5.10 THE SOCIAL AND LEGAL STRUCTURES OF SASANIAN IRAN (I).
INTRODUCTION AND SOURCES.
This post and the two that follow it are intended as an introduction to the next one (or ones) in which I will address the issue of the Mazdakite movement, which probably will make little sense if I do not explain before (albeit briefly) the social and legal structures of Sasanian Iran, which were quite peculiar to this ancient empire and quite different from the Roman Law or the later Islamic Law, which are both quite more familiar to modern readers. In this post I will follow closely the excellent paper by the Soviet Armenian scholar Anahit Perikhanian titled
Iranian Society and Law which was published in 1983 as Chapter 18 of Vol. III of the
Cambridge History of Iran, with some amendments by Mansour Shaki in his article about “Citizenship in the Sasanian period” in the
Encyclopædia Iranica. Perikhanian is still today the modern author of reference on the subject of Sasanian law.
First, there is the problem of the sources. There is no evidence that law was codified at the level of the whole Empire in a comprehensive way comparable to what Justinian I achieved with Roman Law in the VI c. CE with the
Corpus Iuris Civilis. The main source for the study of Sasanian law is the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān (the
Book of a Thousand Judgements), which was written down during the reign of Xusrō II (early VII c. CE) by a certain
Farraxvmard ī Vahrāmān who lived in Ardaxšīr-Xwarrah in Pārs. This is not a compendium of written law, but rather a compendium of jurisprudence, i.e. of rulings by Sasanian judges in cases that were especially difficult, to shed light on how Sasanian Law should be applied in the “real” world. It deals exclusively with civilian rulings (i.e. there are no abstract theological arguments or disputes, as would become common in the IX c. once Zoroastrian Law lost ground in front of Islamic Law in civilian matters) at a time shortly before the Muslim invasion, when Zoroastrian Law was still supreme in
Ērānšahr.
Other than this compendium, another important source is the
Dēnkard (more about this below), together with the usual array of references that can be gathered from indirect sources: the ŠKZ, the inscription of Narsē at Paikuli, the MP inscriptions of Kirdēr and Mihr-Narsē, Armenian, Syriac, Jewish and Perso-Arabic Islamic sources. Syriac sources are particularly important because they were produced by a Christian population who had to live in a Zoroastrian empire (and which in consequence was subjected to Zoroastrian Law) but who were allowed to follow their own laws in their internal affairs (same case as with the Jews). Over time, the Christian leaders (usually bishops) tried to make Christian Law as compatible as possible with the provisions of Zoroastrian Law whenever possible (without compromising core Christian beliefs) in order to diminish the degree of potential sectarian conflict between both communities. Of these, the most important is the
Law Book of Yišō’boxt (an East Syrian bishop who wrote this juridical compendium in Fārs in 775-779 CE).
One of the oldest manuscripts with the text of the Vidēvdād in Avestan script. The Vidēvdād is the only complete book (nask) of the Sasanian Avestā that has survived. It is primarily concerned with ritual purity, containing rules for how to remove impurities from Ahura Mazda’s creation, and how to atone for and punish acts causing pollution. It also includes several important myths: the creation story, the rule of Yima the first king, and Zarathustra’s temptation and defeat of the evil spirit Angra Manyu. Used in combination with the Visperad and the Yasna, but without any translation or commentary, it forms the basis of the Vidēvdād sādah, a separate ritual from the daily Yasna ceremony.
Before entering into detail, it is important to state that Sasanian Law attained a great degree of sophistication, certainly higher than contemporary Indian Law (with which it shared common roots), fully comparable to Roman Law in its latest stages of evolution under Justinian, and it was a much more evolved legal system that the primitive version of Islamic law that was imposed on Iran by the Arab Muslim conquerors in the VII c. CE. This inevitably translated into Sasanian Law exerting a great degree of influence on almost all of its neighbors: Armenia and the other Caucasian kingdoms, Sogdiana and Ṭoḵārestān, and also on the evolution of most schools of Islamic Law from the VIII c. onwards (as we will see in more detail later). Although Christians and Jews within
Ērānšahr were allowed to have their own laws and courts of justice for internal disputes within their communities, Zoroastrian Law was supreme, and Christians and Jews could resort to Zoroastrian courts (whose rulings always overruled those of non-Zoroastrian courts). In fact, the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān presupposes systematically the presence of
agdēn (unbelievers) in Zoroastrian courts, and states clearly that Zoroastrian laws are also appliable to them, with one sole exception:
agdēn could not resort to the practice of
stūrīh (substitute successorship, more details on this point later). A VII c. CE treatise by a certain Simeon, bishop of Rev-Ardaxšīr (on the coast of Pārs, near the limit with Xūzestān) implies clearly that the Christian communities of Pārs considered Sasanian Law their own (hence the need for legal works like the
Law Book of Yišō’boxt, which was written precisely in Pārs in that century).
