International congress of byzantine studies belgrade, 22 27 august 2016

Vera Zalesskaya
State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russian Federation; 
[e-mail]
The Byzantine Toreutic of the XI Century 
in the Light of the Will of Eustathius Boilas (1059)
The Will of the protospatharius Eustathius Boilas gives a detailed account of the estates of a 
large landowner from Asia Minor. This document is to be found in the eleventh century manuscript 
of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris (ms. Coislin 263, fols 159-165), where it follows the Spiritual 
Ladder of John Climacus.This manuscript was written in 1059 by the Cappadocian monk Theodulus 
at the request of Boilas. 

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It was V. Beneshevich who published the Greek text in 1907, the short translation in Russian 
with an incomplete commentary was published by P. Bezobrazov in 1911. The translation in English 
was made in 1957 by Spiros Vryonis.
Three groups of items in the inventory of objects in the Boilas’s Will are interesting by the 
using of special terms in their description:
1. Twelve icons of bronze - εἰκόνες σαρούτια δώδεκα
2. The holy cross inlaid with gold and … with six medallions – βλεμία ἕξ
3. The calice – δισκοποτήρη
In the X-XI centuries in Byzantium two kinds of bronze icons are known: massive cast icons 
with further chiseling and engraving and second – embossed from a thin layer of bronze chising and 
engraved as well. The icons of the first kind are traditionally regarded as icons of the Constantinople 
circle. Icons made from a thin layer of bronze fixed onto a wooden board are considered to have 
been made in Asia Minor. Such attribution has been proved iconographicaly/ The facts from the 
biography of the Cappadocian magnate Boilas, who in his Will left 12 bronze icons to the church of 
Our Lady located in Salem (near by Antiochia), testify to the fact that these icons, if not made by 
Cappadocian masters, were at any rate made in Asia Minor’s workshop. Just these bronze icons were 
named σαρούτια. (See the Dictionary of Du Cange under σαρούκτη).
Among the byzantine processional crosses from the middle byzantine period there are a 
number of crosses with similar structure and mode of decoration. These crosses are made of thin 
silver or silver gilt sheets fitted around an icon core. On both the front are the back the silver gilt or 
gold medallions with the holy images occupy the intersections and the ends of the crossarms. Such 
a composition was a common Byzantine iconographic theme represented on processional crosses. 
One of these crosses had come from Eskişechir in Turkey and it provides a basis for the attribution 
of the whole group of crosses to the region of northeastern Anatolia. In the Will of Eustathius Boilas 
the medallions decorating the crosses are named βλεμία – from the word τό βλέμμα – the look.
A calice – δισκοποτήρη this refers to the chalice only. The paten (δίσκος) is listed separately 
here. At the same time Boilas left the chalice with the equipment, which consisted of a strainer, 
an asterisk, two spoons and three cloths for covering the sacred and holy objects. This cloth is 
described as σπονδηνήτζην. This word appears to be a form of σπονδή “libation”. Hence it possible 
refers to the cloth covering the communion chalice.

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