Everyday Life in Byzantium Page 18

  Though Justinian wore a sort of tiara or toupha, in early times hats were generally used only by travellers. By the end of the tenth century, however, a sort of bonnet held in place by a ribbon was being worn so often by men that Michael VI (1056-7) turned it virtually into a uniform by ordering the wearing of a red one; nevertheless by the end of the century a white bonnet was often preferred. Its introduction was followed by a variety of hats, but their shapes quickly became standardised and linked with specific social classes, clerics wearing the skiandion. The kalyphta which was favoured by civilians was a pyramid-shaped affair which may well have had a Turkish origin. A later form of civilian headgear is illustrated in a mural painting in the Church of the Pantanassa at Mistra; it takes the form of a brimmed hat. John VIII Palaeologus (1425-48) appears on a medal designed by Pisanello wearing a hat with a brim at the back and a button at the top of the crown known as a kamelakion.

  To begin with, men followed the Roman custom of wearing their hair short and appearing clean-shaven, only philosophers having a small beard. However, under Justinian, members of the Blue Faction wore beards and moustaches, and grew their hair long at the back, but cut short on the forehead in the Hunnic style. Constantine IV (668-85) was the first emperor to wear a beard; by doing so he set a fashion which was carried to extremes, and men wore their hair in plaits or curled it by sleeping in curlers; the long plaits, which sometimes reached to the waist, aroused the protests of the Church. Constantine V (741-75) passed a law obliging everyone to shave. Theophilus, who was bald, went a step further and ordered the army to shave their heads, but the practice was not retained after his death, perhaps because it was customary for criminals to be shaved and to have their beards removed. Then, from the latter part of the tenth century, even the Church declared itself in favour of beards and long hair, maintaining that these helped to distinguish their wearers from eunuchs. Priests and monks had made a habit of growing their hair and beards from a far earlier date, as they still do today in the Orthodox world.

  The sophisticated taste of the Byzantines enabled them to inspire the creation of lovely jewellery. There was nothing ostentatious about it, the designs of each piece being light, the dimensions restrained, the workmanship exquisite. Even later crowns took the form of gold circlets with gilt and jewelled pendants of real elegance and grace. Christian symbols such as fish were among the most popular designs, though crosses worn as pendants were in universal use. In addition people wore rings of copper, bronze, silver or gold. Some had gems set in them which were engraved with monograms, Christian symbols or inscriptions. In early times, under Roman influence, cameos were popular, but they were soon to be replaced by brooches set with jewels. Earrings, bracelets, necklaces and pendants were widely worn; some of the finest were made of gold filigree and are of remarkable delicacy. Many included gold cloisonné enamels or paste inlays. Jewellers often drew their inspiration from the East. Thus Persian taste to a great extent dictated the style of the crown worn by Theodora (to be seen in the glass mosaic in the church of San Vitale at Ravenna) and was also responsible for such details as the lion-headed terminals which appear on many of the finest bangles, and for the periodic fashion for confronted animals flanking a central motif. Egypt may have inspired many smaller animal designs, such as ducks and fish fashioned in gold and strung together to form necklaces. The Byzantines’ demand for jewels was only controlled by the size of their purses. The wealthy were particularly fond of pearls, amethysts and emeralds, most of which were obtained from India. They used them for the pins which held their chlamydes (cloaks) in place—a garment which was discarded for the robe late in the twelfth century. They also used them for setting in brooches, pendants, belt buckles, rings, crosses, in jewelled headdresses and saddles, and as adornments for other horse trappings. By modern standards the quality of these stones was seldom high, but the workmanship of the settings was always superb. Jewellery or clothes were discarded when they looked shoddy or tawdry, for unlike European society which, even as late as the eighteenth century, often ignored the most elementary rules of personal cleanliness, the Greeks were as fastidious as the Romans, not only spending a great deal of time in the baths, but making sure that their clothes were fresh and in good condition.

