The working hypothesis of this conference posits that the encounter with Islam constituted a substantial, yet hitherto only superficially-explored, challenge to the societies of the canonists and legislators of the eastern half of the Christian world. Our understanding of the development of these legal normative regimes thus might comprehend these legal traditions not as separate entities, but rather as an essentially shared legal tradition: a ius commune orientale, an eastern pendant to the shared ius commune of the Medieval West. Despite differences in literary language (Greek, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian and Slavonic), levels of statehood (ranging from the Byzantine Empire, the principalities of Eastern Europe historical Armenia to the stateless Syriac communities) and confessional affiliation (Orthodox, Monophysite or “Nestorian” /Church of the East), each of these legal normative orders was profoundly influenced by the challenge of Islam and thus from a heuristic perspective can be productively examined together.
The organizers of this workshop propose examining the encounter with Islam as a catalyst for the (re-)formation of Eastern Christian legal traditions in two specific contexts: 1) in the first centuries after the appearance of Islam among the Christians of the Near East, including the Caucasus and 2) in the Balkans and Eastern Europe during the Ottoman expansion from the 15th century onward. Regarding both epochs, the workshop participants will be invited to examine how eastern Christians reacted to the encounter with Islam through the formulation and translation of normative knowledge. On one level, such reactions might include directly addressing the legal status of Muslims and the imposition of reflexive prescriptions upon Christian communities in the areas of family, inheritance and marriage law. At a more profound level, the contribution of Christian-Muslim interactions to longer-term legal developments might be explored.
The focus of the first context shall lie in the Christian communities of the Near East in the centuries before the Ottoman expansion. Discussed will be communities within (the East and West Syriac as well as Coptic traditions), without (Byzantium) and straddling (the Caucasus) the Islamicate world. During this formative period, the legal traditions of these communities were forced to articulate a response to the arrival of Islam at various levels, including choosing a new vocabulary for Muslims (who often are not explicitly named as such, but rather designated as “pagans”, “heathens”, etc.). In addition, rather than inventing new regulations, canonists often sought precedents for the encounter with Islam in earlier contexts, such as during the Sassanian occupation of much Byzantium’s eastern provinces during the first decades of the 7th century.
The second focal point of the conference concerns the centuries of Ottoman rule in Southeastern and Eastern Europe. Despite the conquest of the Byzantine Empire, Byzantine law acquired new significance, above all for the Orthodox Christian population under Muslim rule, as it was the main source for the legal authority of the Orthodox Church. Confessionalization, both in Christianity and Islam, was, we argue, also played out in a legal milieu, such as through the classification of Christian waqf / vakıf in Islamic law. Nor were these developments in law confined to the Ottoman Empire, but also among Orthodox Christians in the Ottoman Tributary States, in the territories under Habsburg rule, in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and in Muscovy. In addition, printing contributed to not only translation and transmission, but also the conservation of the Byzantine legal tradition in Southeastern and Eastern Europe during the early modern period. Last but not least, episcopal and patriarchal courts became responsible for governing the legal affairs of their adherents, even for cases concerning “secular” matters.
