Daily Life at the Blachernai Palace

This paper aims to present a picture of daily at court in the early Palaiologan period (1261-1350). Like Alexander Kazhdan and Michael McCormick (1997) and recently Paul Magdalino (2009) I define the imperial court as the sum of people who lived in and frequented the imperial palace or, in short: the extended imperial household. This definition implies that a court in its simplest form consists of two parts – or three if we treat the ruler and his nuclear family separately, i.e. core members of the court who were in the palace regularly because they lived or worked there (regular court) and people who visited the palace occasionally, for example when their presence was required for certain ceremonies (occasional court). Since no accounts or household ordinances of the Blachernai palace have survived (let alone the palace itself), we need to study these people, especially the ones who formed the core of the imperial household, in order to gain understanding of the state of affairs at court. Only in this way we would be able to get a glimpse of life behind the palace doors. This paper, therefore, focuses on courtiers and domestic staff members who permanently resided in or regularly visited the Blachernai palace, for example the servants who took care of the imperial bedchamber. Who were they? And how are their tasks described in Pseudo-Kodinos’ ceremony book (14th century) and other sources?

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