The Concept “Improvement” (“βελτίωσις” – “βελτίωμα”) of Byzantine Documents: The Preliminary Survey

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The most important sources for studying “improvements” throughout the Byzantine Middle Ages remain acts and documents. In them, ideas about “improvement,” no matter how they were expressed, were given a special, comprehensive significance. The terminological meaning of “improvements” in agriculture is predetermined by the cultivation of the soil and conscientious care of plantings. The main object of any improvements was clearly identified as the landlord’s estate and the farms of the landowners, which required additional costs. The economic component of “improvements” is also obvious in rental cases. The concept of “improvement” has become the main criterion in calculating the costs actually incurred by both parties and payments made, as well as the fulfillment of obligations assumed by tenants. The scope of the “improvements” made due to the construction and reconstruction of houses, especially in estates and urban estates, was quite significant. In many acts, the concept of “improvement” became one of the components of the instructions of the authorities, whether secular or spiritual, which concerned the way of life of various groups of Byzantine society. The standard, at first glance, formulaic clauses of acts acquired a special meaning when the settlement of private law problems, crossing the conventional boundaries of public administration, covered the sphere of public law. There are numerous examples when “improvements” directly concern churches, monasteries and other church buildings and institutions. Depending on the conditions described, the content of the notion “improvement” acquires additional connotations. They were determined by the influence of various factors, from fiscal and legal significance to moral and ethical assessments. Everything that has been said about the concept of “improvement” in its entirety testifies to the sociocultural significance of the ideas and concepts considered regardless of the lexical methods of their expression. Directly or indirectly, ideas about “improvement” permeated all layers of medieval Byzantine society. The study of this concept undoubtedly serves to reveal the essence of social and, more specifically, both local and communal relations among the medieval Byzantines, as well as to clarify the role of the spiritual principles in their everyday behavior. The article consists of an Introduction, a number of sections (General Views, Methods of Expression, Distribution, Pragmatics, Perception, Socio-cultural Significance), characterizing the specificities of perception and the socio-cultural significance of “improvements” in Byzantine society, and the Conclusion.