BOOK OF THE EPARCH (Eparchikon Biblion)
The title, the Book of the Eparch, was given to this work by
Jules Nicole, the Swiss professor who discovered the work in 1891. The
full text is preserved in a single 14th-century manuscript (Cod. Genevensis
gr. 23), although the title and preamble survive in a second ms (Metochion
Taphou 25), and the first three paragraphs of chapter 1 are excerpted in
several additional mss. The Metochion Taphou ms gives the name of the legislator,
Leo VI, and the date 911-12. This has been disputed, but seems sound.
The book is a collection of 22 chapters of regulation pertaining to
the guilds, whose activities comprised the greatest proportion of economic
life in the city of Constantinople. The eponymous eparch was the equivalent
of the mayor of the city, and responsible for enforcing the strict rules
which governed everyday process of urban production and exchange. Chapters
are devoted to: (1) notaries; (2)"dealers in bullion and money-lenders";
(3)bankers and money-changers; (4) merchants
of silk stuffs; (5) merchants of manufactured goods imported from Syria
and Baghdad; (6) raw silk merchants; (7) raw silk dressers; (8) silk
dyers; (9) linen merchants; (10) perfumers; (11) wax-chandlers and
taper-makers; (12) soap-chandlers; (13) grocers;
(14) saddlers; (15) butchers; (16) pork butchers; (17) fishmongers; (18)
bakers;
(19) Inn-keepers; (20) deputy of the Eparch; (21) agents and assessors
of the market; (22) contractors (of all kinds, including carpenters, gypsum
workers, marble masons, locksmiths, painters ...)
The Greek text and a full English translation with notes can be found
in: E. H. Freshfield, Roman law in the later Roman empire. Byzantine
guilds, professional and commercial. Ordinances of Leo VI c. 895 from the
Book of the Eparch (Cambridge, 1938). This was reproduced in a composite
volume, The Book of the Eparch (with the same title in Greek and
French), with an introduction by I. Dujcev (London, 1970). The abridged
excerpts linked to below are modified translations from this work.
(1) Regulations concerning Silk
(2) Regulations concerning food and hardware
May 2002
Revised November 2006