“Manly” men came in many different shapes and sizes in Byzantium. Although they embodied a wide and sometimes conflicting range of masculine virtues: soldiers, clerics, monks, scholars, and eunuchs could all serve as archetypes of masculinity. Over the past twenty-five years, scholarship has increasingly explored these diverse expressions of masculinity across Byzantium’s long history. Perisanidi’s volume contributes meaningfully to this growing body of work by foregrounding models of masculinity grounded in intellectual rather than physical prowess, and by examining the forms of violence practiced by scholars and clerics--areas that have received comparatively less attention in Byzantine studies than in the scholarship on Western Christendom.
To achieve this aim, Perisanidi presents five case studies featuring both prominent and lesser-known intellectuals who proposed alternative--and often paradoxical--models of masculine self-fashioning that challenged dominant martial ideals while asserting their own forms of superiority. She compares how these figures constructed masculine identity, highlighting both continuities and contrasts. This framework is well conceived, allowing readers to engage with the material on both micro and macro levels. The chapters function effectively as a cohesive whole and as individual case studies, making the volume particularly useful for instructors needing to assign specific chapters to undergraduate or graduate students.
The book is well written and refreshingly free of jargon, making Perisanidi’s arguments accessible to both specialists and readers less familiar with the subject. I noticed very few errors, aside from a misdated citation of one of my articles, which was published in 2016, not 2006.
By centering her study on the relationship between clerics, scholars, and violence, the introduction articulates Perisanidi’s overarching goal: to bring greater nuance to existing scholarship on Eastern Roman manhood, particularly in relation to military and imperial masculinities. While she draws on innovative methodologies developed by Western medievalists to study clerical masculinities after the Gregorian reforms of the eleventh century, she rightly acknowledges a key distinction: Eastern Roman secular clerics continued to marry and raise families, unlike their Western counterparts. This important difference justifies her focus on the attitudes of clerics and scholars toward violence in their roles as Christians, teachers, soldiers, and hunters--offering a broad canvas for examining gender constructions in the eleventh and twelfth centuries. Her critique of the tendency to treat the “clerical and monastic” as homogeneous groups is also well argued.
The study naturally begins by examining the masculine self-presentation of Michael Psellos (ca. 1018-ca.1096), the most renowned intellectual of the Middle Byzantine period. As Perisanidi points out, much of the recent scholarship that examines Psellos in isolation tends to emphasize his idiosyncrasies, portraying him as a singular figure engaged in a peculiar mode of masculine self-fashioning--somewhat out of touch with the Christian Roman world in which he lived. Yet Perisanidi convincingly demonstrates that Psellos was part of a broader group of like-minded individuals who cultivated alternative forms of masculinity rooted in their mastery of literature and other intellectual pursuits.
Although males were believed to assert their superiority over females as early as in the womb, this marked only the beginning of a long and arduous journey toward achieving “true” manliness. As Perisanidi lucidly explains, being born biologically male did not automatically confer upon a Byzantine boy like Psellos a fully realized masculine identity. This exclusivity helps explain why rigorous mental training was deemed essential for boys aspiring to manhood. Like earlier Greco-Roman intellectuals, Psellos regarded masculinity as an attained status--elite boys like him had to be moulded into men, whereas girls were generally seen as becoming women by default. During this formative period, a boy like Psellos was expected to surround himself with male role models capable of imparting the knowledge and discipline required to meet Roman ideals of masculinity. Each step in Psellos’s education and later intellectual and political career was presented by the polymath as a new stage in his growth as a man.
Unlike many of his Greek and Roman predecessors, Psellos acknowledged his physical limitations and constructed a different form of masculinity, sometimes embracing behaviours considered effeminate in the Byzantine world. As Perisanidi puts it, Psellos “uses the masculine capital from his education to justify other more unconventional aspects of his presentation” (41). Psellos did not entirely reject the dominant masculine ideal rooted in soldierly virtues; however, by embracing the values of intellectual life, he carved out a space for himself--and others like him--to perform an alternative yet compelling model of masculinity. This model not only rivalled hegemonic martial ideals but, at least in Psellos’s view, ultimately surpassed it.
