Prescribing grief : emotion, restraint, and rhetoric in Byzantium, 803–1204 : a thesis presented in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in History at Massey University, Manawatū, New Zealand

Abstract

Historians have explored the experience of grief amongst Byzantine communities, but largely within the general period of late antiquity, and with limited reference to its prescriptive norms. Focusing on the period of 803-1204, this thesis contributes to the study of emotionology in Byzantium by revealing how prescriptive literature about grief was reflected in different contexts of grieving as they were represented in primary sources. Prescriptive texts provided a pathway through grief, and a set of emotional norms when grieving, centred on the desire to reach a state of apatheia. However, chronicle and literary representation of grief also show it was used for other purposes in negotiating power and politics, often through the use and performance of Classical traditions.