The Bride had dinner at Ragusa

 

Bride, Marriage at Cana - Ο Γάμος στην Κανά

 Ag. Nikolaos Orfanos, Thessaloniki

When the fifteen-year old Helena Palaiologina sailed for Ragusa en route to her marriage to Lazar Branković of Serbia, she had wanted to stop at Corfú.  That stop and, in fact, the whole trip seem to have provided occasion for a great deal of fuss. 

In anticipation of her imminent arrival, the Ragusan council worked out the details for her formal reception:

A committee of five nobles would meet her at Cavtat, a short sail south of Ragusa.  The rettor* and the Minus** would meet her at the port. She would be led to the rettor's palace.  (This was the Italian style of welcome: had she gone to Constantinople as a bride, she would have been met by the court ladies.) The ladies of Ragusa -- that would be the upper-class ladies -- would greet her in front of the church of the Virgin.  Housing would be supplied for her entourage, and for the contingent that her father, Thomas, had sent by land (no word on the sizes of the entourage or contingent).

A committee of five would be appointed as her escorts.  The rettor would dine with her once.  A committee of three would be appointed to see to the furnishings of her suite and to her provisions.  There would be an allowance of 50 hyperpers a day for food: "bread, wine, meat, poultry, wax, sweets, and other necessary things."***  Live animals and poultry would be provided so they could be prepared as she preferred. (No word as to whether she was bringing her own cook.)

Someone was to buy at Venice, for a wedding present, twenty "arms"**** of crimson velvet, and ermine to the value of 300 ducats.  The bridegroom, Lazar, was to have a gift of 300 ducats worth of cloth from Mantua or Florence.  Arrangements were to be made for the bride to invite the gentlewomen of Ragusa to the palace to dance, and then dine.

Measures for the security of Ragusa would be taken.  Thomas, Despot of the Morea, having invited the Republic of Ragusa to be represented at the wedding: Ragusa would send two nobles.
This is all the information I have found, but I have questions. 

Presumably there were interpreters.  Had Helena learned Italian from her mother? Did she have western clothes, or was she dressed as a Greek.  Had Thomas ever had a party or a dance -- how was she to know how to act with these ladies she was to entertain?  How long was she to stay in Ragusa before going to meet Lazar?  And so on . . .



* rettor = governor. 
** Minus = the inner council.
*** Salvadexine is also listed, but I can't discover what that might be.
**** arm, braccio = cloth measurement, of about 66-68 cm.  Every city had its own, slightly differing, measurement.  For Venice a braccio of wool was .683m, and for silk .638m.

This account is from N. Iorga. Notes et extraits pour servir l’histoire des croisades au XVe siècle. (Bucharest. 1915) 2: 416.

For the picture here, I am reusing a bride who has already sat in for another young woman, there being a vast shortage of contemporary images of Byzantine brides, fifteenth-century galleys and fifteenth-century Ragusa.  Contributions from readers would be appreciated.

Her most dear daughter: Helena Palaiologina of Cyprus

 Women and their daughters:
donors from frescos in Galata and Pedhoulas, Cyprus.

Helena's mother died when she was five years old, an age to have established specific memories, as well as a sense of devastating loss.  In their memorials for Cleofe, Nikiforas Cheilas spoke of "her most dear daughter," and Demetrios Pepagomenos, the family doctor said, "Your beloved daughter mourns you, bereaved of her dear mother at so young an age, at a time when she most needed you, and required your instruction and advice, who have left her with no maternal consolation."  

Her father completely fell to pieces, so Helena had no help there, and we have no real sense of what kind of companionship might have been available to her. She was given a foster-mother (who apparently had no name), unmentioned in Greek sources. Plethon and Bessarion and Cheilas and Scholarios and the rest of the intellectuals would have been very nice to Helena, but I think of a mother -- Andromache -- speaking of what the death of a parent means to a child:

He bows his head before every man, his cheeks are bewept, he / goes, needy, a boy among his father's companions, / and tugs at this man by the mantle, that man by the tunic, / and they pity him, and one gives him a tiny drink from a goblet, / enough to moisten his lips, not enough to moisten his palate. (XXII, Lattimore trans.)

