Garments of an Empress — the so-called “Persian-sleeves”

Later Roman art shows us that garments with this sleeve form were regarded as characteristic of royal persons of both genders from the fifth century to the late eleventh century. Hierarchal projection bestowed it upon saints and angels in the late ninth century.¹ After the late eleventh century such sleeves ceased to worn by Empresses, whose regalia thereafter had the common form of the delmatikion (See the page ‘A senior court lady’). For more extensive discussion of this process and its implications see the author’s volume By the Emperor’s Hand.

The dream interpreter Achmet ben Sirin declared that if an Emperor should happen to dream that his Persian-sleeve had come unfastened and fallen away from his arm like this, it symbolised the destruction of his army.

A full explanation of the regalia of the Empress and its pictorial and literary sources may be found in the author’s book, By the Emperor’s Hand: Court Regalia and Military Dress in the Eastern Roman Empire, Frontline Books, Barnsley 2015.

1) Henry Maguire, ‘A Murderer amongst the Angels: The Frontispiece Miniatures of Paris Gr. 510 and the Iconography of the Archangels in Byzantine Art’, in The Sacred Image East and West, Robert Ousterhout and Leslie Brubaker (eds.), University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1995, pp. 61-71.

Garment manufactured by Laura Iseman to designs by Timothy Dawson

Click on various parts of the outfit for more detailed pictures and explanations.