Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (review)

The generality of the title of this book, evocative of the titles of recent epic exhibitions ("Byzantium: Faith and Power" and "Mother of God: Representa-tions of the Virgin in Byzantine Art"), suggests a broad, sweeping view of Byzantine icons of the Virgin. In fact, it is a highly focused investigation of the cult of the Virgin in Constantinople and is based on the development and function of relics and icons at three specific sites in Constantinople: the monasteries of Blachernai, Hodegon, and Pantokrator, taking us, therefore, from the fifth to the twelfth centuries in an intricately developed narrative on the capital, its emperors and empresses, its wars and its religious practices. Extensive supplementary material, textual and visual, supports the argument, which has two strands: the manipulation by the imperial family of the Virgin's cult and the public, processional manifestation of fidelity to the Virgin. The first part of the book looks at the relation of the Virgin and imperial power, and at the origins of the civic cult in which the Virgin took on the role of earlier female protectors of the city, such as Tyche and Nike, thus protecting imperial power and leading to state backing for her cult as well as appropriation of it to assert legitimacy. Pentcheva then looks at the role of the Virgin in sieges of the city, such as by the Avars in 626, showing that relics rather than icons of the Theotokos were used at this time to ward off the enemy. Her icons were not carried in public ceremonies until the late tenth century and not until the eleventh were they wielded by emperors in war. Pentcheva then explores the sustaining power of the Virgin's "motherhood" during times of war and her selfless love in giving Christ to the world. The second part of the book focuses on the Hodegetria icon, the most renowned icon in the city and used extensively in processions, on the Blachernai icon and its miraculous effects, and on the use of the Hodegetria by the emperors at the Pantokrator monastery. It has been a longstanding view that the Virgin's cult arose in the fifth and sixth centuries, but Pentcheva shows how the Theotokos's reputation was given a legendary past in the eleventh and twelfth centuries at the time when the cult was truly formulated.

The book is well written in good and precise prose and laid out with logical clarity in combination with well-chosen and beautifully produced illustrations on at least two-thirds of the pages. Pentcheva is in command of many texts (chronicles, hymns, sermons, poems) used to deepen her arguments and draws on extensive supplementary material such as coins, seals, ivories, and paintings.

I have some unease with the westernization of terminology, such as "Marian" and "Victoria" (in place of "Nike") in a book on this subject, but presumably this is intended to widen its audience beyond those interested in Byzantium and Eastern Orthodoxy. Indeed, it should be of value to anyone concerned with religious cults, devotion, and the relation of rulers to religious symbols.