 On 3 February 1442, possibly on her fourteenth birthday, and a day or so after she arrived in the country, she was married to the King of Cyprus, John II, in the cathedral of Nicosia. Look at that photograph, and then look at the cathedral of Mistra.  She must have found it overwhelming, the city overwhelming, after the little churches and closed spaces of Mistra. She was from a puritan court when men and women were covered from neck to feet (and women's heads and necks covered, and she came to a court where the men wore tight-fitting hose, very short jackets which showed more than anyone needs to know about, great puffed sleeves, and wide turbans; the women, high-waisted, low-necked gowns with long trailing sleeves and upswept hair revealing great expanses neck, bosom, and back. I imagine a terrified adolescent, adamantly refusing to change her dress, almost flaunting her severely covered-up Greek style and hidden hair.
 
John was  ten years older than she, had become king at the age of fourteen, had been married before (to a distant relative, Medea Palaiologina of Montferrat), and had a very pretty mistress at court -- Marietta de Patras -- by whom he had a son.  A story is told concerning Helena's treatment of Marietta's nose, either by biting it off or by having it cut off (with the intent of causing an abortion, although the infant involved was three years old at the time), but the nose sounds unlikely and is very much the sort of story that abounds in Cypriot accounts of high-born women.  As does the story that she poisoned the husband of her 13-year old daughter.  Really, Cleofe's daughter simply could not have done that.  Further, accounts of the street brawl and illness that immediately preceded the husband's death suggest other possibilities.

Nothing survives as direct evidence of Helena, there is no correspondence and no documents -- only what people reported, and the reports are almost entirely from those who fall on the Latin side of the Latin-Orthodox divide. Her foster-mother, and her son Thomas, had accompanied her to Nicosia.  They are remembered as powerfully ambitious.  Helena is remembered in the Cypriot chronicles for imposing her Mistra Greeks on the Lusignan court, for pushing policies that favored the Orthodox, for hostility to the Latin church, and for seizing and using political power -- with the consent of her husband.  They also complained that she spent money aiding refugees from Constantinople.

The Cypriot chronicler, Henrico Giblet, described her as "fine & adroite" -- fine could mean "pretty," but he more likely meant "subtle, shrewd, sharp." The chronicler Estienne de Lusignan described her as "una donna astuta & sagace greca" -- "an astute and shrewd Greek lady."  Of course she was, with those parents, but I think it is particularly through comparisons with her mother, Cleofe, that we begin to understand what was said about her, and understand how she had been damaged even before she arrived in Cyprus.

Helena was particularly reviled for her support of Orthodoxy, her generosity to a particular monastery, and her advancement of Orthodox clergy.  Nothing is said about her own spiritual life, but who had there been to nurture it?  Cleofe was deeply devout, but she had grown up with, and when at Mistra, corresponded continually with women who were equally devout.  A small girl could translate deep devotion into militant action as an adult, particularly in what she must have felt as isolation.

In 1451, Constantine sent his trusted Sphrantzes to Cyprus. He said:

. . . do you know the monk I met a few days ago?  He brought me a message from my niece that she is in need of something; she would have told me in her own voice what she wanted; had it been possible, she would have sent her message through a  loyal, trusted courtier, but she has none.  As she does not have one and cannot make the trip, I must send a man whom I consider appropriate . . . it is you, since you have acted  and made decisions for me, know me personally, and have been informed. (XXXIII. 8-9)"

". . . not enough to moisten her palate."  Helena had no one whom she could trust.  That is a significant comment, considering the presence of a foster-mother and brother, and it is not a rare characteristic of individuals who have been bereaved at a young age.  Still, Sphrantzes does not say if he actually made the trip.

Giblet, said that "she liked being queen, she also acted like a King, and in effect, governed the kingdom." Estienne de Lusignan said, "vedendo il suo marito esser huomo feminile inhabile à regger'il regno; prese lei il governo" -- "seeing her husband was weak and unable to rule his kingdom, she took over the government," and he later reports that the High Court declared Helena regent. (But her grandmother Helena had served as regent when Manuel was abroad.) One account says that John was never entirely well, but Pius II -- and later chroniclers -- wrote that John had been educated among women as a boy, that he acted more as a woman than as a man, and concerned himself with banquets and pleasure.

