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The Significance of Unction in Byzantine Iconography

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2016

Christopher Walter
Christopher Walter*
Affiliation:
Institu français d’études byzantines, Paris
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Extract

How agreeable it would be if the art historian could, with the aid of iconographical documents, resolve problems which baffle those who depend primarily upon literary sources for their studies. Unfortunately, such a triumph is rarely afforded to the art historian. Byzantine artists in particular have not left us a detailed record of contemporary events; their productions tell us more about the ideas current in their lifetime than about what actually happened. This is certainly the case for the rite of unction. We have no pictures of a Byzantine emperor being anointed and no evidence that such pictures ever existed. Consequently the art historian cannot directly help towards a firm answer to the question raised by Donald Nicol in his article: after what date should references in chronicle sources to a Byzantine emperor being consecrated by unction be interpreted in a literal rather than in a figurative or metaphorical sense?

Type
Research Article
Information
Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies , Volume 2 , 1976 , pp. 53 - 73
Copyright
Copyright © The Centre for Byzantine, Ottoman and Modern Greek Studies, University of Birmingham 1976

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References

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30. Lassus, J., L’illustration du Livre des Rois (Paris, 1973), p. 51 Google Scholar, fig. 40.

31. Ibid., p. 44, fig. 24.

32. Ibid., p. 44, fig. 25.

33. Ibid., p. 79, fig. 97. In this miniature the oil gushes from the top of the horn held by Zadok. This detail comes from an apocryphal account of David’s first unction, according to which, when Samuel approached David, the oil at once gushed from his horn. For an example in the iconography of David’s first unction, see the Barberini Psalter, Vatican, barb, graec. 372, f. 152v: Stichel, R., ‘Ausserkanonische Elemente in byzantinischen Illustrationen des Alten Testaments’, Römische Quartalschrift, LXIX (1974), 169–70 Google Scholar, fig. 7b.

34. Der Nersessian, op. cit. (n. 19), figs. 33, 159, 174, 196, 297, 298.

35. Ibid., figs. 33, 159.

36. Georges et Dèmètrios Tornikès, Lettres et discours, ed. Darrouzès, J. (Paris, 1970), pp. 82 Google Scholar l. 24-83 l. 2.

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47. Canones: MPG, CXXXVII, 1156. Cf. Nicol, op. cit., p. 51.

48. Demetrios Chomatianos, Ad Constantinum Cabasilam, Responsum, 4: ed. Pitra, J. B., Analecta Sacra et Classica, VI (Paris and Rome, 1891), col. 631 (= MPG, CXIX, 949)Google Scholar. See also Darrouzès, J., ‘Les réponses canoniques de Jean de Kitros’, REB, XXXI (1973), 323–4 Google Scholar.

49. Bréhier, op. cit., p. 45.

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58. I discussed this theme in my paper, ‘The iconographical sources for the coronation of Milutin and Simonida at Gracanica’, delivered at the Symposium on L’art byzantin au commencement du XIVe siècle at Belgrade, October 1973 (in course of publication).