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Ostiarios
''Ostiarios'' ( el, , from the Latin ''ostiarius'', "doorkeeper, usher") was a Byzantine court dignity reserved for eunuch palace officials. History and functions The ''Patria of Constantinople'' mention an ''ostiarios'' named Antiochos in the 6th century at the time of Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565), and a 7th-century seal records an ''ostiarios'' and ''koubikoularios'' (servant of the imperial bedchamber)... As a pure dignity, to be held alongside proper offices, the ''ostiarios'' is first recorded in historical sources for the year 787. By this time, the title seems to have become firmly established as a dignity, although there is still mention of it being an active function, such as in Philotheos's ''Kletorologion'' of 899 of an "imperial ''ostiarios''" performing the duties of an usher. The dignity was an awarded title (διὰ βραβείου ἀξία, ''dia brabeiou axia''), with a gold band with a jewelled handle as its characteristic insigne, whose award (βραβ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Aristocracy And Bureaucracy
Through the 5th century Hellenistic political systems, philosophies and theocratic Christian-Eastern concepts had gained power in the eastern Greek-speaking Mediterranean due to the intervention of Important religious figures there such as Eusebius of Caesarea and Origen of Alexandria who had been key to the constant Christianized world of late antiquity. By the 6th century they had already influenced the definitive power of the monarch as the representative of God on earth and his kingdom as an imitation of God's holy realm. The Byzantine empire was a monarchic theocracy, adopting, following and applying the Hellenistic political systems and philosophies. The monarch was the incarnation of the law ''nomos empsychos'', and his power was immeasurable and divine in origin. He was the ultimate benefactor, carer and saviour of his people, '' Evergétis'', '' Philanthrōpía'' and ''Sōtēr''. They in turn were his ''paroikoi'' (subjects). He was the sole administrator and lawg ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Usher (occupation)
An usher is a person who welcomes and shows people where to sit, especially at a church, theatre or when attending a wedding. History The word comes from the Latin ''ostiarius'' ("porter", "doorman") through Norman French, and is a cognate of the French ''huissier''. Ushers were servants or courtiers who showed or ushered visitors in and out of meetings in large houses or palaces. In the United Kingdom, a variety of titles for courtiers in the Royal Household include the word ''usher''. In England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, from the early sixteenth century until at least the end of the nineteenth century, the term denoted an assistant to a schoolmaster or head-teacher; an under-master, assistant-master. In such use, however, the term is now rare. Duties Ushers assist visitors by formally showing the way in a large building or to their appropriate seats. This may coincide with a security role. At weddings, friends of the groom and bride may be recruited to direct gues ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Empire
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Eunuch
A eunuch ( ) is a male who has been castrated. Throughout history, castration often served a specific social function. The earliest records for intentional castration to produce eunuchs are from the Sumerian city of Lagash in the 2nd millennium BCE. Over the millennia since, they have performed a wide variety of functions in many different cultures: courtiers or equivalent domestics, for espionage or clandestine operations, castrato singers, concubines, or sexual partners, religious specialists, soldiers, royal guards, government officials, and guardians of women or harem servants. Eunuchs would usually be servants or slaves who had been castrated to make them less threatening servants of a royal court where physical access to the ruler could wield great influence. Seemingly lowly domestic functions—such as making the ruler's bed, bathing him, cutting his hair, carrying him in his litter, or even relaying messages—could, in theory, give a eunuch "the ruler's ear" and impa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Patria Of Constantinople
The ''Patria'' of Constantinople ( el, Πάτρια Κωνσταντινουπόλεως), also regularly referred to by the Latin name ''Scriptores originum Constantinopolitarum'' ("writers on the origins of Constantinople"), are a Byzantine collection of historical works on the history and monuments of the Byzantine imperial capital of Constantinople (modern Istanbul, Turkey). Although in the past attributed to the 14th-century writer George Kodinos, the collection in fact dates from earlier centuries, being probably first compiled ca. 995 in the reign of Basil II (r. 976–1025) and then revised and added to in the reign of Alexios I Komnenos (r. 1081–1118).Cameron & Herrin (1984), p. 4 The collection contains: * a part of the ''patria'' of the 6th-century pagan writer Hesychius of Miletus, on the history of Byzantium from its foundation to the time where Constantine I refounded it as Constantinople. * the ''Parastaseis syntomoi chronikai'', which focuses chiefly on the antique ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Justinian I
Justinian I (; la, Iustinianus, ; grc-gre, Ἰουστινιανός ; 48214 November 565), also known as Justinian the Great, was the Byzantine emperor from 527 to 565. His reign is marked by the ambitious but only partly realized ''renovatio imperii'', or "restoration of the Empire". This ambition was expressed by the partial recovery of the territories of the defunct Western Roman Empire. His general, Belisarius, swiftly conquered the Vandal Kingdom in North Africa. Subsequently, Belisarius, Narses, and other generals conquered the Ostrogothic kingdom, restoring Dalmatia, Sicily, Italy, and Rome to the empire after more than half a century of rule by the Ostrogoths. The praetorian prefect Liberius reclaimed the south of the Iberian peninsula, establishing the province of Spania. These campaigns re-established Roman control over the western Mediterranean, increasing the Empire's annual revenue by over a million ''solidi''. During his reign, Justinian also subdued the ''Tz ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kletorologion
