Holy Women of Byzantium: Ten Saints’ Lives in English Translation

by Alice-Mary Talbot (Editor)

The ten holy women whose biographies are presented here represent a wide variety of Byzantine female nuns who disguised themselves in male monastic garb; a repentant harlot who withdrew to the desert for forty-seven years of self-imposed isolation; a nun who escaped from Arab captivity to spend thirty-five years as a hermit on the abandoned island of Paros; a wonder-working abbess who slew a dragon; widows who found refuge in the ascetic life of the convent; married laywomen and a queen abused by their husbands.

The careers of these holy women demonstrate some of the divergent paths to sanctification in Byzantium, including mortification of the body, unquestioning obedience to a superior, repentance, acts of charity, prophecy, and miracle-working. At the same time, the texts of the Lives reveal the Byzantine ambivalence toward women, reflecting a paradox of civilization that simultaneously denigrated women as daughters of Eve and elevated Mary as the Mother of God and the instrument of man’s salvation.

These vitae , ranging from the fifth to the thirteenth centuries, also supplement traditional narrative histories by providing information on such aspects of Byzantine civilization as the impact of Arab and Bulgarian raids, iconoclasm, the monastic routine in convents, everyday family life and household management, and a smallpox epidemic in Thessalonike.

This collection of sacred biographies is the initial volume in a new Dumbarton Oaks series, Byzantine Saints’ Lives in Translation. The vitae selected for the series are rendered into English for the first time and are fully annotated.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Religion, Biography

384 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Alice-Mary Talbot is Director of Byzantine Studies Emerita, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection.

Reviews

[Stella Metcalf]

Matrona is such a crazy saint. she disguises herself as a man and joins a male monastery to flee an abusive husband. Then she gets discovered, kicked out (but the monastic leaders still love her), and she has to run from him until he dies. Then she establishes a monastery for women BUT they all take the monks’ habit and refuse to veil and get tonsured and all live together as cross dressing nuns. One of my fave vitae

[Scarlett Attari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodbye for now, Matrona
You were good to me!!

[Vasilia · Rating 4 out of 5]

The saints’ lives are beautiful and offer amazing insight into the Byzantine world. The introductions and forewords lack insight and often veil the original Byzantine intent with contemporary interpretations and mindsets.

[Mattia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Offered free online by the publisher (downloadable chapter pdfs): http://www.doaks.org/resources/public...

[Shelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nathan got me this while we were dating, it is 10 stories of female Orthodox saints. Sometimes it was dry, and often hard to relate to, but overall I am glad I read it.