Study of Women Medieval Byzantine Women Composers: the Earliest Women Composers

                          WOMEN COMPOSERS IN BYZANTIUM
                                                             BY:
                                          Diane Touliatos-Miliotis, Ph.D.

It is only in recent studies of Byzantine music that composers of medieval Byzantine
chant have been examined. Not unlike composers of Western medieval music such as
Leonin, Perotin, and Machaut, little is known about most Byzantine musicians. Nevertheless,
renowned Byzantine musicians and composers of the late Middle Ages did exist, even though
a majority of these musicians will forever remain only as names in the folios of the musical
manuscripts. A few of the composers most frequently mentioned are Ioannes Koukouzeles,
Ioannes Kladas, Xenos Korones, and Manuel Chrysaphes. As might be expected of
medieval times, the composers from both the East and the West were predominantly men.
However, women composers did exist.

From antiquity there was a legacy of Greek women composers. Although many of the
women were hetairai (the highest class of prostitutes in ancient Greece), there were also
respectable women, such as Pythia of Delphi; Telesilla of Argos; Sappho of Lesbos;
Polygnota, daughter of Socrates of Thebes; and the daughter of Aristocrates of Cyme,
only to name a few.

.A respectable woman musician was
distinguished from hetairai by the
occasional citation of her name and
by the obligatory citation of her
patronymic (father's name) and city of origin.

The participation of respectable women performing and composing music was short-
lived. The beginnings of Christianity brought great change to Greek culture. In the period
of early Christianity in Byzantium, when men dominated all aspects of religious, political,
and social philosophies, Byzantine women were considered to be intellectually and spiritually
inferior to men.

It can only be surmised that the involvement of Byzantine women in music was minimal
during the early centuries of the Empire. Because of its association with prostitution, perform
ance on musical instruments was forbidden to young, unmarried women in the early period
of Christianity. This attitude was obviously transmitted from the former role of the hetairai in
Antiquity. Furthermore, women of all ages were forbidden to participate in any type of liturgic
al choir singing. (This attitude had been voiced by the apostle Paul to the Corinthian Greeks
in I Corinthians 14:34-35.) Contrary to the position held by the early church, documentation
proves that women did participate in congregational singing between the second and fourth
centuries in such locales as Samosata, Syria, Jerusalem, and Edessa; this trend probably
reached Byzantium as well.

Next to nothing is known about the role of women in liturgical music during the early
centuries of the Empire. Most of our information on secular music in the early centuries of
the Empire comes from the admonishments of the Church Fathers.
In Byzantium we know that there was music for
the accompaniment of theatrical performances
and other public shows, ballets, and pantomimes
in which women participated alongside men in
song, dance, and instrumental performance.

These activities are documented in chronicles by
the Church Fathers who regarded them with
contempt for all profane music. During these
early centuries female musicians were referred
to by the Church Fathers as prostitutes.

The Byzantine Empire existed for more than a thousand years, from its beginnings in
the fourth century until its fall in 1453. Throughout this time, there were constraints on the
participation of women in all aspects of life. Some of these constraints were legal edicts,
while others were implied. From the ninth century until the end of the Empire, the Byzantines
were unusually conservative in aspects of relations concerning women, leading to the seclu-
sion, or at the very least segregation, of women from men. For example, women of the
Imperial court were known to be housed in private quarters of the palace away from the men;
urban women who attended the large cathedrals of Constantinople were seated on the left
side of the cathedral (facing the altar) to separate them from the men seated on the right
side. It is from these centuries of constraint that very few names of Byzantine women compo-
sers-musicians have survived.

