magistrates, bishops, and landowners. Despite their various titles and sources of legitimacy, whether imperial decree, spiritual authority, or wealth, these figures were all acknowledged by the state and acted upon the principles of Roman law. Yet there were other means by which individuals could settle their disputes or validate their transactions. According to Schiller, at least a century and a half before the Arab conquest, “state litigation was absent and private arbitration was paramount for the settlements of civil disputes.”71 Right or wrong, Schiller’s point confirms the widespread practice of outside-court settlements that prevailed in late antique Egypt and outside it.72
Gagos Traianos and Peter van Minnen have analyzed a document from Aphrodito dating to ca. 537 that was found in the archive of the aforementioned Dioscorus.73 The document records the settlement of a dispute over a piece of property next to the village. The dispute in this case was resolved through the work of a notary and was never brought before a formal court for resolution.74 As such, this form of settlement is considered a private one, since it does not require the involvement of a third party for purposes of judgment but only as a negotiator. The type of notary mentioned in this case was of the taboullarioi, who were not only entrusted with registering the legal document but also preparing it.75 As such, they had to possess sufficient legal education in addition to first-rate Greek and scribal skills. Most important, however, is the fact that these officials were authorized, if not appointed, by the imperial government. In sum, while the Aphrodito document of ca. 537 was issued and formulated in line with Roman law, it was attained without the involvement of the state.
Despite what may have been “a reality of undergovernance” or of “rudderless and captainless vessels” in fourth-century Egypt,76 papyri dating from the fourth to the eighth century attest to the function of a village headman, the lashane, or ape.77 The headman heard legal disputes and presided over less formal arbitrations.78 He was present at the signing of contracts and the drawing up and implementation of wills. He was also responsible for the confinement of delinquents, the collection of fines, and for addressing complaints.79 Though most of our knowledge about the administrative role of the village headman is based on Egyptian papyri—most notably, those from Aphrodito—it has been suggested that similar figures existed outside Egypt as well.80 Alongside the headmen was often a group of local town notables, better known as the “elders.” These men, clergy and laymen, customarily filled an administrative function by assisting the headman in his various tasks.81 The judicial role of local village notables is well attested in the Nessana papyri. According to Rachel Stroumsa, the documents suggest a loose and flexible arrangement, “and one which evidently continued to co-exist side by side with the government machinery,” in which respected members of the community oversaw the implementation of legal transactions and arbitrated disputes.82 As in the other forms of out-of-court judicial practices, however, the role of rural figures was not autonomous of the Roman legal order. Roman law was made known to the rural population, particularly through prefectorial edicts “disseminated throughout the country.”83
Christian Holy Men
Individuals who offered judicial services outside the formal courtrooms acted in the capacity of their authoritative position as leaders and men of elevated social standing. Considering the growing importance of the church in the social administration of towns and villages, it is important to note that the social rank and responsibilities that came with it also served to legitimize the judicial function of religious leaders. The judicial services performed by recluses, monks, and rural priests were of particular significance in the absence of ecclesiastical institutions.84 As small-scale egalitarian communities that often lacked autonomous institutions, local villages had a constant need for the intervention of external figures for purposes of direction, protection, and mediation.85 One version of the Life of the Syrian holy man Simeon Stylite (d. 459), which was authored by the bishop-writer Theodoret of Cyrrhus (d. 466), mentions Simeon’s role as arbiter: “He can be seen sitting in judgment and handing down proper and just sentences. These and similar activities are dealt with after three in the afternoon, for he spends the whole night and the day up till three P.M. in prayer. After three P.M. he first delivers the divine teaching to those present and then, after receiving the request of each and affecting some healings, he resolves the quarrels of the disputants.”86
Whereas the passage above illustrates Simeon’s role as an arbiter, resolving disputes and handing down sentences in a rather generic fashion, a letter from the Syrian village of Panir to the stylite exemplifies a village community seeking the patronage of a holy man. The letter, from Cosmas of Panir, was appended to the Syriac version of Simeon’s life and appears to be “a written covenant between the village and the holy man.”87 The letter is, in fact, the only non-hagiographic source that attests to the stylite’s authority.88
[T]o Mār Simeon … from Cosmas of the village of Panir together with the deacons and the readers and of the congregation and from the procurator and the veterans and all the village equally, all of us extol your great love in Christ, peace…. We are all writing to you in one perfect love concerning this. First we subscribe concerning Friday and Sunday, that be kept purely and worthily; concerning measures, that we not make ourselves two measures, but we have one true measure and one honest weight; that we not change a man’s boundary; that we not cheat a hired servant and a laborer of his wages; concerning usury, that half a percent be collected on extol your great love in Christ, peace…. We are all writing to you both old and new [debts]; about those small coins that are paid, that they be restored to their masters; that we administer honest judgment between the great and the small and that we show no favoritism; that we not accept a bribe, a man against his fellow man; that we not slander one another and not associate with robbers and magicians, that we chastise evil-doers and transgressors of the law, and we remain in the congregation for the life of our souls. Surely no one will be presumptuous and transgress these laws, or plunder, or defraud, or bribe a judge, or plunder orphans and widows or the poor, or rape a woman…. [W]hoever dares to transgress these, let it be according to your word, my Lord.
Pray for us, my just noble and true lord, that we be established and confirmed in what you have commanded us. We trust in Our Lord that if we do your words and keep your commandments and fulfill your laws we will be helped by Christ through your prayers. Pray for us, my lord, that we not be ashamed before you or found guilty by your Lord but that openly we will do these things in righteousness and we receive life from them.89
In the case of Panir, the role that Simeon was expected to fulfill was not that of an arbiter but rather more of a leader, laying down and enforcing rightful conduct among the village’s members. The letter serves as evidence of the stylite’s position: his leadership was accepted thanks to his spiritual reputation and his position as a respectable outsider.
It is this position that enabled holy men to serve as men of judicial authority in other contexts. The stylite’s function, as described in the letter, can be viewed “as one dramatic instance in a wider history of Christian arbitration and intervention, which was active from Egypt to Constantinople.”90 As Brown acknowledged in his reassessment of the rise and function of the holy man in late antiquity, holy men were not merely a late antique version of the classical holy fool but a variety of figures of spiritual reputation.91 The “collection of sayings, dialogues, and short narratives which preserve the words of the fourth- and fifth-century Egyptian monks,”92 the Apophthegamta Patrum, sheds light on some of the ideals pertaining to passing judgment in the context of a monastic community. Here the monk is guided to abstain from judging or condemning his neighbor and to refrain from resolving disputes.93 Whereas such ideals may have been effective within the monastic community, their applicability outside it is less attested.
A collection of sixth-century questions and answers attributed to two members of the monastic community from the village of Tawatha, outside Gaza, testifies to the role played by monks in the life of local lay communities.94
