Pinkernes (), sometimes also epinkernes (, epinkernēs), was a high Byzantine court position.
Pinkernes (), sometimes also epinkernes (, epinkernēs), was a high Byzantine court position.
The term derives from the Greek verb (epikeránnymi, "to mix [wine]"), and was used to denote the cup-bearer of the Byzantine emperor. In addition, descriptive terms such as (ho tou basileōs oinochoos, "the emperor's wine-pourer"), (archioinochoos, "chief wine-pourer"), κυλικιφόρος (kylikiphoros, "bearer of the kylix"), and, particularly at the court of the Empire of Nicaea, (ho epi tou kerasmatos, "the one in charge of the drink") were often used instead. The position is attested already in the Klētorologion of 899, where a pinkernēs of the emperor (, pinkernēs tou despotou) and of the Augusta (, pinkernēs tēs Augoustēs) are listed among the eunuchs of the palace staff. As the name suggests, the principal charge of the pinkernēs was the pouring of wine for the emperor; he accompanied the emperor, bearing a goblet suspended on a chain, which he gave to the emperor when the latter wanted to drink. His position at court was not very high, but he had an extensive staff, the παροινοχόοι (paroinochoi, "assistant wine-pourers"). The post was imitated in the staff of the Patriarch of Constantinople and in the households of great magnates. The spouse of a pinkernēs bore the feminine form of his title: pinkernissa (πιγκέρνισσα).
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).