Icons as Guarantors and Judges in Byzantine Oath-taking Rituals
Icons as Guarantors and Judges in Byzantine Oath-taking Rituals

Summary/Abstract: This essay studies the Byzantine legal rituals involving icons and discusses the interactions between the icons and participants when the images were perceived as fully-fledged actors playing a part of a judge or a guarantor of promises made by other participants. The essay looks for the social and pious mechanisms facilitating this supernatural intervention into human affairs and considers that the use of icons in the legal ritual was conditioned by the growing popularity of miracle-working images. It further analyses the performative components of the oaths involving the icons and emphasizes the role of tactile and visual contact with the image as well as that of the oral and written statements.

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