“Medieval Byzantine Furniture,” in Discipuli dona ferentes. Glimpses of Byzantium in Honour of Marlia Mundell Mango, ed. T. Papacostas and M. Parani, ΒΥΖΑΝΤΙΟς – Studies in Byzantine History and Civilization 11 (Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 2017), 181-221. (original) (raw)

Through an examination of the available archaeological, written and visual evidence, this paper tackles the question of the presence of wooden furniture in Byzantine households of all social strata and enquires into the factors – practical, environmental, economic, social, or cultural – affecting its usage. Admittedly, the fragmentary nature of the evidence does not allow for the drawing of general conclusions nor for making chronological and geographical distinctions in relevant practices within the empire during the Middle and Late Byzantine periods. It does, however, allow us to trace certain general trends, which further our understanding of the workings of medieval Byzantine households. Apparently, the use of furniture was often associated with the higher layers of Byzantine society, was regarded as a symbol of social status and wealth and was employed as a means of expressing hierarchical social relations between individuals. However, references to the use of collapsible furniture among the affluent suggest that one would have encountered a degree of diversification in practices even among the upper social strata. More difficult to document is the use of wooden furniture among the middle and lower social strata. Whether or not the members of the middle and lower classes did avail themselves of wooden furniture appears to have been determined by the types of domestic spaces they inhabited and the uses to which these spaces were put. Consequently, it is argued that, beyond practical considerations like the availability of wood, the use of furniture in medieval Byzantium was indeed influenced by the social and financial status of the owner, but only to the degree that this status affected the adoption of a specific lifestyle and, more importantly, informed the architectural form and function of domestic space.