Sensory Experience and Devotion

Possible Interpretations about Female Religiosity at the Byzantine Court (11th Century)

Abstract

The Empress Zoé and her younger sister Theodora were the last representatives of the Macedonian dynasty. Miguel Psellos, in his Chronographia, portrays Zoe at the end of his life: almost secluded, devoted to a routine of devotion full of sensory experience, which the author presents as particular and suspicious. The objective of this paper is understand the author‘s critical view who presents the case of Zoe framed in a scheme of private devotion, a deeply rooted pious formula of a simple person tied to the sensible. Then I will list the various current historiographical approaches around the religiosity of the Empress and finally, will see if the notion of aesthesia can be to try to understand this devotional practice, which in a mystical and complex interactions of body and soul, could lead to a superior knowledge.