As most ancient law systems, ancient Iranian law was sanctified by a religious ethic and was in itself a part of this ethic. Thus, the canon of the Avestā included a number of legal
nasks which have not survived but are mentioned in the
Dēnkard. Book VIII of this work includes epitomes of these
nasks in the form of indexes or subject-lists. The legal
nasks of the Avestā were used in legal proceedings, but not directly. The language barrier was not the only reason for this (the language of the Avestan
nasks was Old or Young Avestan, not Middle Persian). The law contained in the Avestan
nasks (let us remember that the Avestā is dated roughly to the 1500 – 500 BCE period) must have been certainly primitive in relation to the level of political, social, and economic development attained in Iran during the Sasanian period. It is because of this that, long before the Sasanian era, the first oral commentaries on the Avestan legal
nasks appeared. By the way, the interpretation of these
nasks, as they were part of the Avestā, was done by Zoroastrian priests; by the Sasanian era this task had become the domain of
mowbeds (the highest rank of Zoroastrian priests), who also staffed the Sasanian courts of justice in quality of judges (
dādwar). Eventually, these oral commentaries became written ones. It is unclear when this happened, but it seems clear that written commentaries on the Avestan
nasks were the basis for legal proceedings as early as the middle Sasanian period. These commentaries were called
čāštag (“precepts or “teachings”) and references to them, with mention of their authors, the commentators of the Avestā, together with actual quotations from them, are fairly frequent in the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān. Some of the commentators on the non-legal
nasks of the Avestā, such as
Sōšyāns,
Martak,
Mēṯōkmah and
Aparak, also wrote legal commentaries, but a number of authors’ names appear nowhere else but in the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān. These legal commentaries are written at different times along Sasanian history; the earliest ones are probably dated to the late III and early IV c. CE. There were also “law schools” composed of followers (
Aparakīgān,
Mēṯōkmahīgān) of one or other of the commentators, the
dastabars (the same phenomenon that would happen later in Islamic Law). Comparison of the articles quoting or expounding the commentaries in the Book VIII of the
Dēnkard show that these IX c. CE epitomes were written from the MP commentaries and not directly from the Avestan
nasks.
Besides these commentaries, the compiler of the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān also refers to and quotes from “collections of judicial decisions”, evidently put together for the specific purpose of helping judges; of which one (now lost) compilation is quoted repeatedly, the
Dādistān-nāmag (the
Book of Judgements).
The
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān includes also direct indications of the activities of the high priests of the Empire (
mowbedān mowbed) in the field of legislation and judicial organization. Thus, in four articles in this work mention is made of the “memorandum” (
abrātkār) of the
mowbedān mowbed Vēh-Šābuhr, the same Vēh-Šābuhr that under Xusrō I heeded the commission on the canon of the Avestā. Vēh-Šābuhr’s “memorandum” deals with procedural questions and, in particular, the drawing-up of records of interrogation during the investigation of capital offenses. This document was written down from Vēh-Šābuhr’s dictation and reproduced in copies that were then made to circulate in the provinces of
Ērānšahr.
Other sources (which have not survived) used by the compiler of the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān were the
Xvēškārīh-nāmag ī mowbedān (“Book about the duties of
mowbeds”) and the
Xvēškārīh-nāmag ī kār-franāmān (“Book about the duties of officials”). The latter contained, notably, the instruction of the
rad (spiritual master)
Mahrspand (evidently, the father of
Ādurbād ī Mahrspandān, the famous
mowbedān mowbed during Šābuhr II’s reign)concerning the confiscation for the king’s treasury of the property of Manichaeans and those who spread their doctrine. In the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān also appears mentioned a special work or instruction on procedures for appeals called
Mustabar-nāmag.
The
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān also quotes decrees issued by certain Sasanian kings, with interesting details. For example, decrees by three kings (Warahrān V, Yazdegerd II and Pērōz) about the punishment of the
wuzurg framadār Mihr-Narsē, and the orders issued by Kawād I and Xusrō I about seals. Perhaps the most interesting amongst them is the decree by Xusrō I on judicial reform and a general review of judicial procedures and sentences.
No images of Zoroastrian priests or ceremonies have survived from within the Sasanian Empire, but several have survived in Sogdian art. This baked clay ossuary was found at Mulla Kurgan (near Samarkand), in Uzbekistan, and is dated to the VII c. CE. This detail shows two Zoroastrian priests performing the Āfrīnagān ceremony, with their mouths covered by the padām (face mask) to avoid polluting the fire.
