress codes too: this had doubtless always been a feature of mattered. Thus the ceremonial was both self-generating and self-
imperial ceremony, just as levees at the British court in this century reinforcing. Ambition engendered ceremony and ceremony made
were attended by civil servants and diplomatic officials in regula- ambition respectable.
tion court dress a practice which though dropped in that form still We might go further. A recent study of imperial victory celebra-
continues to be reflected in the instructions sent out on the tions56 talks of a retreat of government from the public scene at
appropriate dress for persons present at royal occasions.54 But it about this time. The great public imperial occasions in the Hippo-
had a particular significance in the tenth century, for quite apart drome begin to give way to private ceremony in the imperial palace
from the dramatic reversals of Constantine's own reign, the offices — the natural concomitant of this emphasis on the relations of
53 See T. E. Gregory, `The Political Program of Constantine Porphyrogenitus',
emperor and officials. Power depended on that relation rather than
Actes du XVe Congres international &etudes byzantines, iv (1980), pp. 124-30. on the relation of emperor and people; its arena was naturally the
54 For instance, that ladies should wear hats, and even on occasion gloves, both of palace, and its language was ceremony.
which often entail special purchases, and are sometimes resisted, especially in
academic gatherings. For the qualities of jewels acquired by the British Royal 55 Sec however, Guilland, Recherches (n. 34).
Family since Victoria's reign, see S. Meakes, The Royal Jewels (London, 1985). 56 M. McCormick, Eternal Victory (Cambridge, 1987).
132 AVERIL CAMERON The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 133
At the same time, however, elaborate ritual of this kind belongs Religious/secular
to the general style of Byzantine high culture, which had been set in
the early part of the period. It was a formal style, placing a high What then of the religious aspect of these rituals and the frequent
premium on strictly codified systems. In the case of the Greek presence of patriarch and clergy? Perhaps this was a less significant
language, for instance, the literature of high culture was very element than we tend to assume. Certainly the church in Byzantium
purist, preferring archaising language far removed from the forms enjoyed a position of actual political power and its patriarchs were
of everyday speech.57 Similarly Byzantine art, most of it religious, important figures in government and court; when the emperor
followed a set code to such an extent that modern observers, Heraclius went off to war with Persia in the early seventh century
themselves usually out of sympathy with its elaborate Christian he left Constantinople in the hands of the patriarch Sergius and the
typology, have often found it hard to appreciate in aesthetic terms. patrician Bonus, who then had to conduct the defence of the city
That is why so many aspects of Byzantine culture, including its during a near-disastrous siege. But when Constantine collected his
royal rituals, seem to pose acutely the basic ethnographic problems protocols this prominence of the church had been a fact of life for
of rationality: how to deal with the cultural practice of a society many centuries. The heavily religious tone of most of the ritual in
which operates within a framework of beliefs which the ethnogra- the Book of Ceremonies does not in itself correspond to a new
pher would himself classify as 'irrational'.58 Many modern works on development in or just before the tenth century. It was the result of
Byzantium have simply taken up a hostile position without debat- a slow and steady growth since at least the fourth, and drew on the
ing the matter at all. Roman imperial cult and Hellenistic ruler cult before that.°
Gibbon's Decline and Fall has a lot to answer for in this regard, On the other hand, before Constantine's grandfather Basil I
and old ideas (however inappropriate to a different age) die hard. came to the throne, Byzantium had seen more than a century of
They start from a too-ready assumption that a highly stratified serious and violent religious conflict. From AD 726 to 843, Icono-
bureaucracy and a highly codified elite culture indicate a generally clast emperors attempted to impose their will on the population and
static or immobile society. Similar thinking has affected the histori- the church, resorting to the persecution of monks and deposition of
ography of the late Roman period, which Gibbon, and then more clergy, manipulating church councils and — interestingly for our
particularly and for different reasons Rostovtzeff, saw as an essen- present subject — removing sacred images from the walls of the
tially repressive regime.59 But just as in the case of the Book of palace, including those in the throne-room, the Chrysotriklinos.
Ceremonies, this view mostly depended on an over-literal reading When Iconoclasm was officially ended in 843, the images were
of the laws against social mobility in the Theodosian Code, until the restored. A contemporary poem celebrated their return and their
obvious was pointed out — that laws repeated over and over again juxtaposition with the portrait of the emperor who had restored
are being broken over and over again.'° The Theodosian Code and them:
the Book of Ceremonies alike indicate states of change. Behold, once again the image of Christ shines above the imperial
