A Byzantine bride’s fork in Venice
Venice is scandalised by a Greek noblewoman eating with a fork
Maria Argyropoulina, niece of the Byzantine emperor, married the son of the Doge of Venice and ate with a golden fork. The theologian Peter Damian condemned such luxury, and her early death was called divine punishment.
Wikipedia (English) · 11th century
Did you know
Europe first saw the fork as a sin. When a Byzantine bride married into the Doge’s family around 1004 and ate with a golden fork, Saint Peter Damian denounced her decadence. Share →
Meanwhile around the world (±25 years)
Eastern Europe & Russia
- 988 Christianization of Kievan Rus' — 16 years earlier
Middle East
- 1010 Ferdowsi completes the Shahnameh — 6 years later
- 1025 Avicenna's Canon of Medicine — 21 years later
Africa
- c. 1000 Extinction of the elephant birds — 4 years earlier
- 1006 Supernova SN 1006 — 2 years later
Asia
- c. 1010 The Tale of Genji — 6 years later
- 1010 The Brihadisvara Temple at Thanjavur — 6 years later
Americas
- 1021 Norse in North America — 17 years later
Alive at the time
- Vladimir the Great (aged 44)
- Avicenna (Ibn Sina) (aged 24)
- Ferdowsi (aged 64)
- Æthelred the Unready (aged 38)
- Leif Erikson (aged 34)
- Murasaki Shikibu (aged 31)
- Yaroslav the Wise (aged 26)
- Cnut the Great (aged 9)
- Edward the Confessor (aged 1)
- Sei Shōnagon (aged 38)