Is John's life of sensual pleasure the only explanation for Helena's participation in government? Perhaps, but having been educated among women, perhaps he appreciated female ability.  Perhaps he recognized the girl's intelligence, perhaps he knew something of Plethon, and found her valuable.  Particularly if he recognized he had few talents for his position, something about which the chroniclers had no doubt whatsoever. Helena's mother, Cleofe, had been an equal (though discrete) participant in her husband's rule.  Pepagomenos had said:

For there was nothing that was not communicated to your judgement and thus some difficult problems were solved, while matters of greater moment, of holy governance and of the (soul’s) ascent were determined by the superiority of your virtue.  . . .

For you were the best co-worker urging him toward the good, and consoling him for what was incurable, a good counsellor,

And Cheilas had said:

. . . as she stood by her husband, the most holy despot, yielded to the men around him and enjoyed a sort of splendor and radiance while doing only what seemed right to her.  . . . In the midst of turmoil, when present among the imperial councillors she gave virtuous advice of every sort, and made herself available to help everyone, from which both sides learned the better, and the better triumphed over both . .

Well, Cleofe had grown up without a mother, but with Battista's love and guidance in poise and discretion.  Helena had no such guide as she moved into adolescence, but she apparently had the touchy disposition of her father Theodoros and grandfather Manuel.

Pius II wrote that her foster-brother Thomas ruled in his mother's place, his mother ruled in Helena's place, and Helena ruled in place of the king -- "regina regem regebat."  He was proud of his literary style. It is true that King John made Thomas Chamberlain of Cyprus. It is also true that John's son, James, eventually murdered Thomas.  It was not James' only murder.  James was tall, broad-shouldered, terribly good-looking, much indulged by his father.

The Genoese governor of Famagusta wrote, "The king was governed by a queen . . . a detestable Greek."  A chronicle published in 1788, by the Archimandrite Cipriano, says: ἀλλ´ οὖσα τῇ ἀληθεία γυνὴ μὲ φρόνημα ἀνδρικόν. καὶ πνεύματος ὀξέος, καθὸ Ρωμαία -- "though she was in truth a woman, she had a man's mind, and a quick spirit -- since she was Greek." That is what Nikeforas Cheilas had said about her mother Cleofe: "she possessed a truly masculine intelligence."  The Greeks seemed to appreciate what the Latins found threatening.

Beyond these remarks, all we know about her is that she was never very healthy.  We have no real impression of her personality, no idea of how she and her husband regarded each other outside issues of ruling. There were two daughters: Charlotte, born in 1444, who was married at thirteen and queen at fourteen; and Cleofe who died very young, in 1448.  Helena herself died 11 April 1458, at the age of thirty. One of the chronicles has her, on her deathbed, angry at the marriage John had planned for Charlotte, to a first cousin, and demanding Charlotte reject the marriage.

John died the next month. The deaths are not explained.  Charlotte became queen, and in the fall married the cousin.  Her half-brother, James, claimed the throne, and with the aid of Egyptian troops captured Famagusta and Nicosia, driving Charlotte from Cyprus.  Charlotte died in Rome in 1487 and was buried in St. Peter's.  James eventually married Caterina Cornaro, who later sold Cyprus to Venice, and was painted by Gentile Bellini.



 Broto is essential for Helena:

Eva Latorre Broto, "Elena Paleóloga de Chipre: revisión de un mito," Erytheia 23 (2002) 159-186, in Spanish.

______, "Η Ελένη Παλαιολογίνα, αναθεώρηση ενός θρύλου," L’épopée dans le monde grec: Η εποποιια μεσα στον ελληνικο χωρα. Colloque International, Nancy, mars 2001. 
 (If you are unable to find one of these articles and really need it, write me privately for a PDF.)

also, a brief account in
Ioanna Christoforaki, "Sainted Ladies and Wicked Harlots": perceptions of gender in medieval Cyprus." 
 