The ''Klētorologion'' of Philotheos ( el, Κλητορολόγιον), is the longest and most important of the Byzantine lists of offices and court precedence ('' Taktika'').. It was published in September 899 during the reign of Emperor Leo VI the Wise (r. 886–912) by the otherwise unknown '' prōtospatharios'' and '' atriklinēs'' Philotheos. As ''atriklinēs'', Philotheos would have been responsible for receiving the guests for the imperial banquets (''klētοria'') and for conducting them to their proper seating places according to their place in the imperial hierarchy. In the preface to his work, he explicitly states that he compiled this treatise as a "precise exposé of the order of imperial banquets, of the name and value of each title, complied on the basis of ancient ''klētοrologia''", and recommends its adoption at the imperial table.. Sections Philotheos's work survives only as an appendix within the last chapters (52–54) of the second book of a later treatise ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spatharokoubikoularios
The ''spatharokoubikoularios'' ( el, σπαθαροκουβικουλάριος, "sword-chamberlain") was a Byzantine Empire, Byzantine court dignity reserved for eunuch palace officials. He was a ceremonial sword-carrier assigned to the personal guard of the Byzantine emperor.. It later became a simple court rank, being the third-lowest dignity for eunuchs, coming after the ''ostiarios'' and before the ''koubikoularios''.. According to the ''Kletorologion, Klētorologion'' of 899, the insigne of the rank was a gold-handled sword. References Sources * * Byzantine palace offices Byzantine titles and offices reserved for eunuchs Swordfighters {{Byzantine-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Primikerios
The Latin term ''primicerius'', hellenized as ''primikērios'' ( el, πριμικήριος), was a title applied in the later Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire to the heads of administrative departments, and also used by the Church to denote the heads of various colleges. Etymologically the term derives from ''primus in cera'', which is to say ''in tabula cerata'', the first name in a list of a class of officials, which was usually inscribed on a waxed tablet. Civil and military From their origin in the court of the Dominate, there were several ''primicerii'' (''primikērioi'' in Greek, from the 12th century usually spelled ''primmikērioi''). In the court, there was the ''primicerius sacri cubiculi'' (in Byzantine times the ''primikērios'' of the ''kouboukleion''), in charge of the emperor's bedchamber, almost always a eunuch. The title was also given to court officials in combination with other offices connected to the imperial person, such as the special treasury (''eidi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Protonotarios
The word prothonotary is recorded in English since 1447, as "principal clerk of a court," from L.L. ''prothonotarius'' ( c. 400), from Greek ''protonotarios'' "first scribe," originally the chief of the college of recorders of the court of the Byzantine Empire, from Greek ' ''protos'' "first" + Latin ''notarius'' ("notary"); the -h- appeared in Medieval Latin. The title was awarded to certain high-ranking notaries. Byzantine usage The office of ''prōtonotarios'' ( el, πρωτονοτάριος), also ''proedros'' or '' primikērios'' of the ''notarioi'', existed in mid-Byzantine (7th through 10th centuries) administration as head of the colleges of the ''notarioi'' in various administrative departments. There were ''prōtonotarioi'' of the imperial ''notarioi'' (secretaries of the court), of the various ''sekreta'' or ''logothesia'' (government ministries), as well as for each '' thema'' or province.* The latter appeared in the early 9th century and functioned as the chief c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nicolas Oikonomides
Nikolaos or Nikos Oikonomides ( el, Νικόλαος Οικονομίδης, 14 February 1934 – 31 May 2000) was a Greek Byzantinist, and one of the leading experts in the field of Byzantine administration. Biography Oikonomides was born in Athens. He studied in the University of Athens from 1951 to 1956, under the tutelage of Byzantinist Dionysios Zakythinos. After obtaining his degree, in 1958 he went to Paris to pursue doctoral studies under Paul Lemerle. His studies in Paris also introduced him to sigillography, and led to the discovery of the so-called ''Escorial Taktikon'' or ''Taktikon Oikonomides''. The outcome of his work on ''Escorial Taktikon'' and the other '' Taktika'' (seating lists in Byzantine imperial banquets) was published in 1972, as the ''Les listes de préséance byzantines des IXe et Xe siècle'', containing a translation and commentary on the ''Taktika''. Oikonomides returned to Greece, but the establishment of the dictatorial Regime of the Colonels in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Byzantine Palace Offices
The Byzantine Empire, also referred to as the Eastern Roman Empire or Byzantium, was the continuation of the Roman Empire primarily in its eastern provinces during Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, when its capital city was Constantinople. It survived the fragmentation and fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD and continued to exist for an additional thousand years until the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Empire in 1453. During most of its existence, the empire remained the most powerful economic, cultural, and military force in Europe. The terms "Byzantine Empire" and "Eastern Roman Empire" were coined after the end of the realm; its citizens continued to refer to their empire as the Roman Empire, and to themselves as Romans—a term which Greeks continued to use for themselves into Ottoman times. Although the Roman state continued and its traditions were maintained, modern historians prefer to differentiate the Byzantine Empire from Ancient Rome a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
