The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the Turn of the First Millennium (review)

208 Reviews war in France, including efforts to fortify towns and castles for defence. Fortification and defence are also the themes of essays by Michael Hughes and John Kenyon on Southampton, the Isle of Wight, and the southern coast of England in general. The third group of papers focuses on the weapons of war: Robert Smith on artillery, Robert Hardy on the longbow, and Ian Friel on ships. All three rely heavily on surviving examples of these weapons and on archaeological evidence. A n interesting coda is provided by Brian Kemp's investigation of funerary monuments in English churches for knights w h o fought in the French wars. A U these essays are valuable contributions to, or summaries of, scholarship in their field. A unifying theme is the close reading of different kinds of evidence: documentary, archaeological and even practical re-creation in the case of the longbow. These varying perspectives extend the scope and value of the volume, though i t remains suitable for the expert, advanced student and enthusiast, not for the beginner. The only major gap in its coverage is the human effect of the wars, and the focus remains fixed, for the most part, on the military, technical and administrative aspects of the conflict. Like Curry's o w n textbook, these essays add scholarly weight to a revisionist view of these great international conflicts of the later Middle Ages, seeing them as wars of considerable complexity in logistics, tactics and weaponry, rather than as the chivalric dramas portrayed by Shakespeare and Froissart. Toby Burrows Scholars' Centre The University of Western Australia Library Davids, Adelbert, ed., The Empress Theophano: Byzantium and the West at the Turn of the First Millennium, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1995; cloth; pp. xvi, 344; R.R.P. £40.00, US$59.95. The mtilennium of the death in 991 of Theophano, Empress of the West, was commemorated by no less than six publications and conference proceedings, perhaps most notably by Kaiserin Theophanu: Prinzessin aus der Fremde—des Westreichs grosse Kaiserin, ed. Gunrher W o U (Cologne, 1991). The present coUection of papers is an important Reviews 209 addition to this group, not least as the only one of these volumes to appear in English. Theophano was apparently the great-niece of the emperor Nikephoros U Phokas and niece of John I Tzimiskes; she is not mentioned at all in Byzantine sources. She m a y only have been twelve years of age at the time of her marriage to Otto II in April 972. Adelbert Davids reviews the previous marriages of Byzantine princesses to foreigners, thefirstbeing Anna w h o married Vladimir of Kiev c. 901. The ambassadorial importance of these girls 'as eminent articles for export to gain mutual political advantage' cannot be overstated , and Jonathan Shepard's paper continues by concentrating on thefigureof Maria Lekapena, daughter of Romanos I, w h o married Peter of Bulgaria in 927, and the impact made by her in her new environment. Theophano's possible education in Byzantium is discussed by Judith Herrin, w h o sees her, tike other princesses, as playing 'a significant role in the foreign relations of the Byzantine empire', and as trained especiaUy for this purpose. However, Theophano's probable age at the time of her marriage, and the indirect nature of her connection with the ruling emperor m a y in fact make any indepth training for her new position unlikely; at most she could have had about two years' exposure to court-life. Some of her education and on-the-spot training must have been the responsibility of her new family. P. Bange looks at the ways w o m e n of the nobility were presented in contemporary German chronicles and the circumstances under which manly qualities in a w o m a n were considered a virtue, while Rosamond McKitterick stresses the Saxon tradition of strongminded and forceful queens and that Theophano would also have needed to be educated in the Saxon way, possibly under the influence of her mother-in-law Adelheid. According to Johanna Maria van Winter, princesses and noble girls obviously learned, at the very least, reading and writing, and...