Representation of Continent Marriage in Late Antique and Byzantine Hagiography
Primary Ivestigator: Anne Alwis
Early Christian sanctity was expressed through various forms of asceticism and abstinence. Key to these modes of expression was an intense awareness of sexuality as a force to be denied and contained. The hermit in the desert, the penitent prostitute and the virgin at home are all familiar characters from Late Antiquity who, in rejecting their carnality, disrupt their social place and their social space. However of all these forms of sexual renunciation none creates as unique a tension as a continent marriage.
Anne’s research contains the stories of three couples saints Julian and Basilissa; Andronikos and Athanasia and Galaktion and Episteme who each mutually consent to have a sexless marriage. She provides translations, commentaries and a literary study of these lives. These tales had previously not been translated and no significant scholarly work had been devoted to them. Theoretically the nature of Julian and Basilissa, Andronikos and Athanasia and Galaktion and Episteme's unions proffer an alternative method of negotiating sexuality. Sanctity is conferred on the hermit, the prostitute is guaranteed a place in heaven and the virgin gains immortality: renunciation in these other guises thus offers transformation but there is no obvious immediate role for a wife and husband. Sanctity is indeed possible but it is bestowed uneasily. There are too many unknowable factors. Will both partners be equally willing to forego sex, might they slip into temptation and what actually becomes of the social roles of husband and wife?
In the first three chapters, the date and literary background of each vita is explained. In addition, the texts of Julian and Basilissa, Andronikos and Athanasia and Galaktion and Episteme will illustrate three different aspects of the study of hagiography. The intricacies of transmission are highlighted for Julian and Basilissa - in this case from the Greek East (Antinoopolis) to the Latin West (Merovingian Gaul); the evolution of a text from the sixth to the eleventh centuries can be traced in Andronikos and Athanasia, whilst Galaktion and Episteme showcases the problems faced by any student of this type of literature in attempting to date an deliberately allusive text.
In the final chapter/conclusion each vita is examined to show that continent marriage is a malleable construct moulded to adapt to its literary circumstances and purposes of the hagiographer. The crucial starting point for utilising these narratives is predicated on the assumption that the couples’ sexless unions are a pivotal point of the narrative rather than a feature of their sanctity. In the next part of the chapter a basic structural formula is elaborated, that can be applied for hagiographical texts, noting where and why there are discrepancies. The third and final section examines the roles of the women and men as marginal spouses with reference to their perpetual state of virginity. Basilissa experiences an array of sensory events which are remarkably visceral for a young virgin; Athanasia, whose life of continence begins after she and her husband have had intercourse, can be said to regain her virginity, in the evolution of her status from normative married woman to disguised, transgendered wife whilst Episteme’s continually transgressive behaviour could be read as a woman demanding to be viewed as a sexual being despite her paradoxical acquiescence to a life of virginity. Ultimately, Anne shows how Eastern hagiographers resolved the inherent contradiction within continent marriage by utilising, exploiting and exploring the women’s position not as a wife, but as a virgin wife.
Relevant Grants
Stanley J Seeger Visiting Research Fellowship, Princeton University ($6, 000)
SECL Young Researchers Fund, University of Kent, 2007, awarded for replacement teaching (£1250)
SECL Young Researchers Fund, University of Kent, 2006, awarded for replacement teaching (£1512.50)
Relevant Publications
The Late-Antique and Byzantine Representation of Continent Marriage in Hagiography (CUP forthcoming, 2008 or 2009)
“The Luxeuil Connection: the Transmission of the Vita of Julian and Basilissa” in J. Herrin, J. Harris, C. Dendrinos (eds), (Ashgate, 2003)
Book Reviews: S. Tougher (ed), Eunuchs in Antiquity and Beyond in Classical Review (56:1) [2006]; M. Kuefler: The Manly Eunuch (The University of Chicago Press, 2001) in Gender & History 2003; J. E. Grubbs: Women and the Law in the Roman Empire (Routledge, 2002); J.Willem van Henten & F. Avemarie: Martyrdom and Noble Death (Routledge, 2002) in JACT Review 2003
“Men in Pain: Masculinity and the Miracles of St Artemios” in D. C. Smythe (ed.), Byzantine Men (Ashgate, 2008) http://kar.kent.ac.uk, forthcoming