The Bride stopped for lunch at Corfú

 

A Serbian Helena of Byzantium,
possibly the one involved here.

Helena Palaiologina, daughter of Despot Thomas of the Morea, was sent at the age of fifteen to marry Lazar Branković of Serbia.  This was in October of 1446.  She traveled with two Ragusan trading galleys and a galeota.  When the ships returned to Durazzo, a complaint -- apparently concerning unreasonable delays, bad manners, livestock, and excessive drinking -- was filed against the captain and the patrons by the Serbian lords of Helena's  escort.  On 3 November, the tribunal recorded a series of depositions on the matter.  This is the story they relate:

* * * * * *

The priest Lucas  Branković deposed:  He was on the captain's galley.  It was true that the captain stopped several times for bad weather, and that he had to return to Durazzo three times for the same reason.  They also had to stop and wait several times for the galeota to catch up with the galleys. The captain was neither arrogant nor bad-tempered, as the Serbs complained, but on the contrary, he was most respectful of them.  Lucas heard it said that the galeota had taken two cattle from Arniti territory.  The captain had not bought linen: he didn't know if the patrons did.  Several people had bought skins, but they put them on the galeota and not on the galleys.  

Juniti Grdečević, comitus of the galley, deposed: The delay was because of the galeota which could not keep up with them.  The Serbian lords insisted on speed, which the captain explained was impossible. It was not true that the galleys were delayed in two ports because of the falcons and the dogs.  The fiancée had made gifts of wine to the officers.  The galley and galeota patrons came aboard the captain's ship every evening to take council.  

His junior officer confirmed his statement.  

Ser Alvise de Restić, patron of one of the galleys, deposed: The sailing was reasonable, except when they left Clarenza and the fiancée wanted to stop at Corfú for lunch.  The weather was not good.  It was decided to leave at midnight but when Restić called for them to go, no one responded and they left at dawn.  The galleys went to Sta. Maria de Caroppo but the galeota stayed at Corfú.  That was because of the dogs that had been stolen from the captain.  The galleys waited for it at Sta. Maria.   The Serbian lords complained of the captain's attitude toward them but Restić never heard anything amiss.  Several people bought linen and skins, which they put on the galeota, not on the galleys.  He knew nothing about the fiancée's gift of wine.  He had heard that the captain had taken cattle aboard. 

Restić continued: At Cape Lachio they wanted to get water, but the Albanians came to the shore armed with swords and arrows, and kept them off.  The captain used the bombardella, which was useless. So they stopped at Kefalonia for water on the way to Clarenza.  He heard from the patron of the galeota, the people on the ship, and the slaves, that the captain had seized a goat, and the patron of the galeota a cow.

At Clarenza, the captain told Restić that they were instructed to make three visits to the Despot Thomas: the first, on their arrival; the second if they were invited to dine; the third at their departure.  The first visit Restić went with the captain.  The second and third visits, the two galley captains and the patron of the galeota went.  He heard it said at Clarenza that the sailors had drunk 10 caratelli of wine which were on the quai, and wanted to take one on the galeota, but the Port Authority stopped them.  In the waters off Kefalonia, they encountered a small  ship that complained that the sailors on the galeota had thrown a stone at them and wounded a Greek.  

* * * * * *

The document stops here.

Patron: one of the investors in a trading voyage. 
Galeota: a small, light galley. 

Comitus: a patrician assigned to command a galley, although there was a real captain on hand.  
Caratelli: small barrels made from chestnut.

The story comes from Dubrovnik in the 14th and 15th Centuries, by Bariša Krekić, #1119.

