Title: To sell or to have sold? Hypotheke-prasis and dikaia time in P. Budge
Author: Marzena Wojtczak, Jakub Urbanik
Publication year: 2025
Pages: 311–338
DOI:
Abstract: A tiny archive composed of the famous Coptic arbitration protocol P. Budge and three associated Greek documents, a settlement of claims, a sale, and a loosely connected marriage document, bring forward a fascinating controversy of the tormented times between the Persian and the Arab conquests of Egypt. Its settlement testifies to the operative force of law, legal awareness of its users, and dispute-resolution strategies in an environment of intrinsic legal plurality. A new text edition, providing an in-depth study of this material, delving into the dispute resolution method, rhetorics, and proper reconstruction of the events, is presently in the works. Before it is published, we would like to present here an aspect of this matter, closely connected to the very origin of the dispute, viz. our hypothesis on the nature of the security provided by the borrower, the widow Thekla, to her creditors, the consorts Philemon and Thekla. This central matter of the P. Budge controversy witnesses the profound legal awareness of its parties. Operating within the legal framework provided by Roman law, and without attempts to transgress it, the law-users of seventh-century Edfu managed to bend and form it to serve best their needs, creating a flexible form of security, fitting the circumstances of Thekla-the-Widow and the creditors couple. It is amazing to see how, even at the dusk of its domination of Egypt, the Roman legal forma mentis was so strongly present in this inherently plural society.
Keywords: Edfu, arbitration, late antique Egypt, securities, hypotheke-prasis, dikaia time, legal practice, apotage, hypothekimaia asphaleia.