throne and confounds the murky heresies; while above the
57 For a good discussion, see R. Browning, The Language of Byzantine Literature', entrance is represented the Virgin as divine gate and guardian.
in S. Vryonis Jr (ed.), Byzantina kai Metabyzantina i, The Past in Medieval and
Modern Greek Culture (Malibu, 1978), pp. 103-33. The emperor [Michael III] and Bishop [Photius] are depicted
58 On this problem see e.g. B. Wilson (ed.), Rationality (Oxford, 1977). In relation close by, along with their collaborators inasmuch as they have
to Byzantine society: Kazhdan and Constable, People and Power in Byzantium, driven away error, and all round the building, like guards [stand]
(see n. 6), pp. 76 f.
$9 See especially M. I. Rostovtzeff, The Social and Economic History of the Roman
angels, apostles, martyrs, priests. Hence we call the 'new'
Empire (2nd edn, Oxford, 1957); the case for repression is forcefully restated by Chrysotriklinos that which aforetime had been given a golden
G. E. M. de Ste Croix, Class Struggle (n. 11). name [—`Golden Chamber'], since it contains the throne of
60 R. Macmullen, 'Social Mobility and the Theodosian Code', Journal of Roman
Studies !iv (1964), pp. 49-53. For an altogether more positive view, see Peter
Brown, The World of Late Antiquity (London, 1971). 61 See Price, above, chap. 2, pp. 73, 78ff.
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The Byzantine Book of Ceremonies 135
Christ our Lord, the forms of Christ's Mother and Christ's hand, while deeming both them and ourselves worthy of Thy
heralds, and the image of Michael, whose deeds are filled with heavenly Kingdom.64
wisdom.62 The attempts of the Iconoclast emperors to control the powerful
It is important to realise the effect of the restoration of the religious forces in the state by opposing the centrifugal enthusiasm
physical setting for imperial ceremony. Not only the palace, but for images had failed P5 Once more emperors claimed divine elec-
also the Great Church, St Sophia, scene of so many of the imperial tion and support, legitimising their own position by representing
processions, were decorated again with religious images. An themselves in visual art in conjunction with divine personages; in
eighth-century iconophile writer said of another great ceremonial just such a way their imperial ceremony acted out this desirable
church, the church of the Virgin at Blachernae on the northern relation between secular and divine power.
edge of the city, that 'the tyrant [i.e. Constantine V] scraped down' Thus the reigns of Basil I and his successors marked not only a
its walls, which had been covered with religious pictures, and new dynasty with an interest in establishing itself by an appeal to
`having thus suppressed all of Christ's mysteries, he converted the the past, but also the restoration of unity between emperors and
church into a storehouse of fruit and an aviary', that is, he replaced church on an issue more fundamental to their long-term relations
the holy pictures with mosaics of trees, birds and beasts.63 In the than the temporary conflict over Leo VI's marriages. It was
end, the Iconophiles won the day; one of the great events of the however a unity which gave power firmly into the hands of the
restoration of images was the dedication of the new apse mosaic of emperor. The same year, AD 867, in which Basil disposed of his
the Virgin and Child is St Sophia in March, AD 867. colleague and became sole emperor, also saw Constantinople in
Only a few months later, Basil I had his co-emperor Michael III
open breach with Rome; Basil took up power with different ideas,
murdered in his bedroom in the palace and made himself the deposed the very patriarch Photius who had delivered the homily
founder of the Macedonian dynasty to which Constantine VII on the restored apse mosaic in St Sophia, and called a synod whose
belonged. Basil, who had come from low origins, we are told, took object would be to express the views of the emperor. It was not a
every opportunity to strengthen his position; we have already seen successful move in the long term, and Photius was eventually to be
that he initiated new imperial rituals. Significantly, he also reinstated. But these events show that for the Macedonians, rela-
embarked on a major programme of imperial building. This
tions with the church, especially the church as represented by the
included an elaborate new church and the restoration of many patriarch, were indeed a matter of the definition of imperial
existing ones; imperial apartments were decorated with mosaics power. They inherited a situation in which the worst conflict
showing Basil and his wife and children; a particularly telling between emperors and church seemed to have been resolved; but
example is the ceiling decoration showing the imperial family the resurgent church was not to be allowed to do entirely as it
ranged round the sign of the cross, with formal inscriptions record- liked.
ing the thanks of the royal parents for their children and of the Ceremony, new ceremonial settings and the depiction of the
children for their parents. The latter runs: imperial dynasty in symbolic harmony with God were all for very
We thank Thee, 0 Word of God, that Thou hast raised our good reasons close concerns of Basil I, and when Constantine VII
father from Davidic poverty and hast anointed him with the stressed the ideal of divine and earthly harmony, symbolically
unction of Thy Holy Ghost. Guard him and our mother by Thy represented in imperial ceremony, he was voicing a theory which