  65 Pisanello’s medal of John VIII Palaeologus

  66 Silver belt buckle monogrammed in the roundel

  67 A fourteenth-century Byzantine family at dinner (detail)

  Byzantine ideas about food were closer to the ones we hold today than to those which prevailed in Europe in medieval times. Three meals were considered normal; breakfast, a midday meal and supper. Periods of fasting were rigorously observed, but at other times three courses were generally served in well-to-do households both at midday and for the evening meal. At these hors d’oeuvres were served first; they were often followed by a fish dish accompanied by a sauce, popular in pre-Christian times, called gakos; some form of roasted meat provided an alternative, and the last course consisted of a sweet. Food was so varied that personal preferences dictated the choice of meals. Constantine VIII is known to have been particularly fond of tasty sauces; Zoe had a passion for Indian herbs, especially if they had not been dried, as well as for dwarf olives and bleached bay leaves. A housewife could select her meal from a wide variety of game, poultry and meat; as in present-day Greece, so in Byzantium, pork and ham were favourite dishes; birds were as often boiled as they were roasted or grilled; ducks and much fish were eaten. Soups, many of them elaborate and requiring long hours of cooking, were customary; tripe and stews were often on the menu, and so were salads of many sorts. Cheese was much liked and so was fruit, whether fresh or stewed. Apples, melons, figs, dates, raisins and pistachios were stable items of diet; asparagus and mushrooms were in smaller supply. Oil was used for cooking and much wine—mostly from Chios—was drunk: Michael VI was not the only drunkard in the Empire. A meal represented on a mosaic discovered at Antioch is seen to have included artichokes, a white sauce, grilled pig’s trotters, fish, ham, ducks, biscuits, fruit and wine, as well as hard-boiled eggs served in blue enamel egg cups with small long-handled spoons to eat them with. Gourmets were numerous and took delight in serving regional specialities such as Vlach cheese; indeed, the importance attached to food was such that, when a daughter of Constantine VII was told after his death that she was to be exiled to a convent, she insisted on being accorded a dispensation to allow her to eat meat there.

  The trouble which the Byzantines took to serve their food as attractively as possible is in keeping with present-day habits. In Byzantium tables were generally carefully laid. At a time when such care was unusual in western Europe, they were generally covered with clean, often beautifully embroidered cloths. People were expected to change out of their outdoor shoes before entering a dining room. When giving a banquet members of the imperial family and those in court circles ate from couches drawn round a table till as late as the tenth century, even though they appear to have used chairs at the time for everyday purposes. Grace was said at the start of a meal, and probably also at its end. Quite often people ate with their hands, yet a variety not only of spoons and knives but also forks were provided. The latter were probably invented in the Eastern world and introduced to Europe by Italians who had learnt their use in Byzantium. They were so much a part of everyday life in Byzantium that when a young princess was given in marriage to a doge of Venice she took some two-pronged ones to Italy with her; their appearance startled and shocked the Venetians. Dishes of many different shapes, varieties and sizes were made in a number of materials, as were glasses, flagons and other vessels. What must have been a customary sight is recorded in an illumination painted by Manuel Tzycandilis in 1362 for a codex belonging to John Cantacuzenus of Mistra. Though it sets out to illustrate an incident in the Book of Job the scene is treated more as a genre painting than an iconographic rendering. It shows Job dining with his wife, six sons and three daughters at a table laid with knives, bowls, jugs and glasses. The youngest girl is brin
ging in a dish with a roast sucking pig on it; the family dog is begging for a morsel. The faces of all are strongly individualised; the diners sit on shaped stools, wearing their hats; these are of three shapes.

