Open AccessAgricultural practice in Byzantium from the Farmer’s Law to Geoponika
Author(s) -
Zoran Simonović,
Branko Mihailović
Publication year - 2017
Publication title -
zbornik matice srpske za društvene nauke/zbornik matice srpske za društvene nauke
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2406-0836
pISSN - 0352-5732
DOI - 10.2298/zmsdn1763507s
Subject(s) - encyclopedia , agriculture , byzantine architecture , law , agricultural productivity , period (music) , sociology , political science , history , classics , philosophy , archaeology , aesthetics
The paper discusses the two most famous Byzantine sources in agriculture: the Farmer?s Law and Geoponika (an encyclopedia of agriculture). Based on these two sources, covering the period from the VIII to X century, the authors attempted to discover whether there were changes in the Byzantine agricultural practice. In the analysis given in the paper, it can be noted that the texts in the Farmer?s Law mainly refer to legal regulation and customary law. On this basis, the authors believe that this source does not deal adequately with issues related to agriculture production. On the other hand, the encyclopedia of agriculture, Geoponika, is in some way a scientific research, which in the first place contains an overview of the situation in agricultural practice, with a significant addition in the form of sublimation of the then known knowledge. Of special importance are the personal experiences of the editor himself, given throughout the text, consisting of various suggestions for improving the production. The authors believe that the significance of Geoponika lies in the fact that changes in Byzantine agricultural practice can be followed on the basis of the editor?s texts.