62 From the collection of epigrams known as the Palatine Anthology (yet another 64 Trans. in Mango, Art (see n. 30), p. 198. For the impact of imperial building,
work of this period-sec Alan Cameron, The Greek Anthology. From Meleager to especially within the palace complex, on the development of ceremonial, see
Planudes (Oxford, 1987), i, 106; trans. Mango, Art (see n. 30), p. 184. Magdalino and Nelson, 'The Emperor' (n. 4), pp. 17111.
63 Life of St Stephen the Younger (d. AD 764), in .1. P. Migne, Patrologia Graeca c 6-1. On which see P. Brown, 'A Dark-Age Crisis: Aspects of the Iconoclastic
(1865), cal. 1120; trans. Mango, Art (see n. 30), pp. 152-3. Controversy', English Historical Review lxxxviii (1973), pp. 1-34 (in idem,
t: Society and the Holy in Late Antiquity (London, 1982), pp. 251-301).
136 AVERIL CAMERON

glossed over a much tenser reality. It was a good moment for the
theory to be emphasised.

CONCLUSION

Accordingly, imperial ceremonial in the tenth century had two

aspects: its debt to a long and steady process of development with
its roots in the Roman empire and even earlier, and its relation to
the particular circumstances of recent history. It would be easier to
know just how much importance to attach to the latter if we really
knew the level of imperial ritual practised during the seventh to
ninth centuries. But it would be surprising if there had been a major
break. We may reasonably assume that during the years for which
our sources are so bad the basics of court ceremony were carried on
and the main traditions preserved. But for all that, by the time that
Constantine VII compiled his book, a new bureaucratic structure
had been formed, while in the sphere of the relations between
emperor and church a new equilibrium had been reached, or was at
least claimed, after a long and hard struggle. For contemporary
imaginations, imperial ceremony represented one element of real
continuity with the Roman past. It is reasonable then to suppose,
though impossible to prove, that the compilation of the Book of
Ceremonies also indicates a real contemporary increase in the level
and formality of imperial ceremony. Both the reality and the
codification spring from an actual situation.
This is why Constantine's own tastes and scholarly interests
cannot provide the whole explanation for the Book of Ceremonies.
Both the book itself and the rituals described in it testify to a need
to restore a sense of order in society, to connect with the past after
centuries of dislocation, and to reinforce the position of the ruling
dynasty in relation to its governing class. Far from being a proof of
the unchanging and timeless quality of Byzantine society, the Book
of Ceremonies is actually an indicator of change, and a proof of the
adaptability of Byzantine rule. Perhaps the claims of its compiler,
Constantine VII, were not so far from the mark after all.