Perisanidi, M orcid.org/0000-0002-7077-8497 (2020) Byzantine Parades of Infamy through an Animal Lens. History Workshop Journal, 90. pp. 1-24. ISSN 1363-3554
Abstract
In this article, I discuss humiliation parades as described by eleventh-century Byzantine historians, focusing on the role of mules and donkeys in them. More specifically, I examine how the presence of these equids could change the meaning of a scene in the works of Michael Attaleiates, John Skylitzes, and Michael Psellos. I argue that, as the social and religious connotations of mules and donkeys interacted with the social and religious status of their riders, humiliation could turn to humility and emasculation to masculinity, transforming the animals themselves into carriers of political rhetoric. When reading these scenes we need to consider whether our rider is a man or a woman, a cleric or a layman, a general or scholar, but also what kind of equid they are riding and how that might be juxtaposed with other animals in the text. In addition to emphasizing the role of animals in Byzantine political life, I consider the animals’ own experience of these parades, attempting to reconstruct something of their sense of the world with the help of modern veterinary science.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of History Workshop Journal, all rights reserved. This is an author produced version of a journal article published in History Workshop Journal. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of History (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number Leverhulme Trust ECF-2016-476 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 03 Dec 2019 14:32 |
Last Modified: | 15 Oct 2022 00:18 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Oxford University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1093/hwj/dbaa019 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:154036 |