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Academy of Technical and Art Applied Studies, Belgrade
Textile School for Design, Technology and Management
jelena2022nikolic@gmail.com
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MEDIEVAL FEMALE RULERS AND THEIR POWER IN THE VISUAL CULTURE OF THE BALKANS
Journal 18/2022 (Museum of Applied Art), pages 9-20
Article category: original scientific paper
UDC:
316.74:[391-055.2(497)"04/14"
930.85(497)"04/14"
Abstract (original language):
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Key words: (original language)
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Summary:
Luxurious clothes, valuable jewelry, and insignia says much about how female rulers were seen at the Byzantine court and how they were represented; usually by khtetors compositions with the ruler, sometimes with children, or through other visual representations. Their power and the intensity of that power can be visually perused from the luxurious way female rulers dressed, by wearing insignia, i.e. adorning themselves with expensive jewelry, and generally from their visual representation; whereby some also bring out the importance of their motherhood aspect. Noble silks and luxurious textiles played a very important role in the secular and sacred life of Byzantine society, as they were used in ceremonies, diplomacy and state propaganda. In fact, the female rulers in the Byzantine Empire and the countries of the Byzantine cultural circle were often dressed similarly to the male rulers. Rulers and high-ranking church officials achieved their plans and goals in the field of politics, diplomacy and military through visual representation and gifts of luxury textiles. Throughout the Middle Ages and the early modern era, luxurious silk fabrics played a particularly important role in communicating wealth and the authority of power, defining the function of the body and space as an arena for displaying several types of power, such as social, religious and political, with female rulers and female khtetors playing a notable role in the Balkans and the Mediterranean area.
Translated by the author
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