Endnote 7 – Monasteries?

The assumption that this gallery may have been used by women is highly problematic and necessitates further research. It has not yet been determined if women in Byzantium occupied private spaces in the household separate from spaces used by male members; work associated with the kitchen, however, does seem to be reserved for women. The hall is designed so that individuals could separate when activities such as entertainment or dining had finished on the ground floor. One group, perhaps the women or the household servants, went to the left and up into the upper gallery to sleep, while the men perhaps went to the right into another tunnel which leads to the second hall, the master bedroom. In Orthodox churches, the genders are separated, with women sitting to the left and men to the right. Did this separation hold true in the household? Reserving specific spaces in the household for women was a well-known phenomenon in the Islamic world at this time, and it may be that in the border region of Cappadocia, Byzantine households adopted certain aspects of domestic life from their Arab neighbors. Whatever the case may be, the ceremonial of daily life in Byzantium has yet to be written.