The Leopard-Wranglers

XII: Concerning the imperial bride:

One should know that at the arrival of the imperial bride (δεσποίνης νύμφης), whether by land or by water, when the day when she is to be be brought safely into port at The City is known, the emperor, her husband-to-be (ἀνὴρ αὐτῆς ὁ νεόνυμφος) goes to meet her with his father, if he is living; if not, he goes alone. If she comes by land, it is the custom that she alight in the neighborhood of Pēgē; if she comes by ship, near the church of the Blachernes outside the city, where it happens to be suitable. When she arrives at one place or another, the wives of the dignitaries, senators, and the other highest and most well-born archons, welcome the lady and bride-to-be warmly and attend her as an empress. Both the emperors come to meet her, if the bridegroom has no father, he does as has been said. If then she comes by ship, he meets her at the acropolis at the Evgenikos Gate, and if by land, outside the city as has been said. After that, the emperors, or the emperor, leave her there; the wives of the archons mentioned, whether the wives of the despots, or the wives of the sebastokrators, or of the caesars, or of the other well-born, put the red shoes on her. Dressed in the imperial robes prepared in advance, and escorted as an empress, she comes up to the palace on horseback; after that the marriage ceremony is held on the selected day.

Equally, one should know this: when the leopard-wranglers (παρδοβάγιλοι) bring in their leopards, they enter the palace on horse, and similarly leave on horse. Also, those bearing the cold drinks enter the palace on horse.

* * * *

This is my translation of the chapter on imperial brides from Pseudo-Kodinos, a book compiled about 1360 with later additions about protocol at the Palaiologan court in Constantinople, and it got me to thinking about Sophia of Montferrat who was so scalded by her marriage to John VIII.  He rejected her immediately after the wedding, apparently because he did not like her appearance.

But look at the sequence of events in the light of this protocol.  Sophia arrived in Constantinople on a Venetian galley in November of 1420.  It docked on the Golden Horn, under the Blachernae, probably about where the pretty little mosque is now.  She was welcomed by the court ladies as if she were an empress.  She was John's third cousin, her family used Greek names, and she had probably already learned to speak a little Greek.

Then John and Manuel arrived.  These two slight imperial males dressed as stiffly as icons, and behaving almost as stiffly, greeted her.  Then they left and the court ladies put the imperial scarlet shoes on her feet, and dressed her in robes something like her mother-in-law Helena is wearing here. Then they processed along those narrow twisting streets up the steep hill to the Blachernae  on horseback, and we know nothing about how Byzantine women sat a horse.  If they rode astride like Maria of Trebizond, no one has left any information.  

The procession was led by the leopard wranglers, and the picture above, identified as young Giuliani de Medici in the Gozzoli fresco below, leads off the processions of the Magi as one of them.

The boy was about seven years old when the fresco was painted in 1460, anjd the procession of the Byzantines and John VIII into Florence had happened fourteen years before he was born.  He was murdered in the Duomo in 1478 in the Pazzi Conspiracy.  That is a shame, but it has nothing to do with us here.

The wedding was on 19 January 1421.  John was crowned that day -- Pseudo-Kodinos gives meticulous directions for the ceremony, and then, apparently on the next day, John crowned Sophia.  Byzantine emperors crowned their wives.  He never spoke to her again. 

Why was there a wedding at all?  John had two months between meeting her at the boat, and the ceremonies in Agia Sophia and he must have judged this big blond woman instantly.  Would it have been possible for him to have rejected the bride who had been delivered to him (with a great deal in the way of jewels, gold, and financing)?  Does "incompatibility" make a non-marriage easier to accomplish? Did anyone tell her what was going on before it happened?

When she left, it was on a Majorcan ship chartered at such short notice that it had to leave the Genoese imports it had been charted for on the wharf.  The ship brought Sophia and small group of courtiers across the Golden Horn to Galata, where the Genoese all came down to the waterfront and paid homage to her as their Empress.  The Majorcan ship took her to Chios, where she was provided a Genoese galley back to Genoa.  When she arrived home in Montferrat, she was welcomed as Empress.  All the way along, everyone, with the exception of John, was very kind to her.

She took her crown when she left.  I had thought it might be her wedding crown -- Greek rite weddings crown the bride and bridegroom, and exchange their crowns -- but Pseudo-Kodinos says nothing about that.  John was crowned at the wedding, as Emperor, and the imperial crown can be exchanged for nothing else.  Sophia was crowned Empress of the Eastern Empire and all she had to show for it was the crown John had put on her head

 * * * * * *

I am giving a paper this weekend at the meeting of the Australian Association for Byzantine Studies at the University of New South Wales in Armindale entitled "The Brides of 1420," in which I will be discussing Sophia's face, and Cleofe's clothes.

