Beholding Violence: A Conference on Medieval and Early Modern Culture

In an eleventh-century illustrated volume of Symeon Metaphrastes’ saints' lives (Athos, Dochiariou 5, fol. 254r), the martyrdom of the eighth-century saint Stephen the Younger is represented before the text: as one guard drags him by the rope, another is about to strike a blow to his head with a club. A similar fate of another martyr who died for defending icons during the period of Byzantine Iconoclasm in Constantinople is depicted in another edition of Metaphrastes’s work (Moscow, State Historical Museum, gr. 175, fol. 122v): an executioner wields a double-headed ax above Saint Andrew in Krisei, who is being dragged by another man pulling a rope. The two saints were among many iconophiles who perished under the harsh persecutions of the iconoclast emperor Constantine V (r. 740-775). With brief interruptions, the period of Iconoclasm in Byzantium lasted from 726 to 843, and witnessed the reigns of several emperors, of which Constantine V is remembered as the cruelest by those who prevailed in the controversy and shaped the memory of the events. Stephen, Andrew, and others who shared their fate were hailed as martyr saints after Iconoclasm, and their relics, consisting of various fragmented body parts, were for a long time venerated in Constantinople’s churches on their feast days, when the accounts of their martyrdom were read aloud. However, according to the iconoclast emperors who embodied the law of the empire during their rule, these men were appropriately punished for their crime of heresy, and their broken bodies were thrown into a pit designated for criminal burials.

Those who wrote saints’ lives and histories in the years and centuries after the Iconoclasm, ascribe varying degrees of violence and destruction to the iconoclasts. Many images of Christ and the saints were destroyed during this period, bones of dead saints and other relics were discarded from churches and thrown into the sea, and extreme acts of violence were legally sanctioned against monks, nuns, and others who spoke and acted in defense of holy images and relics. This paper investigates relationships between images, relics and human bodies, focusing on the acts of violence perpetrated against each, and the way this violence is represented in visual arts and literature. Often adding cruel and violent details to the brief original accounts of persecutions, vita writers strove to elicit a visceral reaction from the readers and amplify their empathy not only for the iconophile martyrs but also for the images they protected. Ultimately I consider how destructive violence against images, relics and people during Iconoclasm somewhat paradoxically aided the cause of the iconophiles, as it generated new martyr saints, new relics and new images, and strengthened the bond between the mutilated image and its prototype, the perceived target of the inflicted pain.



	Galina Tirnanic (Ph.D. Candidate, Art History, University of Chicago) “Image in Pain: Icons, Old Bones and New Blood” In an eleventh-century illustrated volume of Symeon Metaphrastes’ saints' lives (Athos, Dochiariou 5, fol. 254r), the martyrdom of the eighth-century saint Stephen the Younger is represented before the text: as one guard drags him by the rope, another is about to strike a blow to his head with a club. A similar fate of another martyr who died for defending icons during the period of Byzantine Iconoclasm in Constantinople is depicted in another edition of Metaphrastes’s work (Moscow, State Historical Museum, gr. 175, fol. 122v): an executioner wields a double-headed ax above Saint Andrew in Krisei, who is being dragged by another man pulling a rope. The two saints were among many iconophiles who perished under the harsh persecutions of the iconoclast emperor Constantine V (r. 740-775). With brief interruptions, the period of Iconoclasm in Byzantium lasted from 726 to 843, and witnessed the reigns of several emperors, of which Constantine V is remembered as the cruelest by those who prevailed in the controversy and shaped the memory of the events. Stephen, Andrew, and others who shared their fate were hailed as martyr saints after Iconoclasm, and their relics, consisting of various fragmented body parts, were for a long time venerated in Constantinople’s churches on their feast days, when the accounts of their martyrdom were read aloud. However, according to the iconoclast emperors who embodied the law of the empire during their rule, these men were appropriately punished for their crime of heresy, and their broken bodies were thrown into a pit designated for criminal burials. Those who wrote saints’ lives and histories in the years and centuries after the Iconoclasm, ascribe varying degrees of violence and destruction to the iconoclasts. Many images of Christ and the saints were destroyed during this period, bones of dead saints and other relics were discarded from churches and thrown into the sea, and extreme acts of violence were legally sanctioned against monks, nuns, and others who spoke and acted in defense of holy images and relics. This paper investigates relationships between images, relics and human bodies, focusing on the acts of violence perpetrated against each, and the way this violence is represented in visual arts and literature. Often adding cruel and violent details to the brief original accounts of persecutions, vita writers strove to elicit a visceral reaction from the readers and amplify their empathy not only for the iconophile martyrs but also for the images they protected. Ultimately I consider how destructive violence against images, relics and people during Iconoclasm somewhat paradoxically aided the cause of the iconophiles, as it generated new martyr saints, new relics and new images, and strengthened the bond between the mutilated image and its prototype, the perceived target of the inflicted pain.