The Byzantine woman composer-musician is much harder to discover than her Western
counterpart. In the area of secular music very little has survived and hence no names of
women composers have been given. Manuscript sources of liturgical music have survived in
great number, but anonymity was so honored in Byzantium that composers' names were
often omitted, especially in early sources. For female composers, anonymity was perhaps
observed in later periods as well, since they probably wished to be measured by the merit
of their music and not by their gender. The absence of compositions attributed to or signed
by women might also result from the reticence of Greek scribes. Throughout the Eastern
and Western medieval periods, Greek scribes rarely included names or information about
themselves. In Byzantium the women composers' names that have survived were associated
exclusively with liturgical chant. These women were all literate and of middle- to upper-class
social status. With the exception of one they were all nuns: Martha, mother of Symeon the
Stylite;

           Theodosia shown in the picture above.         Thekla shown above.

Thekla; Kassia; Kouvouklisena; and Palaeologina. The one for whom we have no
knowledge is referred to as the daughter of Ioannes Kladas.

Of these women whose names are documented in sources as composers of Byzantine
chant, only the music of Kassia and the daughter of Ioannes Kladas is preserved in manu-
scripts. Since music by only these two of the women hymnographers survives, one might
ask whether the other women wrote music as well as the texts for their liturgical poems.
Most of these female hymnographers were nuns who wrote their liturgical compositions for
use in their nunneries.

It is believed that these liturgical compositions were chanted, since liturgical rites were
sung throughout in medieval Byzantium. Male Byzantine hymnographers, such as Romanos
Melodos and John of Damascus, traditionally wrote both words and music. However, whether
women composed their own music or employed contrafacta (preexisting music) is a point for
debate.

The surviving information concerning the female composers is easily summarized.
Martha was the mother of Symeon the Stylite, a Byzantine saint.
Little is known about her:
she lived toward the end
of the ninth century and
was the abbess of a nunnery
at Argos. It is assumed that most
of her musical works were composed
for the nuns of her convent.

Theodosia, a devout abbess of a convent near the Imperial city of Constantinople, also
lived during the ninth century. She is known for her composition of Kanons, a poetical form
comprising nine odes and found in the Byzantine Morning Office known as Orthros.

Another ninth-century composer is Thekla, who was also probably an abbess of a
convent near Constantinople. Thekla has been described as a self-confident woman, proud
not only of herself, but also of her sex. Her only surviving hymn is a Kanon in honor of the
Theotokos (the Byzantine attribution for the Virgin Mary).

Since this composition praises the Virgin Mary,
it has also been called an encomium, or hymn of
praise. In the millennium years of existence of the
Empire, this Kanon is the only preserved hymn to
the Theotokos by a woman.

An examination of Thekla's literary skills in this complex Kanon attests to the fact that
she was educated in literature as well as in Scriptures. In the several themes presented in
the Kanon, the most significant is Thekla's premise that the Theotokos has emancipated
Byzantine women from the guilt of Eve

and has given women respect and honor in the Byzantine church. In addition to lauding the
Theotokos, the woman most revered in Byzantium, Thekla shows her feminist traits by
praising female martyrs, saints, and consecrated virgins of the Eastern Orthodox Church.

A later Byzantine woman musician is Kouvouklisena, a thirteenth-century precentor
identified in Lavra MS Gamma 71, a manuscript in the largest monastery of Mount Athos.
The citation in the manuscript pertains to the date of her death. More important, it identifies
her as a domestikena or chantress and leader of a woman's choir. Although there were
other female singers of chant, the acknowledgement of her musical role by a Greek male
scribe from a monastery indicates her extraordinary vocal abilities and importance for the
period.

There is no clear indication
that Kouvouklisena was a
composer, but since many
leading male precentors of
the period were composers
or at least arrangers of
traditional chant, she also
probably composed and
improvised.

A Byzantine woman composer for whom we have a single musical reference is identified
only as "the daughter of Ioannes Kladas." The sole musical composition and inscription in
reference to this composer appears in Athens MS 2406, folio 258v. (A published musical
transcription by this writer is available in College Music Symposium, volume 24, (Spring,
1984), p. 64.) The composer is identified by the patronymic and the relationship of the
composer to the patriarch of the family, following the ancient Greek tradition of identifying
respectable women. It is interesting that in the single reference to this female composer no
given or Christian name is indicated. In instances where male members of a family are cited,
a given name is usually included in addition to a family relationship. From this reference, it
appears that the daughter of Ioannes Kladas was probably known as a singer and composer.
Her fame, however, is not as great as that of her father, who was a leading composer of
Byzantine chant of the late fourteenth century as well as "The Lampadarios" or maistor of
the Hagia Sophia of Constantinople.

