Kassia


Kassia
Icon of St. Kassia
Born810
Constantinople
(modern-day Istanbul, Turkey)
Died865
Kasos
Venerated inEastern Orthodox Church
Catholic Church
Anglican Communion
CanonizedPre-congregation
Feast7 September

Kassia, Cassia or Kassiani (Greek: Κασσιανή, romanizedKassianí, pronounced [kasia'ni]; c. 810 – before 865) was a Byzantine-Greek composer, hymnographer and poet.[1] She holds a unique place in Byzantine music as the only known woman whose music appears in the Byzantine liturgy.[2] Approximately fifty of her hymns are extant, most of which are stichera, though at least 26 have uncertain attribution.[1] 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,[3] at least 261.[4] 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.[5] Like her predecessors Romanos the Melodist and Andrew of Crete, the earliest surviving manuscripts of her works are dated centuries after her lifetime.[6]

  1. ^ a b Touliatos 2001.
  2. ^ Mellas 2020, p. 141.
  3. ^ Mellas 2020, p. 142.
  4. ^ Mellas 2020, p. 149.
  5. ^ Stephenson 2010, p. 66.
  6. ^ Mellas 2020, pp. 24–25.