The service of the groom (officium stratoris) in Byzantium during the Palaeologan period. New reflections on the relations between the emperor and the patriarch in the 13th-15th centuries

Abstract

The spreading of the Donatio Constantini from the 11th century onwards, in the context of the ecclesiastical reform promoted by the Papacy, led to a major shift in the protocol under which the meetings between the Pope and the lay rulers, especially the Byzantine emperor, occurred, because of the introduction of the officium stratoris or “office of the groom”. The aim of this ceremony was to display the supremacy of the ecclesiastical over the secular powers. In the 13th century, the officium stratoris entered the Byzantine world due to the Latin regime in Constantinople and the reformist agenda. The officium stratoris was performed by the contemporary Byzantine emperors, thus bearing witness of a deep change in the approach to the imperial authority and the nature of the relationship between the ruler and the Church. Eventually this ritual went through several important changes mirroring the evolution of the imperial ideology at the end of the Byzantine period.