Farraxvmard ī Vahrāmān also made use of more unconventional sources: he was granted access to the official archives for the province and capital city of Ardaxšīr-Xwarrah, and so in his work he quotes from entries in court records, from the minutes of interrogations and from decisions of the officials of Ardaxšīr-Xwarrah. He also quotes the wills of the
mowbedān mowbed Vēh-Šābuhr and
Dād-Gušnasp, a member of the noble family of
Šahr-Zapalagān (both of which were contemporaries of Xusrō I) and other legal documents.
Other than the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān and the other works already mentioned, Perikhanian also resorted to other later MP sources, like the
Dādistān ī Dēnīg (
Religious Judgements, written in the IX c. CE) and the
Rivāyat ī Ēmēt ī Ašavahistān (X c. CE), as well as some other minor sources.
SOCIAL ORGANISATION.
Besides the members of the king’s family, the vassal rulers, courtiers and high officials of state, all of whom were people of considerable wealth, there were a middle and petty nobility (who received in payment for their services, from the treasury from the reign of Xusrō I onwards, both rations and allotments of land in hereditary, conditional possession), a priesthood, urban middle strata made up of merchants and craftsmen, a mass of country people living in village communities, and also slaves. Finally, there was also quite a numerous nomadic population, who still retained gentile-tribal forms of organization and a primitive patriarchal economy.
Accordingly, Perikhanian proposed that ancient Iranian society may be studied according to a number of different aspects, of which she centered on four in her study:
- The division into social estates.
- Citizenship and lack of it.
- Class and legal status (non-slaves and slaves).
- Organizational structures (i.e. social units).
I will follow her scheme here.
Social estates.
The MP term for subject or citizen was
šāhān šāh bandag (lit. “slave of the king of kings”), an expression traceable to Achaemenid times and employed in reference to all free male residents of the realm without distinction of rank or class. It is also to be understood in expressions like
dehgān ī šāhān šāh “landowner (subject) of the king of kings”. In MP legal texts the common term for a citizen of the lower ranks was
mard/zan ī šahr “male/female citizen”. Iranian citizens were called
Ērān or
Ērān šahrīgān, as opposed to “non-Iranian subjects,”
anērān šahrīgān.
There is no mention in sources from the Achaemenid and Arsacid periods of the ancient division of society into estates that is described in the Avestā, and there is no evidence either that such a division existed in the first half of the Sasanian period. That such a division existed in the following period (from the V c. CE onwards) is attested by MP, Eastern Roman and Perso-Arabic sources.
It is also difficult to discern if the lack of evidence in the earlier sources (mainly Greek ones) is merely accidental or if the well attested division into estates of the later period was an entirely artificial creation of said period, with no real roots in its immediate past. Perikhanian thought that it was evident that with the appearance of a state in Iran from the Achaemenid era onwards and the emergence into the foreground of other forms of social organization, the role of the ancient Avestan division into estates might have declined markedly.
On the other hand, there can have been no special social-estate administration, nor did it exist in the society reflected in the Avestā. The terms related to the estates employed in the Avestā left no trace in the living languages of later times (Old Persian, Parthian, Middle Persian). The ancient estate of “priests” (Av.
āθravan-) was apparently substituted at a very early age by the term “magian” (Old Ir.
magu-,
mow-) and the ancient estate of “warriors” or “charioteers” (Av.
raθaēštar-) was replaced by the new noble estate of the
āzādān (in Greek documents from Iran representatives of this estate were called
ՙελεύθεροι [
eleútheroi, literally “the free ones”] by association with the homonym Iranian term
āzād, meaning “free”). This estate might also have included (from the reign of Xusrō I onwards) the “horsemen” (
savārān or
asbārān) of non-noble origins who served in the regular cavalry and received from the Treasury allotments of land in conditional possession. The development of urban life over the centuries, especially under Sasanian rule, and the appearance of a bureaucracy must have led to still greater changes affecting the third estate (
ram, meaning “flock”) who corresponded to the ancient “cultivators” (Av.
vāstryo.fšuyant-).
Meanwhile, as early as the end of the III c. CE the process had begun of transforming the Zoroastrian priesthood into an organization parallel to the Sasanian state (a sort of “state church” in Perikhanian’s words) which from the reign of Šābuhr II onwards began to play an ever greater role in the internal affairs of
Ērānšahr. The strengthening of its economic power and internal organization, which proceeded in clear alliance with the monarchy, was accompanied by a considerable growth in its ideological influence. The prestige of the Avestā became especially great. For this reason, according to Perikhanian, a new division into estates was introduced, not later than the beginning of the V c. CE, although according to the Soviet scholar, this reform might have been originally a purely bureaucratic one. On the one hand, the real social situation was taken into account, and on the other the nomenclature of the Avestā was revived (in a MP “learned” version).