Based on the known lifespan of Ioannes Kladas, the composition by his daughter would
have originated during the late fourteenth or early fifteenth century. The composition is
included in a section of the manuscript that contains a collection of compositions by Ioannes
Kladas. The selection attributed to the daughter is a memorial chant honoring the memory
of her late father.

A later Byzantine woman hymnographer that might have lived in the fifteenth century is
identified as Palaeologina. This hymnographer was obviously a well-educated, aristocratic
woman from the Imperial family and dynasty Palaeologus that ruled from 1259 to 1453.
Palaeologina is thought to have been a nun in one of the convents of Constantinople. It was
for the convent that she composed Kanons, for which only the texts have survived.

The composer who is the most prominent woman composer and hymnographer in the
history of Byzantine music and who has overshadowed the fame of other women composers
of the Empire is Kassia. Kassia has the distinction of being the earliest woman composer for
whom there is preserved music! She precedes her Western musical counterparts by over
two centuries.

Much is known about Kassia, (center very bottom, above) who was born around A.D.
810, probably in Constantinople, and died sometime between 843 and 867. Kassia is known
by the various forms of her name found in manuscripts and service books: Kasia (Kasia),
Kassia (Kassia), Eikasia (Eikasia), Ikasia (Ikasia), and Kassiane (Kassianh).

Over fifty liturgical chants are attributed to Kassia. (These musical compositions have
been transcribed into Western staff notation by this writer and are available through Hildegar
d Press. ) As a gifted poet, Kassia wrote 261 secular verses in the forms of epigrams,
gnomic verses, and moral sentences. Kassia's fame and importance is documented by
Nikephoros Kallistos Xanthopoulos (a hymnographer and priest in the church of St. Sophia
in Constantinople) in his fourteenth-century catalogue of important Byzantine hymnograph-
ers, in which she is the only woman composer acknowledged. Kassia is the only woman
pictured in the frontispiece of a Triodion, a Lenten liturgical service book, printed in Venice
in 1601, which also included pictures of the Byzantine churches leading hymnographers.

Kassia (shown at the center-bottm picture) was from a wealthy family in Constantinople.
Her father had the title of candidatos at the Imperial Court, which was a military title given to
members of the aristocracy. Because of the honor given to her father, it is assumed that
Kassia and her family were members of the Imperial Court. Like other aristocratic young
girls of the court, Kassia, received a private education that was influenced by Classical
Greek studies and which can be observed in her verse and writings.

During her teenage years Kassia became involved in the iconoclastic controversy
of the Byzantine Empire. This was a controversy involving the use and abolishment of icons
in churches. Kassia, along with other women, clergy, and monks, fought against the imperial
edict abolishing the use of icons in churches. Because of her actions, Kassia was persecuted
and lashed for helping imprisoned monks and iconodule exiles. It was during this time that
Kassia also came under the influence of Theodore the Studite (759-826), abbot of the
Studite Monastery of Constantinople, who was also a defender of icons. The correspond-
ence between Kassia and Theodore the Studite reveals her inclination to become a nun,
although he tried to dissuade her from such a decision so early in her life. Kassia also sent
to Theodore examples of her writings, to which he responded with compliments on her
literary skills.

NOTE: The music performed is from Touliatos' published transcriptions of Kassia's music under copy-
right by Theodore Presser Publication.

The music is being sung by the group VocaMe from the CD, KASSIA: Byzantine Hymns of the
First Female Composer (c. 810-867) under the label of CHRISTOPHORUS under MusicContact
GmbH, Heidelberg, Germany. www.christophorus-records.de



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