Empress Catherine of Bulgaria in the Works of Michael Psellos

Authors:

Pages: 342-352
DOI: https://doi.org/10.54664/ITRS3914

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.

Keywords:

Catherine of Bulgaria, Michael Psellos, Isaakios I Komnenos, Byzantine eleventh century.

Download

NA