The reform introduced four main estates (
pēšag). First, as before, came the priests (
āsrōnān, MP version of Av.
āθravan-), with whom the judges (MP
dādwarān, Av.
dataβarān) were also associated. In the second place stood the estate of the warriors (MP
artēštārān, transcription of Av.
raθaēštar-). The third place was assigned to a new estate, the “scribes” (MP
dibīrān) which comprised the numerous members of the bureaucracy. The “cultivators” (MP
wāstaryōšān, transcription of Av.
vāstryo.fšuyant-) formed the fourth estate, along with the “craftsmen” (MP
hutuxšān, literally “diligent”, zealous”, an artificial term, perhaps an adaptation of the phonetically similar Av.
hūiti-).
Subdivisions were also introduced within the estates. The fourth estate included “cultivators”, “craftsmen” and “merchants” while the first estate was apparently divided into the
magi (MP
mowbedān), minor priests (MP
hērbedān, derived from Av.
aēθrapati-) and “judges” (MP
dādwarān). Membership of a particular estate was hereditary and social movement from one estate to another was extremely difficult. Each estate was also given a bureaucratic administration covering the whole Empire, and the person appointed to be head of an estate did not need to belong to that particular estate: the clearest example is that of the three sons of the
wuzurg framadār Mihr-Narsē during the V c. CE.
Civic status.
Only a member of a civic community (of whatever estate) was a legal person in the full sense. The position of a freeborn man who was outside a community was similar to that of a pariah; the advantages enjoyed by a member of a civic community were closed to him. Every member of a community could not only inherit within his community but also acquire real property and make use of whatever belonged to the community as a whole. A system of mutual responsibility and solidarity also operated within the community; membership of a community conferred the right to take part in social life and religious worship, guaranteed security of succession and ensured the protection of widows and orphaned minors. In other words, the status of a citizen enabled as man to take full and active part in economic, social, and religious life and offered him and his family definite safeguards.
As will be shown later in the section about “agnatic groups” the road to citizenship was opened by entry into one of the structures which made up the community. It should also be noted that the scope of a person’s legal capacity and competence varied with sex and age: women and minors had a limited (passive) legal capacity. Greater or lesser loss of rights, even complete loss, could result from conviction for crime.
A Zoroastrian who adopted another religion was deprived of his position in his former family and community and, consequently, of all the rights linked to that position, but he kept his rights in regard to contracted obligations and his personal property. When he entered another, non-Zoroastrian, community he did not cease thereby to be a civic person.
To refer to a person’s membership to a civic community in MP documents, in addition to the terms
āzād and
hamnāf (lit. “agnate”) also the expressions
ādēhīg (lit. “fellow countryman”; Mansour Shaki opined that this word was used just to refer to citizens of a same province) and
mart ī šahr (“citizen”) were used.
The legal status of freeborn women and minors was even more restricted. Whereas women of noble birth could rise even to the highest office of the state (e.g., Dēnag, wife of Yazdegerd II and mother of Hormazd III, and Bōrān and Āzarmīgduxt, daughters of Xusrō II, all of whom reigned as queen of queens), lower-caste women were traditionally regarded in law as a kind of property (
xvāstag), with an average price set at 500
stērs. This amount was supposed to be offered as marriage portion. Instruction in religious precepts was not binding on women, and a woman’s refusal to marry rendered her “worthy of death”, a fate that did not befall a man in the same position. The social status of women must have been gradually improving, however, for there is evidence of controversy among the jurists on certain issues relating to it. For example, Pusānweh ī Āzādmardān decreed that testimony was admissible if presented by two women, in contravention of the orthodox law (
kardag) that “women, minors, and slaves are ineligible to stand witness in a court of law”. According to another opinion, a woman who was her own guardian could give evidence and even sit in judgment; she was also entitled to the absolute ownership of property that had come to her by marriage. A wife could be given by her husband to another coreligionist in marriage or
stūrīh (see below), even against her will, but a maiden could not be married without her consent. Jurists also disagreed about the validity of a marriage contracted without the sanction of the woman’s father or guardian. Orthodox law did not concede the propriety of such a marriage, but more liberal-minded jurists approved it. In traditional law such a marriage would have resulted in the loss of the husband’s paternal legitimacy and right to filial duty from the issue but not of the civil rights of any of the parties; nor would the father’s duty to care and provide for his children have been abrogated. Marriage, whether
pādixšāyīhā (i.e. authorized) or
stūrīh, had to be contracted between parties in the same social class and even subclass. A nobleman who concluded a morganatic marriage forfeited his claim to his inheritance and thus his privileged civic status.
Modern Farsi priests in a religious ceremony.
