A DEVELOPMENT IN NOMENCLATURE ON THE SEALS OF THE BYZANTINE
PROVINCIAL ARISTOCRACY IN THE LATE TENTH CENTURY*
Paul STEPHENSON
The publication in recent years of several important collections of Byzantine lead seals has at last provided a large enough body of evidence for scholars to begin to deduce general rules.1 The advances in epigraphic and stylistic dating techniques have provided reliable criteria for assessing individual specimens. The aim of this essay is to highlight a development in nomenclature on Byzantine seals during the tenth and eleventh centuries, and to attempt to explain this development in the appropriate political context and with regard to contemporary social phenomena. The starting point was to examine substantial number of published seals which have been dated to this period. In doing this, one cannot help but notice the virtual absence of surnames on the seals of the tenth century. This is in marked contrast to the sudden proliferation of surnames on seals of the eleventh century. Moreover, of those seals originally dated to the tenth
* I would like to thank Jonathan Shepard, James Howard-Johnston and Cyril Mango for their invaluable advice and criticisms. I am also grateful to J.-Cl. Cheynet for his pertinent observations. Any mistakes are, of course, entirely my own.
1. The following publications represent the body of evidence consulted in reaching the conclusions advanced below: G. Schlumberger, Sigillographie de l'empire byzaniin, Paris 1884. G. Zacos & A. Veglery, Byzantine Lead Seals, I, Basel 1972. G. Zacos & J. Nesbitt, Byzantine Lead Seals, II, Berne 1984. J. Nesbitt, Plates, Berne 1985. V. Laurent, Le Corpus des Sceaux de l'empire byzantin, V, 1-3, L'église, Paris 1963-72; II, L'administration centrale, Paris 1981. V. Laurent, La Collection Orghidan, Paris 1952. V. Laurent, Les sceaux byzantins du Médailler Vatican, Vatican 1962. W. Seibt, Die byzantinischen Bleisiegel in Österreich, I; Kaiserhof, Vienna 1978. J.-Cl. Cheynet, C. Morrisson & W. Seibt, Sceaux byzantins de la collection Henri Seyrig, Catalogue Raisonné, Paris 1991. J. Nesbitt & Ν. Oikonomides, Catalogue of Byzantine Seals at Dumbarton Oaks and in the Fogg Museum of Art, I, Washington D.C. 1991.
Revue des Études Byzantines 52, 1994, p. 187-211.
