Un exemple d’inventaire d’objets liturgiques. Le Testament d’Eustathios Boilas (Avril 1059)

Abstract

The present article represents a sample of the preliminary work carried out as part of a larger project initiated by the authors. This project involves recording, identifying the meaning of, and commenting on the vocabulary used to describe artefacts of daily life in Byzantine legal documents, namely public (administrative and ecclesiastical) and private acts. The objectives of this project comprise (a) the creation of an electronic database containing the references to artefacts encountered in these texts and (b) the composition of a series of essays addressing the various questions that this material raises for the philologist, the archaeologist, the art historian, and the historian. The commentary on the inventory of ecclesiastical objects incorporated in the will of Eustathios Boilas (April 1059), which constitutes the greater part of the present article, exemplifies the wide-ranging preparatory investigation that is required for attaining a fuller understanding of the evidence provided by the documents.