The iconoclasm issue lay dormant for a few years, until Leo V became emperor in 813. Leo the Armenian was of the opinion, as several of his predecessors had been, that military success depended on the elimination of icon veneration. He surrounded himself with iconoclastic theologians, which was easy enough to do; the Nicene edicts had been laxly enforced, so many iconoclasts remained. Again the organized resistance came from the monasteries. This time Theodore Studites and the patriarch Nicephorus rallied the iconophiles. Both of these men drew heavily from the work of John Damascene in their rebuttals to iconoclasm. In 815 Leo convened another council. Theodore, Nicephorus, and several others protested the idea of a council which had as its stated purpose the setting aside of the decisions of the second Nicene Council. This Iconoclastic Council of 815 also created questions about its ecumenicity; it was, in fact, a local council of Constantinople, presided over by the patriarch of that city, but it was also criticized and repudiated later in ecumenical terms because it was held without papal legates in attendance. In any event, its decision was to set aside the second Nicene Council and declare itself the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Drawing heavily from Constantine V's theological arguments of the 754 Synod, the iconoclasts were once again able to outlaw icon veneration. This was a different sort of struggle than the previous one had been. There was no need to resort to force among the lay people, who were not as attached to their icons as they had been a century before. The conflict was largely confined to a tug-of-war between the emperor and the monasteries. Theodore Studites was arrested, and he continued to direct the orthodox resistance from prison. Monastic life was in turmoil, but it was not destroyed as it had been under Constantine V. Several monks were beaten or imprisoned, although none were sentenced to death. (Some died after severe beatings, but technically they had not been executed.) The icons were removed from the palace and the churches and burned. Theodore Studites organized a much tighter resistance in the face of Leo V's leniency. He imposed strict discipline upon the orthodox. A priest convicted of iconoclastic sympathies was forbidden to exercise his ministry, and if he persisted in his error he was excommunicated. No orthodox person was permitted to enter an iconoclast church, and the sacraments could not be received from an iconoclast priest. Other rules were imposed, some even more stringent. The Iconoclastic campaign continued until Leo's murder in 820 at the hands of a conspirator, Michael the Amorian, who replaced him on the throne. Michael recognized neither Nicaea II nor the Iconoclastic Council of 815, and forbade all discussion of the issue. By the time his son Theophilus became emperor in 829, the whole question had lost much of its original urgency. The last iconoclastic push in 837 was directed against the resistant monasteries, and was not particularly successful; by this time the sphere of Constantinople's influence did not extend much beyond its borders, and iconoclasm died with Theophilus in 842. His son Michael was only three years old, and his wife Theodora was an iconophile. She wasted little time in restoring the icons. Icon veneration was upheld at the council of Constantinople held in 843, the sole purpose of which was to denounce the last council. One of Theodora's major concerns was that her husband not be remembered as an iconoclast, and she told many people, including Methodius, the patriarch of Constantinople, that Theophilus had repented of his error before he died. She made apologies in his name to monks who had been beaten, imprisoned, or exiled because of his iconoclastic policies. She encouraged Methodius to be especially diligent in his enforcement of the directives of the 843 council, and he, aware of the disastrous effects of the ineffective and overly-lenient policies of Tarasius, enthusiastically complied. Thus the controversy that had been debated by men for so long was at last resolved by the imperial authority of a woman. The Iconoclastic Controversy, which lasted more than a century, was initiated by the men in power in Byzantium for the reasons described above. But at least part of the reason for its persistence as a major controversy can be attributed to the outraged response of Byzantine women to the removal of the sacred images which were so much a part of their religious lives. The whole issue seems almost petty to many male historians, who are at a loss to explain the vehemence with which it was debated. Many of these male historians apparently lack an awareness of the gendered nature of image veneration. This deficiency no doubt accounts for the dearth of commentary available on the role of women in eighth-century Byzantium in resisting the imposition of iconoclasm. Scholars occasionally mention women's involvement, but they attach no significance to it and in fact when it is noted at all, it is in a casual, off-hand manner. Martin mentions several occasions on which female opponents of iconoclasm resorted to mob action and violence, but he does not seem to perceive that as remarkable. Pelikan observes, "The Byzantine Emperors who were opponents of images strove to abolish them by absolute decree; and then by a decree no less absolute, the Byzantine Empresses who were defenders of the images restored them," but in the same paragraph he concludes, "Scholars are obliged to acknowledge that while there were good reasons for the outbreak of iconoclasm in the beginning of the eighth century, the historian is at a loss to account for its collapse." This represents the view of many Byzantine historians, who reveal an unfortunate but not unexpected lack of knowledge about early medieval women's perceptions of divinity. The female view of physicality and embodiment was very different from that of men, and when Leo III undertook his iconoclastic campaign he was apparently as unaware of that fact as contemporary scholars seem to be. Since women were not philosophically torn about the spirit/body dualism of the Greeks, they could not see anything wrong with creating pictures and likenesses of Christ, Mary, and the saints, and in fact they relied heavily on such images in their religious practices. Another factor which drew women into the controversy was their special reverence for the Theotokos. The only orthodox female image of divinity available to women at that time was that of Mary. One of the central arguments against the iconoclasts was that they questioned Mary's divine role as the "God-bearer" and forbade veneration of her image. Women responded to this with fury; Christianity, like Judaism and Islam, was a patriarchal, male-dominated religion which provided almost nothing for women in the way of role models, priestly functions, or active participation. They would not willingly be deprived of their only acceptable model of female holiness. Women's strenuous objections to iconoclasm, objections which contributed to its ultimate demise, need to be taken more seriously by Byzantine scholars; at the very least, they merit a closer examination than has been attempted to date. Significantly, it is a female historian who alone makes note of the importance of the gender-inflected nature of the Iconoclastic Controversy. Nearly sixty years ago, Bertha Diener wrote these words in describing the conflict: Six Emperors had fought against them [the icons], and two Empresses had led them home in triumph. This was an affray between the masculine and the feminine. Against the immaterial principle of maleness there had arisen and had conquered--eternal, timeless, and worldwide--the essence of womanhood, the divinity of spiritualized matter. Clearly at least one historian has examined the evidence and concluded that the Iconoclastic Controversy was a gender-inflected conflict. That the principle players noted by the chroniclers are nearly all men is hardly surprising; at least Irene and Theodora received the credit for the restoration of icon veneration. History is recorded by the winners; had iconoclasm persisted and triumphed, even these two empresses might have escaped the attention of historians. It is to be hoped, however, that as the body of feminist historical scholarship continues to grow, more questions about the active and often crucial roles played by women in this and other significant historical events will be answered. Next Page