  68 A fourth-century silver spoon and fork

  69 Oil lamp of a foot in a sandal

  Singularly few of the vast number and variety of objects produced by Byzantine craftsmen during the centuries have survived to our day. Most of those which have been preserved are precious objects, whose intrinsic value, quite as much as the quality of their workmanship and design, induced people to treat them with the care which less costly examples failed to receive. Because of this, most of the objects which survive take the form of jewellery, of particularly spectacular pieces of silver tableware or of fine pottery. To these must be added quite a number of articles in ivory. The most important of these were caskets or jewel-boxes. The majority are rectangular and carved either with geometric patterns or with mythological scenes, as is the case of the lovely tenth-century Veroli casket preserved in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

  Another large group of objects is made up of oil-burning lamps and candlesticks. Though many of these were intended for church use, the domestic ones were probably very similar, though the Christian symbols decorating the religious objects may well have been replaced by classical or geometric designs; the cheapest examples of all may even have been left undecorated. Table lamps were made in various shapes and materials; in the earlier centuries simple Roman lamps were produced, fashioned in pottery as well as in elaborate metal versions resembling those made in eighteenth- or nineteenth- century Europe by designers who, perhaps as a result of discoveries made at Pompeii, also turned to ancient Rome for inspiration. The self-fuelling lamp invented for Emperor Justinian may well have been an elaborate version of the latter type. In addition there were candlesticks of many different sizes; the majority, if not furnished with a plain round base, had a tripod-shaped one or, when something more elaborate was desired, a lion’s paw.

  Bronze and iron weights, often with their balance pans, have also come down to us in considerable numbers. These were constantly examined by inspectors to ensure that customers were not being defrauded. Even when making such essentially utilitarian objects as these, Byzantium’s craftsmen endowed them with distinction. In preference to cutting metal into slabs of the correct weights they gave them the form of a woman’s head and shoulders. Lead seals used on documents and by customs officials resembled coins in size and, in addition to an inscription, often displayed a religious symbol or scene.

  Chance finds have provided a wide range of objects, which include such everyday articles as buttons and needles, and less usual ones such as a pocket compass of great precision. These suffice to show that life in Byzantium, at least in well-to-do households, was so highly developed that it stimulated the production and use of objects which can stand comparison with those known to western Europe, often a couple of centuries later. The main gap was the failure to devise a method of book printing; its omission is the more surprising since wooden stamps were used for transferring designs to textiles as well as to bread. Nevertheless the Byzantine inventory of goods was extremely long, making it all the more frustrating that so few objects survive. Not a single piece of domestic furniture has been preserved. To form an idea of what it looked like, one has to turn to the pictorial records of the Byzantines, whether in the form of mural paintings, book illuminations, carvings or sculptures. Records speak of the ivory and gold tables used for banquets in the Great Palace. We are told that one was round in shape. Illustrations of the Last Supper suggest that, if not T-shaped, it is most likely to have been D-shaped, but paintings of the Marriage of Cana indicate that rectangular ones were popular in humbler homes. Though couches and chairs were used in the Palace, the average household made use of benches and stools similar to those shown in religious paintings of post-iconoclast date. The grander chairs are thought to have been of the curule form used in Rome and to have had, in addition, terminals shaped as lions, winged victories or dolphins combined with lyre-shaped backs. The curule was the Roman chair of office used by a curule or senior magistrate, or even by an emperor; its carved supports were often made of ivory, but it was backless, to enable it to fold flat like a stool. However, the ivory throne made for Bishop Maximian of Ravenna has a tub-shaped base and rounded back of Greek origin. Some chairs doubtless resembled thrones and all were probably piled high with cushions resembling those shown in religious paintings of Christ and the Virgin.

  70 Romano-Byzantine balance and weight

  71 Roman type clothes of fourth century

  Built-in cupboards similar to those that still exist in many monasteries were doubtless known to the Byzantines from early times, but then they were probably something of a luxury and seldom very high. Though it was more usual to store goods and household linen in chests, some were probably arranged on shelves in these cupboards; hanging cupboards seem to have been unknown there. Nor do chests-of-drawers appear to have existed, though a piece of furniture representing a cross between a lectern and a desk (so far as can be judged from the paintings showing the apostles engaged in writing their gospels) was customary. Such pieces to some extent resemble a Regency davenport, for they contained a side cupboard fitted with shelves; they appear to have varied in size, design and decoration, though not in their basic shape; some were provided with book rests, but the paintings also show that free-standing lecterns existed.