All children, whether born in lawful wedlock or not, were entitled to support from their fathers during their minority. In some respects the legal status of minor children was remarkably similar to that of slaves, however, for under adverse circumstances the father could sell them into slavery or put them up for adoption.
Non-citizens. Slaves.
The citizens of
Ērānšahr who were without civic rights included other groups besides the slaves. These were people who, although formally free, were not members of civic communities, “aliens”, casual settlers, or people who had been expelled from a community, and their descendants (MP
uzdēn,
uzdēnīg). This category also included illegitimate children of full-right members of the community, and apparently also their descendants, who lived in the family as semi-dependent people with restricted rights. As a rule, freed slaves were also included in this category unless they entered some civic community (see below).
Throughout the Sasanian period there were various heretical sects, groups of nonconformists, refractory elements, freethinkers, and atheists whose civil status must be surmised from censorious statements in texts, in the absence of more satisfactory documentation. There were injunctions to oppose and even to fight with heretics, who were to be beaten and killed like wolves (
Dēnkard). Nevertheless, numerous surviving accounts of disputations between orthodox
mowbeds and heretics recounted in the beginning chapters of
Dēnkard cast some doubt on the effectiveness of such rigorous injunctions. Only when the so-called “arch heretics,” the Mazdakites (properly
drīst-dēns), after several centuries of toleration, threatened to subvert the foundation of Sasanian aristocracy were they outlawed and relentlessly persecuted. As for the Manicheans (
zandīgs), it is explicitly stated that their property should be confiscated and transferred to the royal treasury under the “royal decree concerning instructions for (the management of) the state”. Instances of blasphemy (
yazdān dušmenīh), disloyalty to the sovereign (
xwadāy dušmenīh), and atheism (
anhast-gōwišnīh) were tried, recorded, and punished, apparently by death. Yet, according to some contemporary evidence, in the time of Xusrō I (r. 531-579 CE) the Sasanian Empire was rife with various materialist and nonconformist views.
Though the number of freemen who were not members of any community was great, the differences in social and legal status between slaves and all non-slaves was so sharp that it is these two categories that predominate in Sasanian private law. As slaves were a form of wealth (and a productive one), rich men became owners of large numbers of slaves. The
wuzurg framadār Mihr-Narsē was nicknamed
hazārbandag, i.e. “owner of a thousand slaves”. Temples were also slaveowners; this is definitely attested for Zoroastrian temples in the Sasanian period. Despite the extensive use of slave labor in the Sasanian Empire, the economy was mainly maintained by the work of the free population. But it was still an important institution in the economic and social life of
Ērānšahr.
MP documents contain a whole series of expressions to designate slaves:
bandag (lit. “bound”),
anšahrīg (lit. “outlander”),
rahig (lit. “bound”),
tan (lit. “body”), and
vēšag (lit. “belonging to a
vis”, i.e. a “gens”). The most commonly employed terms were
bandag and
anšahrīg.
The chief and more characteristic feature of a slave in Sasanian Law was that a slave was considered first and foremost as a “thing” (
xvāstag); a sellable article, and had no intrinsical legal rights, not even the right of ownership. A slave could only own property or earn money if this right were specifically bestowed upon them by their master, who could take it away whenever they wanted to. And if the slave managed to retain ownership of something until their death, then their master, not their child, would inherit it. On the other side, Sasanian law also recognized a “secondary nature” in slaves, that was human (but always subordinated to the first nature) and so it acknowledged some limited rights to slaves (actually, this approach was quite similar to the one employed in Roman law).
The use of seals was widespread in Sasanian Iran. Originally, there were only personal seals, but Kawād I decreed that no legal documents would be valid without seals, and from his reign onwards official seals also began to appear in which the owners displayed their official rank and status within the state administration. This is the personal seal of a mowbed, cut in a carnelian.
Thus, Sasanian law recognized a limited legal capacity to slaves, specifically in some types of litigation. a slave could sue his master for cruel treatment, like the case of one who sued his master for having thrown him into the Tigris. Another slaveowner was sentenced to compensate his slave for a mutilation inflicted on him (both cases are mentioned in the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān). Slaves were unable to bear witness (unless they testified in the company of a person possessed of full rights, just like happened with women or minors) or swear oaths. Slaves were not recognized by law as having a family. But a Zoroastrian slave was officially recognized as having the right to practice his religion, and in order to ensure this right, in the late Sasanian period it was forbidden to sell a Zoroastrian slave to an
agdēn. A slave who embraced Zoroastrianism could leave an
agdēn master and become the slave of a new, Zoroastrian master; his previous master had no right, when this happened, to demand the return of the slave to him. He could only claim compensation for the value of the slave to the latter’s new owner (notice the similarities between this treatment of Zoroastrian slaves and the treatment of Muslim slaves in Islamic law).
