Empress Catherine of Bulgaria in the Works of Michael Psellos
Empress Catherine of Bulgaria in the Works of Michael Psellos
Author(s): Simeon AntonovSubject(s): History, Social Sciences, Gender Studies, Cultural history, Sociology, Gender history, Middle Ages, 6th to 12th Centuries
Published by: Великотърновски университет „Св. св. Кирил и Методий”
Keywords: Catherine of Bulgaria; Michael Psellos; Isaakios I Komnenos; Byzantine eleventh century.
Summary/Abstract: Catherine, daughter of the Bulgarian Tsar John Vladislav (r.1015–1018) and wife of the Byzantine Emperor Isaakios I Komnenos (r.1057–1059), was the first Bulgarian woman to become a Byzantine augusta, that we are certain of. She was contemporaries with the influential intellectual and politician Michael Psellos. His accounts of her biography and personality are the most extensive and revealing of any of his contemporaries, writers, and historians from the eleventh and early twelfth centuries. Far from being an unexplored area, Psellos’s works that deal with Catherine (mainly his letters, rhetorical pieces, and last but not least — his famous Chronographia) still offer some opportunities for novel interpretations and conclusions, which I will try to explore in this paper.
Journal: Епохи
- Issue Year: XXXIII/2025
- Issue No: 2
- Page Range: 342-352
- Page Count: 10
- Language: English