  To see what beds were like we must once again turn to religious paintings, and more particularly to those illustrating the miracle of the sick man who picked up his bed and walked away with it on his back. These vary from a cheap and simple one consisting of boards equipped at the four outer corners with square legs, and only occasionally having a plain headpiece, to others with their legs turned as elaborately as in mid-Victorian times and with a high head-piece and lower end. Bedding varied according to people’s wealth, the rich using sheets, blankets, quilts and coverlets made either of precious fabrics or beautifully embroidered, while the very poor had to make do with rags and sacking. Hangings and draperies were as essential a part of a house’s furnishings as were cushions and carpets.

  Nor were children overlooked. Toys consisting of clay carts and horses, earth or stone models of houses, knuckle bones, balls, whistles, flutes, tops and hoops were made for boys whilst girls were given wax, clay or plaster dolls. But in Byzantium children grew up young and these simple toys, however passionately cherished, had generally to be laid aside when a child’s age reached double figures.

  8 - COUNTRY LIFE

  During early Byzantine history the emperors, and more particularly Arcadius (395-408), appeared to favour the townsman rather than the countryman. He, indeed, even introduced a system of taxation which was quite definitely to the advantage of the former, for it lifted the tax from trade and industry and imposed it instead on the peasants. He made matters more difficult for the countrymen by compelling them to pay dues in gold rather than in kind, even though the price fixed by the government for the sale of their produce was intended firmly to control their profits. Throughout the whole of Byzantium’s history the taxes imposed on the agricultural community were such as to undermine their well-being. This is an especially curious situation, to find in a country which, after the Muslim conquest of Egypt, depended very much on home-grown supplies, and which expected its agriculturalists to produce much of the simpler foods wanted in the towns, as well as all the commodities which they themselves needed. It was only rarely that the government felt concerned over the hardships which its economic policy inflicted on the men who produced most of the country’s basic necessities.

  The poverty to which they were often reduced led the peasantry to loathe the tax collector and their landlord. Especially in later times they rightly ascribed their numerous, acute misfortunes to the heavy burden of taxation, and it was this that largely caused the hunger which so often induced them to riot. Risings occurred wi
th particular frequency between, roughly speaking, the ninth and the eleventh centuries—the very time when Byzantium was at the height of its glory. When disorders such as these broke out political and religious dissensions often helped to fan them into veritable revolts. One of the worst of these outbreaks occurred in 820 and lasted for three years. It was led by one Thomas the Slav, who won the support of most of the Slays whom the government had moved to Anatolia from their Balkan homelands. The disturbance spread to neighbouring districts, where minority groups consisting of other Slays as well as of Armenians and Georgians rallied round Thomas, as did many Greek lovers of icons, who naturally hated the iconoclast government. Scarcely 20 years later a Slav rising of considerable proportions disrupted the peace of the Peloponnese. Soon after, Paulicians, preaching their doctrine in Anatolia, gained numerous supporters among the peasantry and the revolt which followed spread across Asia Minor. Rioters scored so many victories that the army had to be called out to deal with them, and it was not until 872 that peace was restored. This was the second Paulician rising in 50 years; both outbreaks owed much of their success to the support which the free peasants had given the sectarians when they realised that a new, extremely severe tax was likely to reduce them to virtual serfdom. The revolt which took place between the years 920 and 944 coincided with rises in taxation imposed by Romanus Lecapenus, and with the introduction of a law making the neighbours of a man who absconded without paying his taxes responsible for them. Similar grievances sparked off numerous riots in the frontier zones, where rises in taxation aggravated the nationalist aspirations of the local minority groups.