José María de FRANCISCO OLMOS
Women and the supreme power in Byzantium (5th-11th centuries). Numismatic approach
Las mujeres y el poder supremo en Bizancio, siglos V-XI. Aproximación numismática
Published in Mulier aut Femina. Idealism or reality of women in the Middle Ages
Keywords: Keywords: 5th-11th centuries, Byzantium, Empresses, Numismatics.
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2013_02_09.pdfThis paper studies the evolution of the role of Byzantine women in relation to the Empire government, with special attention to the numismatic evidence. The analyzed period goes from the beginning of the Empire in the 5th century to the middle of the 11th, with a detailed analysis of those reigns that seem most significant in the evolution of this issue, that is those of Pulcheria, Irene and the sisters Zoë and Theodora, with whom women finally became able to assume the government in their own names, without any shade of fiction, as seen on the previous cases.