Die byzantinischen Bleisiegel in Österreich

Byzantine lead seals serve as a major source of information for the overall phenomenon “Byzantium”, providing to this day the most noteworthy of new data; on the one hand a great deal of the material is as yet unpublished, and on the other, it would be better in many cases to only speak of a “mentioning” or “pre-edition” as hardly a third of the approximately 80,000 conserved bulls have been given proper treatment. Based on the systematic catalogue of Byzantine seals in Austria’s public and private collections, an initial volume was published in 1978 dealing with the Imperial Court in a wider sense (Emperors, imperial families, functionaries at court and rank titles). The second volume published now is dedicated to the central and provincial administration, including the military and civil sector. The work offers many new insights not only in regard to the history of administration, but also in terms of prosopography. Following its aim to make further methodological progress, particularly with regard to establishing as precise a dating as possible and achieving more accurate identifications, much additional material was used, so that more than a thousand seals could be dealt with using the possibilities of modern sigillography.