OLGA' S VISIT TO CONSTANTINOPLE IN DE CERIMONIIS*
Michael FEATHERSTONE
For the late John Fennell,
on the tenth anniversary of his death.
Vecnaja Pamjat'
Twelve years ago we argued that the Russian princess Olga visited and was baptised in Constantinople in the year 957. Since then a number of scholars have contested our arguments for this dating, most recently O. Kresten and C. Zuckerman.1 It is not our purpose here to rehearse all the details - yet again! - of all the sources, Slavonic, Latin and Byzantine, which tell of Olga's visit, but to focus on the evidence in De Cerimoniis, which alone mentions the exact days of receptions held for Olga in the imperial Palace and upon which the main arguments for the dating of Olga's visit are based.
Both Kresten and Zuckerman have made very careful studies of the receptions for the Arab embassies described in the same chapter of De Cerimoniis as those for Olga, II, 15, and we accept their identification of the fourth indiction as AD 946 in the titles of two of the sub-chapters concerning the receptions for the Arabs.2 But we are not in agreement that the receptions for Olga in the last sub- chapter date from the same year.3
* Many thanks to P. Schreiner for his comments on this article, and also to S. Franklin, J. Haldon, Catherine Holmes, J. Howard- Johnston, C. Mango, O. Pristak, I. Sevcenko, J. Shepard and S. Wahlgren.
1 . M. Featherstone, Olga's Visit to Constantinople (hereafter Olga 's Visit), Harvard Ukrainian Studies 14, 1990, p. 293-312; O. Kresten, 'Staatsempfänge' im Kaiserpalast von Konstantinopel um die Mitte des 10. Jahrhunderts (hereafter Staatsempfänge), Sitzungsberichte d. philos. -histor. Kl. d. Österr. Akad. d. Wiss. 670, Vienna 2000, and C. Zuckerman, Le voyage d'Olga et la première ambassade espagnole à Constantinople en 946 (hereafter Le voyage), TM 13, 2000, p. 647-672, both with references to the intervening literature, to which add J. Fennell, A History of the Russian Church to 1448 (hereafter Russian Church), London-New York 1995, p. 27-28.
2. De Cerimoniis (hereafter Cer., Bonn), ed. J. Reiske, Bonn, p. 570U-15 and 588!5-i7.
3. Cer., Bonn, p. 594^ - 59812.
Revue des Études Byzantines 61, 2003, p. 241-251
