The Attire of the Virgin Mary and Female Rulers in Iconographical Sources of the Ninth to Eleventh Centuries: Analogues, Interpretations, Misinterpretations
Grzegorz Pac
In western Europe the formalization of position wife ruler started taking shape in Carolingian period. She began to be crowned as empress alongside her husband, and practice anointing queen was adopted. Simultaneously with introduction formal coronations queens empresses West, rulers’ wives were gradually included into world Christian symbolism, their special position, confirmed by religious rites, required a theological explanation foundation.