Byzantine Jewellery : The Evidence from Byzantine Legal Documents

Recourse to written sources in order to elucidate aspects of Byzantine material culture constitutes a valid method of enquiry often adopted by archaeologists and art-historians, especially those whose interests lie in areas for which there is little or inconclusive archaeological documentation. In the case of artefact categories amply attested in the archaeological record the written evidence can and has been fruitfully quarried for complementary information on typology and technology, production and distribution, function and meaning. In the field of Byzantine jewellery studies the usefulness of this approach was demonstrated, over 20 years ago, by the work of Hetherington on the ownership and distribution of Byzantine enamels. Hetherington’s early recognition of the potential of Byzantine legal documents in Byzantine material culture studies needs to be acknowledged, especially as it predates the work of the late Nicholas Oikonomides that has made this body of evidence widely known to archaeologists and art historians. In his seminal study on the contents of middle-class Byzantine households based on legal documents of the 11th to the 15th centuries, Oikonomides dedicates half a paragraph to jewellery, noting that it was found in all types of households, where it primarily functioned as an investment. A closer and more systematic examination of these documents reveals that there is much more and varied information to be gleaned from them. What follows constitutes a sample of the work being carried out as part of a larger collaborative project entitled ‘Realia in Byzantine legal documents,’ undertaken in association with Jean-Michel Spieser of the University of Fribourg, Switzerland, and Brigitte Pitarakis of the CNRS, France. The project aspires to contribute to the study of daily life in Byzantium by collecting in the form of an electronic database, interpreting, and commenting on references to secular and religious artefacts encountered in Byzantine public and private acts, as well as in monastic foundation documents. The time frame of the present enquiry, that is from the 11th to the middle of the 15th century, is imposed by the dates of the documents that have survived, either in their original form or as copies in Byzantine and post-Byzantine chartularies. From a body of around 210 documents mentioning or describing artefacts, identified by a survey of published collections of Byzantine legal documents known to the author, references to jewellery, in which are also included belts with metal adornments, are encountered in 42. Because of accidents of survival, this sample is biased in terms of its chronological and geographical coverage, with some periods and areas being over-represented, while others hardly feature in it at all. Numerically, the 11th century is represented by only 2 documents, the 12th by 4, the 13th by 6, the 14th by 19, and the first half of the 15th century by 11. Furthermore, 12 of these 42 documents date to the period of the Ottoman siege of Constantinople, between the years 1394 and 1402, which resulted in an increase in the number of property-related cases being settled by the patriarchal court and recorded in the patriarchal register. In terms of content, the documents that concern us here include monastic and church inventories, inventories of private property, wills, marriage contracts, deeds of sale or donation, court decisions mainly on property-related disputes, and, in one case, an imperial letter addressed to a Russian ruler. Two documents speak generally of κόσμια (kosmia), jewellery, without going into any detail, while 29 mention just one specific item – a ring, a belt, a necklace, a pair of earrings and so forth. The remaining 11 contain references to more than one type of jewellery. References to individual items are sometimes accompanied by short descriptions, providing information on materials, decoration and decorative techniques, size, weight, price and, rarely, age and provenance. The nature of the information provided in each case and the degree of detail varies, depending on the transaction being recorded. Thus, in cases where a piece of jewellery features in a financial dispute we are often given only its price. On the other hand, in wills and inventories where more than one item of the same type is listed, the descriptions tend to become more detailed in order for individual items to be readily and securely identifiable. Among the pieces of jewellery most often listed in acts relating to the property of private individuals of both sexes are δακτύλια (daktylia) or δακτυλίδια (daktylidia), rings. When the material is indicated it is either gold or silver. References to rings occur in 13 documents, all dated to the Late Byzantine period (Table 1).