The second chapter, focusing on Ioannes Tzetzes (1110s-after 1180), examines both the continuities and divergences between Tzetzes’s self-presentation and that of Psellos, particularly in relation to their masculine identities. Like Psellos, Tzetzes was deeply immersed in classical learning and prioritized intellectual prowess over physical strength as a core component of his masculine self-fashioning. More distinctive to Tzetzes is his use of symbolic animals in constructing what P terms as his “scholarly masculinity.” Rather than the noble steed associated with the archetypal Roman warrior, Tzetzes who trumpeted the “shared nature” (61) between humans and animals chose to ride a humble mule, which in the Roman tradition had been used to transport usurpers or traitors to their executions. While this might be read as a gesture of humility--a familiar trope in Christian strains of masculinity since late antiquity--Perisanidi shows that Tzetzes employed this image deliberately, as part of a self-conscious strategy for shaping his masculine identity.
Rejecting many of the outward symbols of hegemonic male masculinity such as horse-riding and the hunting and consumption of animals, which were long standards in Greco-Roman masculinity, Tzetzes embraced “the human-mule assemblage” and used the “masculine capital” obtained in his scholarly endeavours to disassociate himself from the violent worlds of soldiers and hunters by embracing the virtues of the natural world.
The next chapter examines the physically challenged Gregorius Antiochus (ca. 1125-after 1196), who, as a result of near-constant ill health, developed non-physical forms of male self-fashioning. In doing so, however, Gregorius was more openly critical of the military elite than either Psellos or Tzetzes. As Perisanidi notes (80), he challenged the “military ideal” by associating it with “a lack of independence,” thereby calling into question the very foundations of martial masculinity.
Yet despite Gregorius’s claim that his scholarly life set him apart from soldiers and those intellectuals who served in the imperial and judicial administration, what makes him especially compelling to the modern scholar, as Perisanidi suggests, is his humility. In stark contrast to the egotistical Psellos and Tzetzes, Gregorius was acutely aware of his own intellectual and physical limitations. Unable to emulate the martial prowess of the cavalry soldier and his symbiotic relationship with his horse, Antiochus instead fashioned a scholarly masculine identity through the tools of his trade: his books, lectern, and reed.
Among the issues addressed in chapter 4--arguably the weakest in the book--is the clerical attitude toward hunting and the question of whether clerics were prohibited from participating in hunts, which Perisanidi ultimately concludes they were not. While Perisanidi draws on an admirable range of sources to support her argument, the discussion is at times difficult to follow, and the material feels only tenuously connected to the overarching theme of masculinity.
Chapter 5--for me, the most engaging in the volume--demonstrates that by wielding violence in a “rational” manner, Byzantine clerics could be just as violent as their secular counterparts, drawing upon similar forms of masculine authority (136). As long as they were not driven by irrational or selfish anger, clerics were permitted to physically punish sinners or students as they saw fit. However, if a cleric chose to participate in warfare and potentially kill another human being, he was expected to relinquish his religious office and assume a secular identity. As Perisanidi notes, there were exceptions to this rule: for instance, there is a notable example during the siege of Thessalonike in 1185, when members of the clergy donned secular clothing over their religious garments and took up arms to defend the city. Yet, as Perisanidi rightly observes, “this is a case of gender inversion” (146): by highlighting the clergy’s unusual role in combat, the episode’s primary purpose was to shame the soldiers who had fled.
The conclusion succinctly and effectively weaves together the threads of the preceding chapters and could be read first rather than last for greater insight. Pointing the way for future scholarship, Perisanidi offers the compelling argument that the humble self-presentation of the renowned female historian Anna Komnene (1083-1153) may have been shaped less by her gender than by her aspiration to align herself with the tradition of scholarly male authors.
There is much to admire in this book: it is a lucid work that delivers an enlightening and impactful punch. Hence, the criticisms that follow should mostly be seen as constructive, and evidence of the stimulating nature of the book, offering Perisanidi and future scholars some issues to consider.