Escape from the condition of slavery was effected through manumission, a legal act whereby a slave acquired his freedom from his master. This took place at the will of the master, with only one exception: a Zoroastrian slave of an
agdēn master was allowed by law to buy his freedom. The freedman was given a certificate of manumission (
āzād-nāmag). Manumission was absolute (with some
caveats, see below); the slave became a free man, under the protection of the law, a subject of the
Šāhān Šāh, and (according to the jurist Syāwaxš) he could never be returned to slavery.
The
caveat about manumissions to which I referred above is that Sasanian Law allowed for two forms of manumission:
- Full manumission, as described above.
- Manumission involving partial liberation, in which the slave was given an “ideal part” (theoretical fraction) of his freedom (one half, one third, one fourth, one tenth, etc.). Partial manumissions were unknown to Greek and Roman law but were found in the local law of Hellenistic and Roman Egypt and were also practiced among the Jewish and Christian communities of Ērānšahr.
Perikhanian thought that there were no signs that in the Sasanian Empire the manumitting master exercised patronage over his freedman. But Shaki noted that in some parts of Pārs, however, an enfranchised slave remained the client of his former owner, who had a right to inherit his property, a circumstance that continued in the early Islamic period (as stated in the
Law Book of Yišō’boxt).There were grounds, too, for supposing that a freedman who was Zoroastrian entered the system of agnatic kinship of his manumittor: at all events, if a freedman died without offspring born after his liberation, the agnatic group of his former master was obliged to establish a
stūrīh for him; the order of relationship was reckoned from the manumittor and one of the latter’s successors was designated as the freedman’s
stūr.
Zoroastrian temples owned slaves whose labor was used on the temple estates. There were, however, also “slaves of the temple” (
ātaxš bandag,
ādurān bandag) who are distinguished in the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān from the slaves who worked in the temple estates. These “slaves of the temple” “belonged” to the temple in that they were dedicated to it, but they did not constitute a special social category, and were not slaves in any real sense. Their connection to the temple was religious.
Both men and women could become “slaves of the temple” as a result of honorary dedication. In the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān, sacred slavery is defined as a condition of complete civic freedom, “freedom before men” but “slavery before the Fire”, i.e. the fire-temple. Among these sacred slaves there were people of the highest nobiliary stratum, like for example the
wuzurg framadār Mihr-Narsē. Warahrān V handed him over “as a slave” to the fire-temple of Ardahišt and that of Afzōn-Ardaxšīr (the royal fire-temple) and for several years he was a sacred slave of these temples. Later, as a result of some offense committed by Mihr-Narsē, the nature of which is unspecified, Yazdegerd II ordered that he be transferred to the royal estates (
ōstān) to work there as a punishment, a sentence which he served for several years. Then, a third king, Pērōz, with the agreement of the
mowbedān mowbed Mardbūd and others who “were there” (presumably, in the king’s council), he was again transferred to “temple slavery”, but not, however, to the temples where he had “served” before but to another one, the fire-temple of Ohrmazd-Pērōz (also one of the royal temples). Both in the temples and in the
ōstān Mihr-Narsē was accompanied by his wife (presumably, his chief wife) and a slave. In the temples, Mihr-Narsē was an
ādurvaxš, a minister of the cult, whose task it was to ensure that the fire did not go out, while his wife was a “sacred slave” and his slave waited on them. It may be supposed that sacred slaves of noble origin performed some sort of liturgy for the temple, as well as taking part in worship, but Perikhanian states that there is no clear evidence for this.
The temples gave protection to their “sacred slaves”. For instance, the great fire-temple of Ādur Farnbāg (located in Pārs, one of the Three Great Fires of
Ērānšahr) ransomed “from the enemy” out of its own funds some of its “sacred slaves” who had apparently been taken prisoner while on active military duty.
Organizational structures. Agnatic groups.
Form early times, well before the Arsacid and Sasanian periods, the primary unit of Iranian society was the family, both the small family and the extended one (the patriarchal family of undivided brothers). Both were designated respectively by the term
dūtag (lit. “smoke”) and
kadag (“house”); the latter term appears in the compounds
kadag-xwadāy (head of the family,
paterfamilias) and
kadag-bānūg (mistress of the house,
materfamilias). The Iranian family consisted of a group of agnates limited to three or four generations, counting in descendancy order from the head of the family, who were bound together by a strict system of bounds and obligations besides the bound of kinship. The members of the family were linked together by shared worship (in particular by the domestic alter and the cult to the souls of the ancestors on the father’s side) and religious rights, joint family property (in a large family, the undivided brothers had only theoretical “shares” – i.e. ideal parts – and were from the legal standpoints partners,
brāt-bambāg) and by common activity in production and consumption. The members of the family possessed unequal degrees of legal capacity and were linked together by relations of authority and subordination (on the one hand,
personae sui iuris, i.e. the head of the family and his grown-up sons and grandsons, and on the other the subordinate persons, the women and minors).
