Another of the “rediscovered” women of history: Kassia (also Cassia, Kassiane, Eikasia and Ikasia) was a 9th-century nun in Constantinople and “the outstanding female poet of the middle Byzantine period”. She’s one of only four positively identified female Byzantine hymnographers (although it seems a safe bet there were more).

Tradition suggests that she was a participant in the “bride show” (the means by which Byzantine princes/emperors sometimes chose a bride, by giving a golden apple to his choice. But seems she wasn’t thrilled:

Struck by Kassia’s beauty, Emperor Theophilos pronounced: “Ach, what a flood of terrible things came through woman!”
She replied, yet with modesty: “But also through women better things spring.”
Stung to the heart by these words, Theophilos passed her by, and gave the golden apple to Theodora who came from Paphlagonia.

Some 49 of her hymns survive and 23 are in the liturgical books, which presumably mean they are still being sung today.

But she also wrote non-liturgical stuff, which is beautifully pithy and reminds me of the writing of the roughly contemporary Shei Shonagon. For example a few of her sententiae:

I hate the rich man moaning as if he were poor.

I hate one who conforms himself to all ways.
I hate one who does everything for recognition.

There is absolutely no cure for stupidity,
no help for it except death!
A stupid person when honoured, is overbearing to all…
If a stupid person is young and in power,
alas and woe and what a disaster!

A crisis will reveal a genuine friend,
who will not abandon one whom he loves.

Kassia became the hegoumene, Superior, of a monastery on the eastern slope of the seventh hill of Constantinople, near the walls of Constantine. It is easy to imagine her as an extremely sharp-eyed governor…
(From Anna M. Silvas, “Kassia the Nun,” in Lynda Garland (ed) Byzantine Women: Varieties of Experience 800-1200, Ashgate, 2006.)

Looking around this I found a good piece on women and medieval music, a piece about another female composer, “the daughter of Ioannes Kladas” – this also has a listing of Kassia’s works. Wikipedia, however, needs a bit of work.

A recording of women’s medieval music, including Kassia’s, is available on Amazon UK and on Amazon US.

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