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Kassia
EntityQ263592· pop 39· linked from 385 articles

Also known as Cassia, Icasia

Kassia, Cassia, Kassiane, or Kassiani (, ; – c.865) was a Byzantine-Greek composer, hymnographer and poet. She holds a unique place in Byzantine music as the only known woman whose music appears in the Byzantine liturgy. Approximately fifty of her hymns are extant, most of which are stichera, though at least 26 have uncertain attribution. 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.

Person · Open Library

Works
4

via Open Library + Wikidata

Music · MusicBrainz

Type
Person
Gender
Female
Active from
810
Active to
865

via MusicBrainz · CC0

Listeners · Last.fm

Listeners
32,191
Total plays
318,499

Tags

medievalbyzantineGreekClassicalearly music

Kassia (also Kassiane, Kassiani, Casia, Ikasia, Cassia, or Eikasia; between 805 and 810 - bef. 867) was a Greek-Byzantine poet, composer, and hymnographer. She is one of the first medieval composers whose scores are both extant and able to be interpreted by modern scholars and musicians. Approximately fifty of her hymns are extant and twenty-three are included in Orthodox Church liturgical books. The exact number is difficult to assess, as many hymns <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Kassia">R

via Last.fm · Kassia

Key facts

Saint.name
Kassia
Saint.honorific_prefix
Saint
Saint.birth_date
c. 810
Saint.death_date
c. 865
Saint.feast_day
7 September
Saint.venerated_in
Eastern Orthodox ChurchCatholic ChurchAnglican Communion
Saint.image
Kassia.jpg
Saint.caption
Icon of St. Kassia
Saint.birth_place
Constantinople(modern-day Istanbul, Turkey)
Saint.death_place
Kasos
Saint.canonized_date
Pre-congregation

via Wikipedia infobox

~12 min read

Encyclopedic overview

15 sections
Contents
  • Name
  • Life
  • Works
  • Overview
  • Sacred music
  • Hymn of Kassia
  • Other hymns
  • Secular writings
  • Portrayals
  • Religious commemoration
  • Recordings
  • References
  • Sources
  • Further reading
  • External links

Kassia, Cassia, Kassiane, or Kassiani (, ; – c.865) was a Byzantine-Greek composer, hymnographer and poet. She holds a unique place in Byzantine music as the only known woman whose music appears in the Byzantine liturgy. Approximately fifty of her hymns are extant, most of which are stichera, though at least 26 have uncertain attribution. 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, at least 261. 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. Like her predecessors Romanos the Melodist and Andrew of Crete, the earliest surviving manuscripts of her works are dated centuries after her lifetime.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Kassia” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.

Gallery (2)