Gender Issues In The Byzantine Empire Essay

618 Words3 Pages
The Byzantine Empire at its peak had parts of Southern and Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Northern Africa. Justinian’s reign over the empire spanned from 527 to 565, during the early era of the Byzantine empire. Theodora approached these plans by fixing the lower class in social injustices, modifying the higher class in the political problems and helping women in the gender issues. Before Theodora came into power, in the empire there were, throngs of women in brothels and she changed the gender issues by helping all of these women. After Theodora came into power, she removed all of these prostitutes and put them into a monastery and helped them repent for their sins.(The Buildings) Theodora also used Justinian to her advance to get rid of all of the brothels similar to how she was raised by convincing Justinian to remove all of the brothels and as a result the empire would be more pure and be stronger.(Novellae 14; On Pimps) However this point of view was biased because it was written by Procopius when he was hired by the government to write it and later it was shown in the Secret History that she locked up the women and forced them to repent for their way of life resulting in many of them jumping off from the parapets to be freed from this prison.(Secret History, Saved Five…show more content…
When the insurrection of the people began revolting and rebelling against the empire, many higher class members of the court were scared for their lives but Theodora gave a speech where she stated she never wanted to be treated like lower class again and as a result the Empress raised the morale of the soldiers which eventually overwhelmed the revolters.(The Wars) This information however might be biased because Procopius despises Theodora and Justinian and over exaggerated the big and empowering speech that Theodora
Show More
Related

  • Women In Byzantium Summary

    583 Words  | 3 Pages

    historian of “the Byzantine millennium.” She wrote this book to “explore the exceptional roles that women played in the vibrant cultural and political life of medieval Byzantium.” The author “collects fourteen papers and comments on issues of feminism and roles of women in Byzantium.” The book gives us information about “the complex and exotic world of Byzantium's women, from empresses and saints to uneducated rural widows.” “She also provides a concise introduction to each essay that describes

    Read More

More about Gender Issues In The Byzantine Empire Essay

Open Document