Besides the family there was a wider community of kinsmen, the agnatic group, to which the family belonged as one of its constituent units. The agnatic group, being the typical form of organization in ancient society, was the most important structure within the civic community, replacing the earlier clan and tribal system. The same form of organization is seen in the Greek
γένος (
génos),
πάτρα συγγένεια (
pátrā syngéneia), Latin
gens,
familia (in the broad sense of the term, which in its narrow sense meant the family), and it also underlay Sanskrit
gotra. In Arsacid and Sasanian Iran the agnatic group appears under the names of
nāf,
tōxm (equivalent to Armenian
tohm),
gōhr.
In its simplest form, the agnatic group included several dozen patriarchal families who all originated from one common ancestor on the father’s side, three or more generations back from the living heads of these families. The members of such a community of agnates were connected by kinship, the order of which was established quite precisely since every surviving head of a family could have known as a child and a young man not only his own father, grandfather and great-grandfather but also their brothers and consequently all the lines of descent from them. Memory of kinship in the line of ascent might, of course, embrace an ever-larger number of generations.
Besides kinship, the members of the agnatic group were united by their common cult of the spirits of their dead ancestors (in the male line) and the “founder” of the group, and also by common religious ceremonies and festivals. Information on this subject is to be found in the Avestā, but evidence from the Sasanian period is no less eloquent. For example, Šābuhr I set up a special fund for the “souls and names” of his three ancestors (Ardaxšīr I, Pābag and Sāsān) and other kinsmen, so that services might be held, with offering of sacrifices and invocation of names, as we read in the ŠKZ.
These were also important features of the agnatic group:
- Community of economic life.
- Solidarity in obligations.
- Community of political life.
- Territorial community.
Originally, real property, cattle, tools of production and economic implements in general were collectively owned by the agnatic group, and the families constituting this group were merely co-possessors of these goods. This situation underwent a sharp change with the growth in importance of the family as a social unit. But although the possessions apportioned to a family eventually became that family’s property, the agnatic group continued to retain latent rights over the possessions of all the families forming part of the group. The larger group also retained collective ownership of the common pastures, mills, irrigation works, farm buildings and so on, to which every family had access on the basis of co-partnership or common easement and by right of its membership in the agnatic group. Alienation of real property was allowed only within the group (i.e. to one agnate), the agreement of the agnates being required for its alienation outside the group. Community of economic life and community of worship were very tightly bound up with solidarity in obligations. A man’s agnatic status (his relative position in the kinship scale of his agnatic group) determined his degree of responsibility for the fulfillment of obligations undertaken by members of the group; it also determined the order of his responsibility of assuming guardianship over women and orphans and subsidiary or substitute successorship (
stūrīh) to an agnate who died without leaving an heir within the family. As will be seen later, membership of the group and order of kinship might oblige a man (i.e. if it was his turn) to enter into levirate marriage or marriage with an
epikleros (in ancient Greece, the daughter of a man who had no male heirs), and the same factor also affected adoption.
By tradition, to which the Avestā already bears witness, males became adult at the age of fifteen. At this age, a youth was dedicated to the cult, and this event was accompanied by his investiture with sacred girdle and shirt. This solemn ceremony took place in the presence of all the agnates and marked the beginning of a new period in his life. He was regarded as having been “born again” and this was indeed his “civic birth” which made him a person of full legal capacity (
duvānig) with the right to participate in the civic and religious life of the community. Weddings and juridical acts were performed before an assembly of the adult members of the agnatic group, which also regulated disputes and decided questions of common interest. The heads of families formed the council of the group, which also had its own head (Old Ir.
nāfapati-, Arm.
nahapat). The usual way in which persons from outside the group were received into is was by adrogation (i.e. a form of adoption) in front of the council. According to Perikhanian, every agnatic group might have also constituted a territorial unit, although in Old and Middle Iranian documents there is no direct evidence for her view, it is strongly supported by comparison with other regions of the ancient world, as well as by modern ethnographic material from Iran itself.
The limits of the agnatic circle which formed a social unit might vary. The nucleus of the agnatic community, its basic structure, consisted of the families whose heads at least one common ancestor on the father’s side, normally, a dead father, grandfather, or great-grandfather. The members of families related in this way were agnates to each other, and the circle corresponded to the Indian
sapiṇḍa circle, the Greek
αγχωτεία (
agkhouteía) and the Latin
agnatio or
propinquitas; the persons who belonged to it in Iran were called
hamnāfan,
xvēšāvandān or
āzādan (Av.
xvaētav-,
nabānazdišta-). Though in India the
sapiṇḍa circle was exogamous, over a considerable area of ancient Iran it was endogamous. The principle of endogamy within the group (it was known by the Avestan word
xvaetvedaθa, lit. “marriage between agnates”) found its extreme expression in incestuous marriages, which were given the highest religious sanction. Classical Greek and Latin writers tell us of the widespread practice of this custom in Achaemenid times and later (Chinese travelers and pilgrims also recorded it). This practice is especially well documented in texts of the Sasanian period, particularly in the
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān, where it appears as a standard custom.
