0860

†865 The music of Kassia

Hymn of Kassia  Kassia, Cassia or Kassiani was a Byzantine-Greek composer, hymnographer and poet. She holds a unique place in Byzantine music as the only known woman whose music appears in the Byzantine liturgy.  Approximately fifty of her hymns are extant, most of which are stichera, though at least 26 have uncertain attribution.The authenticity issues are due to many hymns being anonymous, and others ascribed to different authors in different manuscripts. She was an abbess of a convent in the west of Constantinople. Additionally, many epigrams and gnomic verses are attributed to her, at least 261. Kassia is notable as one of at least two women in the middle Byzantine period known to have written in their own names, the other being Anna Comnena. Like […]

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Events 860s – Beginnings Rurik Dynasty

862 The beginning of the Rurik dynasty  Events  Byzantine–Rus’ War: A fleet of about 200 Rus’ vessels sails into the Bosphorus, and starts pillaging the suburbs of Constantinople. The raiders set homes on fire, and drown and kill the citizens. Unable to do anything to repel the invaders, Patriarch Photios I urges his flock to implore the Theotokos to save the Byzantine capital. Having devastated the suburbs, the Rus’ Vikings pass into the Sea of Marmara and attack the Isles of the Princes, plundering the local monasteries King Charles the Bald gives the order to build fortified bridges across the Seine and Loire Rivers, to protect Paris and the Frankish heartland against Viking raids. 862: The beginning of the Rurik dynasty in Rus’. 863: The Chinese author Duan Chengshi describes the slave trade, ivory trade, and ambergris trade […]

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