Political Rehabilitation through Rhetoric: Psellos’ Funeral Oration for Patriarch Keroularios and its Ceremonial Context
- Author(s)
- Aleksandar Andjelovic
- Abstract
This study examines Michael Psellos’ Funeral Oration for the Most Blessed Patriarch Kyr Michael Keroularios, delivered in 1060, one year after Keroularios’ death. The oration, structured according to Menander Rhetor’s encomiastic guidelines, presents Keroularios’ life, virtues, and political career, portraying him as a martyr through rhetorical and ideological constructs. By glorifying Keroularios, the speech rehabilitates him and stands in contrast to Psellos’ Indictment against Keroularios, produced just a year earlier, demonstrating the performative and political nature of east Roman funeral oratory. The Funeral Oration was delivered at the patriarch’s foundation, the church of the archangel Michael west of Constantinople, in the presence of the emperor Constantine X Doukas, his wife and Keroularios’ niece Eudokia Makrembolitissa, Keroularios’ nephews, the new patriarch Constantine Leichoudes, and high-ranking clergy. The speech constructs Keroularios as a bloodless martyr, likening him to biblical figures and the Church Fathers. By analyzing Psellos’ engagement with biblical and patristic sources, this study reveals how the oration functioned as both a political statement and an attempt at posthumous rehabilitation. The parallels between Psellos’ oration and Gregory of Nazianzos’ Funeral Oration for Basil of Caesarea suggest that Psellos’ speech sought to elevate Keroularios’ status, possibly even as a step toward canonization. Ultimately, this study positions Psellos’ Funeral Oration as a key example of a politically engaged ceremonial oratory, demonstrating how funeral orations were used not only to eulogize but also to shape political and religious narratives in the eleventh-century east Rome.
- Organisation(s)
- Department of History
- Journal
- Byzantinoslavica
- Volume
- 83
- ISSN
- 0007-7712
- Publication date
- 2025
- Peer reviewed
- Yes
- Austrian Fields of Science 2012
- 602010 Byzantine studies, 603203 Christian philosophy, 603116 Political philosophy, 602041 Rhetoric
- Portal url
- https://ucrisportal.univie.ac.at/en/publications/63f65a90-81d8-48c5-a72c-8b54544696e9