photo by Petrus Agricola
From arriving at the port of Constantinople as a teenage bride to the heir to the Byzantine Throne, to exiling – and blinding – her own son, Constantine IV, to boldly crowning herself the first Empress Regnant of the Byzantine Empire, Irene of Athens’ life was a wildly unpredictable ride through one of the most tumultuous and fascinating periods of medieval history.
Olivia interviews archaeologist and historian Judith Herrin, author of Women in Purple: Rulers of Medieval Byzantium and Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium.
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Judith Herrin was educated at the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham, and received additional training in Paris, Munich and Athens. She was awarded several fellowships and visiting appointments before 1991 when she took up the Stanley J. Seeger Professorship in Byzantine History at Princeton University. From there she moved to King’s College London where she remains Professor Emerita and Constantine Leventis Senior Research Fellow attached to the Classics Department. Her major books include The Formation of Christendom (Princeton University Press, 1987), now reprinted as a Princeton Classic (2021); Byzantium: The Surprising Life of a Medieval Empire (Penguin Books, 2007), translated into twelve languages, and Ravenna. Capital of Empire, Crucible of Europe (Penguin Books, 2020), which was awarded the Duff Cooper-Pol Roger Prize for History. In 2013 Princeton UP published two volumes of essays: Unrivalled Influence: Women and Empire in Byzantium, and Margins and Metropolis: Authority across the Byzantine Empire.
Music featured in this episode provided by:
“The Garden of Epicurus,” “The Life of Pyrrho,” and “The Lyre of Thamyris” by Michael Levy
Excerpts from Justinian, and “Konstantinos,” “Constantinople – Queen of Cities,” “Theodora, Empress of Rome,” “Psalm 134,” “Theodora’s Death,” “Romanos IV Diogenes,” by Farya Faraji
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