meant to serve successive generations. One manifestation of this difference is in the form and tone of the stipulations. Whereas canonical regulations tend to possess an impersonal character, referring to generic conditions and often formulated concisely, synodical canons tend to be elaborate, refer to specific figures, and consist of words of admonishment and exhortation.91
The lists of high-ranking clergy signatory to synodical acts, as well as the scattered references to lower ranks of the clergy, strongly suggest that the contents of these materials were familiar to ecclesiastical officials. Yet in contrast to the case of the Roman Catholic Church, where there is some indication of the involvement of laymen in legislative endeavors and their reception of legislative materials, the situation in the East remains obscure.92 With regard to the first ecumenical councils, there are signs of the participation of laymen in ecclesiastical affairs in general and in legislation in particular.93 It has been suggested in the case of the West and East Syrian Churches that the role assigned to the clergy as repositories of legal knowledge may have been greater than in the West or in the Byzantine Orthodox Church.94
Having said that, it would be wrong to think of Eastern Christian laymen as being legally ignorant or deprived of access to the contents of legislative materials. The conclusion of the acts of a West Syrian synod, apparently held in 1153, gives clear instructions as to who should be informed of these canons: “We determine and decree, we, all the bishops, and the synod that has been gathered … that for the renewing of the church every year in the Teshris [October or November], these canons shall be read before the people. [This takes place] while all are gathered in the church and they shall hear the canons, and they shall renew these canons by the renewing of the church. There is no authority from God that bishops or priests or deacons may neglect them and leave them without reading.”95 This single testimony suggests that the clergy who were present in synods played a crucial role in transmitting ecclesiastical law and that the task of conveying the law to the laity was to be taken seriously.
Geonic responsa, on the other hand, were issued in reply to legal questions sent from various parts of the medieval Jewish world. In addition to their notable role to interpret the law and expound it, the responsa should be read in the broader context of letter writing, “a constitutive feature of Jewish social networks in the Mediterranean basin and the main medium in which Jews conducted politics from afar.”96 At the same time, however, it should be noted that the vast majority of responsa that have survived are those that were sent to Jewish communities in North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula.97 This is primarily due to the preservation of documents in the Geniza and the efforts of Jewish scholars from Ashkenaz (Western Europe), who often relied on geonic responsa for their own purposes. According to Simha Assaf, geonic letters in general and responsa in particular would be read on Saturdays in synagogues by a prominent member of the local congregation and later copied and sent out to other communities.98 Many responsa that were later found in the Geniza are known to have been circulated by Jewish Maghrebi merchants who were constantly on the trade route between North Africa and Iraq.99 It is in this context that we find Egypt as a point of passage for couriers between east and west. Quite often, letters that were initially written in one location were first copied in Egypt before continuing to their destination.100
The responsa cover a wide range of legal topics, including questions of ritual, civil law, and communal administration. As such, they serve as a useful mirror for Jewish life. Yet beyond the challenge of understanding the relationship between the responsa and early rabbinic literature—most notably, the Babylonian Talmud—our ability to draw historical conclusions from this source material depends on a careful examination of their authenticity and compatibility with the historical context in which they claim to be set.101 Unlike Christian jurists, the geonim rarely resorted to legislation. In fact, aside from two notable cases, the geonim’s legal endeavors are primarily seen as interpretations of earlier rabbinic stipulations and principles for purposes of adaptation and accommodation to the needs of their time.102 The earliest sources we possess from the geonic period date back to the eighth century. Although formally, the geonic period is thought to have begun in the seventh or even the sixth century, the body of responsa now available becomes substantial only with materials dating from the tenth and eleventh centuries.
Structure
Part I of this book, which comprises Chapters 1 and 2, is introductory in nature, aiming to provide the reader with a sense of the high measures of legal pluralism that prevailed under the pre-Islamic Roman and Sasanian Empires and throughout the Islamic classical period, namely, until the thirteenth century. The chapters survey the various judicial institutions available to the people of the Near East during these periods and illustrate the fact that in both pre-Islamic and Islamic contexts, the plurality of judicial bodies, generated by a plurality of legal orders, was a matter of special concern for confessional elites and political leaders. These introductory discussions will allow us to approach the question of Christian and Jewish recourse to extra-confessional judicial institutions with the understanding that legal pluralism was neither unfamiliar to the predecessors of the patriarchs and the geonim of the Islamic period nor a challenge unique to non-Muslim confessional elites.
Part II, which comprises Chapters 3 through 6, considers the Christian and Jewish recourse to extra-confessional institutions within the broad context of Christian and Jewish public life. Chapters 3 and 4 concentrate on the organization of Christian and Jewish life in general and of West Syrian, East Syrian, and rabbinic judicial institutions in particular. Chapter 3 provides an outline of Christian communal organization and its judiciary (ecclesiastical and non ecclesiastical) in the period after the Islamic conquest. The chapter highlights the complex structure of Christian elites, consisting of both clerical and lay figures whose authority was based on a variety of social capitals. Chapter 4 maps out the various circles of Rabbanite authority in the late geonic period and identifies their judicial prerogatives. The chapter closes with a comparative analysis of Jewish and Christian social institutions in the early Islamic period. This comparison will allow some preliminary suggestions with regard to the structural differences between Christian and Jewish forms of authority and intercommunal relations and discuss the character of Christian and Jewish judicial institutions. Specifically, it will be suggested that whereas the churches appear to have been in competition with Christian figures outside the ecclesiastical hierarchy, rabbinic law enabled the geonim to work in cooperation with Jewish men who had no formal capacity but nonetheless assumed crucial political and social roles in their communities.
Chapters 5 and 6 examine the specific question of Christian and Jewish recourse to extra-confessional judicial institutions. Both chapters begin with an analysis of the factors that prompted Christians and Jews to seek judgment before nonecclesiastical and non-rabbinic institutions, respectively, and the legislative response of their confessional leaders to this social phenomenon. Chapter 6 ends with a comparison of the incentives that drove Christians and Jews to seek judicial services before institutions that were not endorsed by their confessional leaders and the response of confessional leaders to these acts.
The concluding chapter brings to the fore some of the more elusive and controversial questions pertaining to the social
