The aristocratic milieu: Hagiography and aristocracy in the early ninth century: Philaretos and Eudokimos. Aristocratic models of feminine holiness (ninth-tenth centuries). The political meaning of the new aristocratic saint: imperial ideology. The military milieu. The court milieu: the family and collaborators of Theophilos in post-iconoclast hagiography. The court of Theophilos and its post-iconoclast reinvention. The family of Theophilos and Theodora. The imperial couple in post-iconoclast hagiography: Theophilos and Theodora

This chapter moves to ninth-century Byzantium and the hymnographer Kassia, who is the only known female author of hymns appearing in the liturgical books of the Byzantine tradition. Exploring the liturgical performance of Kassia’s hymn On the Sinful Woman during Holy Week, this chapter examines the genre of this hymn (sticheron idiomelon) and its manuscript tradition. The tears of Kassia’s protagonist and how they evoke the mystery of compunction and repentance in Byzantium are investigated. On the Sinful Woman was chanted a few days before Christ’s Passion, evoking the existential abyss created by the absence of the divine from the life of the faithful and unveiling how tears of compunction could bridge this chasm. This chapter concludes with a few brief remarks on the sacred music of Kassia’s hymn and reflections on the relationship between chant and compunction.

The performance of hymns that sought to arouse and embody compunction were momentous events in the history of Byzantine emotions. Compunction became more than a personal feeling of remorse arising from the consciousness of one’s own sinfulness and a desire for forgiveness through repentance; it became a liturgical emotion and a collective feeling. Hymnody collapsed the distinctions between singer and scriptural characters, between temporality and the biblical narrative of salvation. Emotions were an embodied experience, enacted through sacred song and liturgical mysticism. Compunction was an emotion intertwined with paradisal nostalgia, a desire for repentance and a wellspring of tears.