Elite Byzantine Kinship, ca. 950-1204. Blood, Reputation and the Genos 9781641890281, 9781641890298

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ELITE BYZANTINE KINSHIP, ca. 950-1204 BLOOD, REPUTATION,ANDTHE GENOS by

Beyond Medieval Europe

NATHAN LEIDHOLM

Beyond Medieval Europe publishes monographs and edited volumes that evoke medieval Europe's geographic, cultural, and religious diversity, while highlighting the interconnectivity of the entire region, understood in the broadest sense-from Dublin to Constantinople, Novgorod to Toledo. The individuals who inhabited this expansive territory built cities, cultures, kingdoms, and religions that impacted their locality and the world around them in manifold ways.

Series Editor Christian Alexander Raffensperger, Wittenberg University, Ohio

Editorial Board Kurt Villads Jensen, Stockholms Universitet, Stockholm Balazs Nagy, Central European University, Budapest Leonora Neville, University of Wisconsin, Madison

A~1ANITIES PRESS

CONTENTS

To myfamily, Kal £( a'lµaw1A.la~), but Psellos dwells for some time on the unique strength and nature of the sibling bond. The letter is predictably full of rhetorical to poi and metaphors for kinship that one finds in a large number of orations, poems, and even legal opinions. Where Psellos's letter becomes interesting, however, is the sizeable section in which he effectively summarizes Galen's treatise on the formation of foetuses. It forms a part of a longer rhetorical treatment of the nature of the sibling bond as something unique precisely because of the siblings' identical origins, sharing the same parents and having occupied the same womb. Psellos follows the principal that two or more things created from the same source share a similar disposition. 48 After a typical, rhetorical introduction, Psellos quickly enters into a discussion of the nature of friendship and kinship (especially the bond of brotherhood) and the links between the two (uoEA.q>uc~ q>LAla, literally "brotherly love"). 49 He marvels at the favour and friendship the brothers have shown him, despite the fact that he is not a relative of theirs.so Psellos dwells for some time on the good example set by Nikephoros and Constantine's father and his relationship with their uncle, the patriarch. While some siblings find themselves at odds, "contravening nature," Nikephoros and Constantine are praiseworthy for living their adult lives as they had begun it, interconnected and harmonious.s1 Psellos launches into a typically philosophical exposition of the shared nature of brothers, sharing as they do "the same root."s2 The closeness of siblings, he argues, begins in the womb. As a result, Psellos sees fit to describe the process that leads to the creation of children in his exposition of the sibling bond. He tells his addressees that,

v6µou~)

46 Schminck, "Kritik am Tomos," 224.31-7: Kal KaTel -rous laTpucous ~TOL tµqit;\ocr6cpous v6µous, o'l q>CXO'L [l~ ocrLov dvm TO a'lnov TfiS yi:vv~crew~ uno~aivnv T0 yi:vvwµf:vcp ... 47 Sathas, MwmwvtKi) p1p)..wOfJK17, vol. 5, 513- 23; Kenneth Snipes, ''A Letter of Michael Psellus to Constantine the Nephew of Michael Cerularius," GRBS 22 (1981): 89-107.

48 Sathas, Mwmwv1Ki) p1p)..wOryK17, vol. 5, 516-17. 49 Sathas, Mwmwvuci) p1p)..wOfJK17, vol. 5, 514. 50 Sathas, MwmwvtKi) p1pJ1.wOryK17, vol. 5, 513- 14. 51 Sathas, MwmwvtKIJ PtPJ1.toOfJK17, vol. 5, 517-18.

52 Sathas, MwatWVLKi) p1p)..wOfJK17, vol. 5, 515: Kal aUTOS 8£ T~V uµntpav aya0~v O'U[lq>ULCXV oµ60i:v t1< Tfj~ au-rfi~ pl~TJ~ ava~l...aatjaaaav ...

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if they'd like to know something about the nature of the origin of siblings, he'll oblige them.53 What follows is brief account of the process of human reproduction that draws heavily from Galen's vision of the formation of the foetus. 51 Psellos closes the section by claiming that he had "thus revealed the entire mystery of our birth."55 In good rhetorical fashion, he gives several additional appellations for this mystery, including the "combination of the gene" (YEVWV auvaq>ELU) and the "mingling of the gene" (YEVWV cXVaKpam~). Michael Psellos and Eustathios Romaios viewed the knowledge of the process by which conception occurs and the foetus is formed as indispensable in a deeper understanding of the true nature of the bond of kinship. For Eustathios and Michael Skribas, such knowledge was equally necessary to fully grasp the mechanics and theory underlying legal impediments to marriage based upon consanguinity. These authors sought an understanding of the nature and limits of shared blood not simply as an academic or rhetorical exercise. For them, consanguineous kinship, and even kinship in general, could not be understood without recourse to physiology and the workings not just of God, but also of nature. Galenic medicine was not only widely read and discussed in tenth- through twelfth-century Byzantium, it was central to discussions surrounding numerous aspects of kinship and marriage.

Extent and Degrees of Shared Blood Eustathios Romaios's remarks in his hypomnema of 1025, in which he argues that the essence of the individual carried in the blood decreased with each successive degree of kinship separating two individuals, suggest that the limits of the family as expressed in marriage impediments was also understood as the limits of shared blood. 56 Eustathios's

53 Sathas, MEO'aLWVtKi) p1p)..we1)1(1'/. vol. 5, 517: El ~OUAE0'9E ~paxu Tl T~V yEVEO'LV uµTv UO'lOAOyl)crw -rfis q>UO'EWS, '(v'Elofiu tK nolas EVWO'EW~ ol TIOAAOL TWV a8£Aq>WV 81EO'T~KCXO'l. (Bold added.) It is noteworthy that Psellos introduces his description with the verb qiucnol...oyi: Tv, quite literally recalling the field of physiology. 54 Sathas, Mmatwv1K1) P1f3)..wOfJK17, vol. 5, 517: crm:pµa naep6µevov, l