Although all scholars must make their own decisions regarding terminology, Perisanidi’s interchangeable use of the terms Byzantium, Eastern Romans, and Romaniá may be confusing for readers unfamiliar with the increasingly intense debates surrounding the identity of the state ruled primarily by emperors in Constantinople for over a millennium.
I would question or nuance Perisanidi’s assertion that “Byzantinists have largely downplayed the importance of...religious distinctions in their study of masculinity” (7). A more robust engagement with foundational studies on Christian masculinities by scholars such as Colleen Conway and Matthew Kuefler [1]--as well as with earlier Greco-Roman traditions explored by Myles McDonnell, Joseph Roisman, and Joy Connolly, [2] to name just a few--would have added broader comparative context to her argument.
Given her sharp critique of earlier scholarship on Byzantine eunuchs, a dedicated chapter, rather than a short section at the close of chapter 5, would have offered a more comprehensive and balanced treatment of this complex and often misunderstood topic. While I respect that views differ, I feel that she simplifies Shaun Tougher’s views on the male gender of eunuchs and fails to engage or cite his substantial body of work on those eunuchs who served in the Church or the military.
Moreover, from the fourth century CE, eunuchs had served in a variety of martial roles in Byzantium. Eunuchs serving as imperial bodyguards in early Byzantium, such as the spatharii and candidatii, often operated with relative anonymity. [3] Their castrated status was rarely foregrounded; in many contexts, they were perceived simply as fellow soldiers or bodyguards, and thus as biological men, possessing the same virtues and flaws as their anatomically intact counterparts. Our understanding of these “hidden” groups or “others” is, of course, shaped primarily by the literary record, in which eunuchs who served either as bodyguards and generals typically surface only when contemporary authors seek to praise or condemn them. [4]
A few additional points merit considerations. The association of “unrestrained anger” is not limited to eunuchs and barbarians, as Perisanidi suggests (137). Rather, it is a common topos in Byzantine literature, applied to a broad range of groups including youths, women, the uneducated, and the “unmanly” more generally. Similarly, the pairing of “brains and brawn” was not a novel feature of scholarly masculinity but a long-standing ideal within Roman and Byzantine conceptions of generalship (e.g., Agath. Hist. 2.22.5). Military figures who relied solely on physical strength and andreia (courage/manliness) were often viewed with suspicion or subjected to outright criticism in both historiographical and military texts (Men. Prot. frag. 26.3). Roman and Byzantine generals were expected to wield “rational” violence--both in combat and within their own ranks--as a means of maintaining discipline. In short, the intellectual and rational virtues that P. attributes to clerical or scholarly masculinity were not distinct from or opposed to martial ideals, but integral to a broader hegemonic model of elite masculinity.
Let me close, however, on a more positive note. Despite the caveats outlined above, Perisanidi succeeds admirably in illuminating the diverse and nuanced pathways to manliness available to men--and, arguably, to women like Anna--in the medieval Roman world. This book is a significant contribution to our understanding of masculinity in Byzantium during the eleventh and twelfth centuries, and one that will undoubtedly need to be engaged with by anyone studying masculinities in this pivotal period.
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Notes:
1. C. Conway, Behold the Man: Jesus and Greco Roman Masculinity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008); M. Kuefler, The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender Ambiguity, and Christian Ideology in Late Antiquity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001).
2. M. McDonnell, Roman Manliness: Virtus and the Roman Republic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); J. Roisman, The Rhetoric of Manhood: Masculinity in the Ancient World (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007); J. Connolly, The State of Speech: Rhetoric and Political Thought in Ancient Rome (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007).
3. For the continued and indeed extensive presence of eunuch guardsmen in the emperor’s service in the eleventh century, see Psellos Chron. 5.16.
4. See M. E. Stewart, “Protectors and Assassins: Armed Eunuch-cubicularii and Spatharii, 400-532,” in Brill's Companion to Bodyguards in the Ancient Mediterranean, eds. M. Hebblewhite and C. Whately (Leiden: Brill), 272-291.