‘The Book of Ceremonies‘ of Constantine Porphyrogennetos published by Brill in 2017 has the following introduction:
“Constantine VII (905-959) was the grandson of Basil I, the founder of the Macedonian dynasty of Byzantine emperors. He appears today as an attractive figure, a porphyrogennetos, born to the purple, a scholar emperor who was crowned co-emperor as a child by his father Leo VI (d. 912), but who came to power only in 945 with the overthrow and exile of the ruling Lekapenoi family… The Book of Ceremonies consists of two “books”. Each has a preface composed by Constantine. Ostensibly Constantine was the author of the Book of Ceremonies. There is little doubt that it was compiled, as he said, at his initiative and that he had some part in collecting the material and in its actual composition. In the prefaces to each book, he explains in the first person his aims and methods. His purpose, as with the other works which he instigated and supported, was to “save from oblivion” knowledge that had become faded and fragmented through a period of neglect and was in danger of disappearing altogether…”
“On September 9th, a Wednesday, 5 on the arrival of Olga, the archontissa of Rhosia, a reception was held in all respects like the reception previously described, and this archontissa went in with her own relatives of archontissa rank and more prominent female attendants. She led in all the other women, and they followed each other in a line, and she stood in the place where the logothete was accustomed to put the questions. Behind her went in the emissaries and merchants of the archons of Rhosia, and they stood below at the curtains, and what followed was conducted as for the reception previously described…
When the archontissai had gone in [escorted] by the steward of the table following the usual format and made obeisance, the archontissa, having inclined her head a little in the place where she was standing, sat with the girdled [patrician] women at the separate table as prescribed. Note that the church-singers of the Church of the Holy Apostles and of Hagia Sophia were present at the said banquet, chanting the imperial eulogies. All the theatrical entertainments also took place. Another banquet was held in the Chrysotriklinos and all the emissaries of the archons of Rhosia and also the men who were relatives of the archontissa and the merchants dined, and her nephew received 30 miliaresia, her eight male relatives 20 miliaresia each, the 20 emissaries 12 miliaresia each, the 43 merchants 12 miliaresia each, the priest Gregory 8 miliaresia, the two interpreters 12 miliaresia each, Sviatoslav’s men 5 miliaresia each, the six men of the emissaries miliaresia each and the archontissa ‘s interpreter 15 miliaresia.
After the emperor stood up from the banquet there was dessert in the dining-room. The small gold table stood there, which stands at the pentapyrgion, and the dessert was placed on it on enamelled plates decorated with precious stones. The emperor was seated, and Romanos, the purple-born emperor, and their purple-born children, and the daughter-in-law, and the archontissa. 500 miliaresia were given to the archontissa on a gold plate decorated with precious stones, and 20 miliaresia each to her six female relatives and 8 miliaresia each to her 18 female attendants.”
(NOTE: 12 miliaresia = 1 nomisma. nomisma (Latin: solidus): the standard gold coin; 4.444 grams)
Professor of History Dr. C. Raffensperger in his ‘Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World‘ published by Harvard University Press in 2012, mentions several little-known facts about Olga of Kyiv. In his work, Dr. Raffensperger uses the term ‘Rusian‘ with a single ‘S‘. in his other works, he stresses that “the adjectival form of Rus’ is “Rusian,” which most people, and most spellcheck software, want to convert to “Russian,” and it is a mistake.
[Yale Professor Timothy Snyder had used the same form in his books even before Raffensperger. Here is a quote from his The Reconstruction of Nations book: “In a 1449 treaty between Poland-Lithuania and Muscovy, the former was called “Rusian,” and the latter “Muscovite.” ]
Not to go into much detail, the difference between Rusian and Russian is akin to the difference between Roman and Romanian. Here is what Dr. Raffensperger had to say about the title used by Constantine:
“Various Rusian rulers did occasionally refer to themselves as archon on coins and seals. This Byzantine title was applied in the De cerimoniis aulae Byzantinae [Book of Ceremonies] in the feminine form to the Regent Olga when she made her famous journey to Constantinople, though this may have nothing to do with the trend of Rusian rulers being called archon. This title was a common Byzantine one for tribal rulers, including the leader of the Hungarians and the leaders of various steppe tribes, and perhaps indicated their perception of the Rusians. That the Rusians embraced the title, to some degree at any rate, shows their regard for the place of Byzantium in the medieval world. Similarly, the Anglo-Saxons, though using a variety of other titles, also used archon, though rarely, and Gray Birch considers it to be equivalent to rex, in their perception, lending another view on both the perception of the title and its use in Europe. Finally, it seems that even though the Rusians did not adopt the Byzantine perception of their Roman inheritance, they did honor Byzantium (most likely as a Christian empire, rather than a Roman one), and appropriated from the Byzantines to enhance their own kingdom…”
The “Gardariki, Ukraine‘ e-book has a new perspective on the origin of Kyiv Rus. What Dr. Raffensperger says about the title is perfectly in line with the theory proposed in the “Kyiv Rus in Heimskringla Sagas and Byzantine Texts‘ book.
