Manuel I Komnenos and the Stone of Unction

Abstract

For John DuffyThis article explores the fate of the Stone of Unction — the marble slab upon which, according to tradition, the dead body of Christ had been anointed for burial — in twelfth-century Byzantium. Focusing upon the Stone's association with Manuel I Komnenos, the article examines the imperial handling of this Passion relic in relation to broader trends in the devotional culture of the contemporary Byzantine élite. The special bond between the emperor and the relic, it is argued, should be seen as a manifestation of the pervasive desire, much in evidence during the Komnenian era, to personalise and even privatise the sacred.