Agate personal seal of a Sasanian aristocrat named “Moraspand”.
The wider agnatic group embraced several nuclei or segments with similar structure, and a constant process of segmentation led to the formation of new groups. Organization by agnatic groups was characteristic of all the civic estates. Membership of a community (urban or rural) was determined by one’s membership in one of the agnatic groups which formed it, and a man’s entry into a group, his status as agnate, signified his possession of legal capacity as a citizen. For this reason, in MP legal terminology the word
āzād, which corresponds directly to the Latin
agnatus, acquired the meaning of “a person of full legal capacity”. But the nobility held a special position among the estates in Iran: together with civic legal capacity they also had privileges in the field of public (administrative) law. A man’s entry into one of the agnatic groups of the noble estate meant,
ipso facto, that he belonged to this privileged estate. In documents related to the sphere of administrative-public law the word
āzād was therefore used in the sense of “a member of an agnatic group of the nobility”, “representative of the noble estate”, “nobleman”. According to Perikhanian, this use of the word was widespread.
It was the status of an agnate in one of the noble groups that alone gave access to appointment to any state or court office of importance. Certain offices even became, with the passing of time, hereditary in a particular group, and that branch of the clan which had acquired preferential right to hold a given office could take the title of that office as the basis of its gentilitial name. Perikhanian point out as an example the ŠKZ, which mentions such gentilitial names as
Bidaxšagān,
Dizbadagān or
Spāhbad, derived respectively from the offices of
bidaxš,
dizbad and
spāhbed. To which we could add later examples like the
Kanārangiyān of Tūs (who became the hereditary holders of the post of
kanārang, the military commanders of Abaršahr and the north-east of the Empire against the Huns and Türks, or the House of Ispahbudhan or House of Aspahbadh, whose name could be derived from
spāhbed or the old Arsacid title
aspbed (“commander of the cavalry”), and who may be the same family listed in the ŠKZ under the name
Spāhbad (Ehsan Yarshater thought so in his article in the
Encyclopædia Iranica about the two maternal uncles of Xusrō II). I general, the agnatic groups of the nobility played a large part in the life of the monarchical state and had their independent representation in the court protocol. The latter was embodied in the special charter of rank (
Gah-nāmag) which was examined afresh and confirmed by each newcomer to the throne. The statute of ranks was based on two principles: first, that of “officiality” (
kārdārīh), that is, the status of each office, and second, that of status of “nobility” in accordance with the ordinal position held by each agnatic group. Thus the position occupied by any person in the court, his rank there, was determined by the relative position indicated in the charter of rank either for his office (if he were an official) or for his agnatic group, his clan. The lists of officials and nobles given in the ŠKZ, for whom “souls are commemorated” and the king directed that services be held, were drawn up on the basis of official charters of rank of this kind, for Šābuhr I’s own court and for those of his predecessor Ardaxšīr I, and of Pābag, and reflect these principles.
All the agnatic groups of the nobility were represented in the charter of ranks and so, presumably, at the king’s court. As a rule these groups were represented at the court by their heads, who were called
wuzurgān (lit. “the great ones”) in contrast to the ordinary members of these groups, who were called
āzādān.
The
Mādiyān ī hazār dādistān distinguishes strictly between the rights and obligations governed by membership of a family, that is, resulting from direct line of descent or from being a brother-partner (in a family of undivided brothers) and those which were founded on membership of a particular agnatic group and kinship-order within this organization. In the first case, when the basis of accession is (agnatic) kinship by direct or collateral (brother-partner) line, that is, membership of a family, this basis is rendered by the technical term
būdag (lit. “real”, “natural”),
būdagīh. In the second case, when the basis of accession is membership of an agnatic group and relative position within this group, it is said to be settled by place in the agnatic line, via agnatic kinship (
nabānazdištīh). The differences between these two consisted not only in their relative order (the second line of calling came into action only when the first line was lacking) and their form but also, to a certain extent in this effect: the first or “natural” accession applied
ipso iure, whereas accession by agnatic line took place by appointing the nearest agnate in the legal order and consequently entailed formal procedures of request, acceptance, etc. The procedure of appointment was carried out in a gathering of all the adult members (then of full legal capacity) of the group.
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