The animal in the picture above is actually a cheetah (on the ground below it is a leopard), but "cheetah-wrangler" doesn't work in English nearly as well as "leopard-wrangler." Besides, cheetahs were also called "hunting leopards." Nick Nicholas wrote a paper a few years back -- "A Conundrum of Cats: Pards and their relatives in Byzantium," in which he analyzed all the Byzantine terms for members of the cat family, and then tried to identify each one. Byzantines called a cheetah a pardos.  Gozzoli got it right.  That is, by the way, Benozzo Gozzoli's self-portrait -- the man with the blue and white hat in front of the horse, below.

To be continued.

PS, Part One: Imperials

Speaking of Maria of Trebizond and her riding outfit, I have been looking for all the upper-class ladies I can find from the last decades of the Empire, trying to find a gown suitable for wearing on a horse. Most imperial ladies are shown dressed something like Jelena of Serbia in the mid-1300s (left) or Maria's mother-in-law, Helena. Bulky. Stiff. Important. These images were not intended as fashion statements, but as statements of empire.

Clearly such robes were not for riding astride. However, a contemporary image turned up of a delectable blonde, Anna Radene Lemniotida from Kastoria. She has a an important hat, masses of carefully-maintained curls, big earrings, a wide cloak. Sixteen rings on her long slender fingers. Her red robe has huge hanging sleeves, and I bet there is enough fabric in the rest of it to accommodate riding astride quite easilly. This is not a definitive solution, but it is interesting.

* * * * *

Then there is the question of porphyrogennetos. The Oxford Dictionary of Byzantium avoids making a commitment here, and Wikipedia doesn't quite get it. Recall that Sphrantzes said that -- this was at the point when John had died, before Constantine arrived in Constantinople -- Sphrantzes said that Demetrios was not a despot and "porphyrogennetos according to the custom of Constantinople." [Late note: either Sphrantzes was lying, or he forgot: Demetrios had been Despot of Lemnos for 15 years.] What he meant by "the custom of Constantinople" has been a problem. For a long time porphyrogennetos described an imperial child born in a special pavilion at the palace set aside for births. It was lined with porphyry, perhaps, or hung with purple curtains, and porphyrogennetos means "born in the purple." But that pavilion fell down or out of use by the 11th century.

A close examination of the texts on this splendid family portrait, painted in a manuscript to be sent to Paris about 1403, gives a clue. The texts, three for the boys, and two for their parents (not shown here), are crammed with titles. Manuel is pistos basileus, autokrator and augustos. Helena, augusta and autokratorisa. John, the oldest son, dressed like his father, is also pistos basileus. Theodoros, the second son, porphyrogennetos. Andronikos, the youngest at that point, authentopoulos, which means "true son."

John's title, basileus, means that his father had chosen him as successor to the throne of the Eastern Empire, and Westerners called him "the little king." Theodoros called himself porphyrogennetos in a poem he wrote for his parents. By analogy with basileus, and with the fact that a "true son" in Greco-Roman tradition means that a child was so recognized by his father, it seems clear that porphyrogennetos in this case was a title given by the the emperor who was also the father.

The texts on this image help make clear what is meant where, one page after the passage in Sphrantzes where it says that Demetrios was not a despot and porphryogennetos, a subsequent passage says that "the despot and porphryogennetos, Lord Demetrios, went to the Morea."

So when Constantine arrived in Constantinople as Emperor, he appointed Demetrios (who was already there trying desperately to be Emperor) to serve as Despot along with Thomas. Both Demetrios and Thomas signed their documents as porphyrogennetos. Demetrios did not have the title of porphyrogennetos at the time when John died, but Constantine as Emperor gave him the title with the appointment.

"After the custom of Constantinople," is a red herring. Sphrantzes was devoted to the memory of Manuel II, for whom he began working when he was a child. He would writing nothing that might possibly be construed as the remotest criticism of his beloved Emperor, and, of course, everyone who was anyone would understand what "after the custom of Constantinople" meant.