Abstract:

The study attempts to trace the route followed by the Byzantine Empire, on both the
political and the constitutional plane, from the seventh to the eleventh century, which
ultimately led, at the end of the period in question, to Alexios I issuing a chrysobull that
granted a woman, namely his mother Anna Dalassene, full rights to rule in his name,
while he left the capital to face the Norman invasion.
In order for the phenomenon of women exercising power in Byzantium to be understood,
the study is prefaced by a relatively brief reference to women –every single one
of them an Augusta– who exercised power as part of their constitutional role, from Martina,
widow of Heraclius, to Eudokia Makrembolitissa, widow of Constantine X Doukas.
The main part of the paper focuses on the case of the ‘purple-born’ sisters Zoe and Theodora,
since their reign and the way contemporary historians treated the sisters’ rise to
the throne and how the two of them exercised power illustrate the changes that had
transformed the institution of co-rulership/regency, as well as ‘hereditary’ succession
and how it impacted on the collective mentality of the Byzantines, even when it paved
the way for a woman to find herself alone at the helm of the state.
Through a comparison of the narratives of Michael Psellos, John Skylitzes and Michael
Attaleiates, the study proposes a new view of the ‘reign’ of Zoe Porhpyrogenita and
brings to life a personage that was far more sensible and active than the one we usually
come across in modern historiography.