Writing Monastic Testaments: A communication from Generation to Generation

In this chapter I begin with the so-called spiritual testaments, which do not have any juridical and economic value, but which are interesting as a literary starting point. I will then show – thanks to papyri and ostraca – how much the legal testaments, linked to the Roman model, were common spread in Egypt (and Egyptian monasticism), how they worked, and the questions they offer to the historian of religion. By examining some examples of spiritual monastic testaments, we can discuss the legal position regarding the possibilities monks had to prepare their succession. I will refer to different kinds of sources (documents, literature, canons, laws), take into consideration the complex history of testaments, and also reflect on the concrete effects of Roman and Byzantine law in a province such as Egypt. This is a first attempt to consider monastic testaments as important evidence for the possibilities monks and monasteries had to transmit their economic and social functions, organize their tasks and the roles, and talk about them, in oral and written form, without separating them completely from the spiritual and religious perspective