Witness lists in Byzantine private deeds

The present three-year project is intended to further research in the field of Byzantine private documents from the end of the tenth century until the fall of the Empire in 1453. Given the absolute lack of any systematic research in this field, it is necessary to choose some aspect of these documents which is both representative and can be treated in a limited amount of time. For this purpose the signatures of witnesses and the role played by these latter in Byzantine private documents has been chosen, with particular attention to the following points. Firstly, the number of witnesses is a reliable index for classifying the documents, whereby the norms of Byzantine legal documents can serve as a reference: on the one hand various collections can thus be differentiated from one another and, likewise, compliance - or non- compliance - with legal prescriptions (concerning the number of witnesses present) may be observed in practice. Further, other questions of detail are to be examined such as the role of the scribe or notary in a legal document (were they or were they not witnesses?), the literacy of witnesses (proper signature or marking with a cross?), or the effects of transcribing documents into cartularies (abbreviation of protocols and eschatocols). After drawing up an initial bibliography, which will of course be added to over the course of the project, the main task during the first two years will be the gathering and - in the case of obsolete or unreliable editions - careful checking of the material (in roughly chronological order). The results obtained will then be put into a data-base (described in the project application) which, together with the international networking of the project, will insure the reliable systematisation and formal registration (either geographic or by subject matter) of the documents. In the third year particular studies are to be carried out on the basis of the results obtained, in order to establish what will be the first typology of Byzantine private documents. Legal aspects (rank and function of witnesses), socio- historical questions (relation of those making the documents to the witnesses), economic aspects and the analysis of linguistic habits in Byzantine private documents (levels of style, orthography, etc) will also be the object of particular study in this final phase of the project.

The main goal of this project was to study the very complex and hitherto neglected material of Byzantine private documents through an approach whereby, from the outset, one might limit the required effort. The choice fell on the signatures of witnesses in these documents which could be used to illustrate practices of legal procedure in the Byzantine empire. For the period from around 900 AD to the end of the empire (1453) all signatures of witnesses in private documents from territories under Byzantine law were to be gathered and set in a database as a preliminary step for further investigation. The next step was to examine both the structural and diplomatic evolution of the signatures in their general form and, at the same time, the prescriptions for witnesses and their signatures in extant Byzantine legal texts, with which the usual practice in the signatures could then be compared. From the diverse observations made in the course of the project there emerge various socio-cultural phenomena, together with specifically juridical issues, and all this is at present being prepared for publication (see below, 4, 1, n. 2). Already it is clear that there are far fewer signatures of laymen than of clerics in Byzantine private documents (see below 2.1. 2). This is to be considered in relation to the general literacy of the population in the Byzantine Empire, which must thus be assessed as quite low. Furthermore, judging from formulations in the private documents, all activities connected with the drawing up of documents - the work of the Tabellioi and Notarioi - were performed by persons of clerical status or in religious orders. The fact that women are almost never found amongst the signatures of witnesses is to be explained by the decree prevailing since the time of Leo VI (Nov. 48) whereby women were restricted in their functions as witnesses in civil court proceedings to specific `female matters.` Occasional signatures of women found in the Eschatokolla of private documents should not, by our present knowledge, be reckoned as signatures of witnesses, but consensual family members. Further insights into these and other sets of questions will be offered in studies now in preparation by the collaborator of the project.