International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Márton Rózsa
Eötvös Loránd University, Eötvös József Collegium, Budapest, Hungary; 
[e-mail]
The Imperial Kin: The Seal of Theodore Doukas Palaiologos and Its Symbolism
Theodore Doukas Palaiologos was a less-known member of his family, the Palaiologoi. The 
only clear evidence of his life is a lead seal dated to the last decades of twelfth century. The seal 
testifies that Theodore married his child to the offspring of the emperor. Thus Theodore not just 
belonged to one of the most influencing Byzantine families of the period, but he was able to build 
kinship with the head of the empire. However, the fact that contemporary historians, especially 
Choniates, and other clerks ignored Theodore in their works implies he was not a notable member 
of the imperial court. This ignorance may have a connection to the nature of his seal.
Due to the relative obscurity of Theodore’s fate, this study gives more attention to the seal itself. 
We know two parallel specimens of the bulla, which contains a metrical verse at least on its reverse 
side. The analysis focuses on the well-preserved iconography and metrical verse in order to reveal 
the symbolism and the concept of the seal. The bulla bears a more complicated message than the 
pure representation of his kinship with the emperor. This characteristic raises several questions.
The symbolism of the seal provides an emphasized representation of power beside the portrayal 
of kinship. It is not surprising that an imperial relative chose this combination instead of the 
enumeration of titles and offices in the twelfth century. Political authority and influence were highly 
connected to the kinship with the emperor after the ascension of the Komnenoi to the imperial 
throne. Nevertheless, the symbolism of the seal is strongly personalized. Thus it raises the problem 
how much the symbolism on Theodore’s bulla resembles the pattern of similar seals or differs from 
that. It requires a brief comparative analysis upon the metrical seals of the period symbolizing the 
authority of the imperial kin. However, it is slightly difficult to understand the concept of Theodore’s 
bulla without its social and political circumstances.
The study seeks to investigate briefly the social and political milieu, in which Theodore issued 
his metrical seal. These two aspects strongly correlated with one another in regard to the creation of 
the seal that requires a common analysis. The social and political milieu is a well-studied area of the 
history of the twelfth-century Byzantium (by Kazhdan, Magdalino, Cheynet), yet one cannot forget 
the complexity of their connection. The reigns of several emperors from 1183 to 1204 (the period, to 
which Theodore’s seal is dated) had their own characteristics, making differences in the conditions of 
the imperial kin. The seal (not surprisingly) ignores the emperor’s name that, together the obscurity of 
Theodore’s career, makes it more difficult to connect the bulla with a certain regime. Investigation on 
the marriages of the imperial offspring provides some candidates, yet it does not give absolute certainty. 
At this point, the study returns to the analysis of symbolism on Theodore’s seal. Here the paper attempts 
to find the reign whose political milieu fitted the symbolic representation and the message of the bulla.
From a wider perspective, this study seeks to reveal how much the personalization of concept 
on Byzantine metrical seal could cause a departure from a pattern. Another important question is 
how a metrical seal with symbolic representation was used as a reaction to contemporary political 
environment in the twelfth century.

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