ABSTRACT
Some time towards the end of the ninth century, Gabriel, the bishop of Basra, put together a collection of laws, drawing material from both ecclesiastical and civil sources. Although the compilation is lost in its original form, much of it can be reconstructed from later writings, and this has been expertly done by Hubert Kaufhold in a monograph of 1976.1 Gabriel’s ‘Collection of Judgements’, as his Syriac compilation is entitled, is divided into two parts: the sources of the first are ‘the Fathers, Catholicoi, Metropolitans and the Greek emperors’, while those of the second are ‘the synodical canons of the Western and Eastern Fathers’. Although the numbered sections of the first part are described as ‘Questions’, the headings of each section simply state the content, ‘Concerning …’. In Question 48, right at the end of the first part, comes a text that was with good justification described by Rainer Degen in a review as ‘ein hochinteressantes und meines Wissens einzig dastehendes Dokument’.2 Entitled ‘Concerning the ordering and regulation of associations of the crafts called <N>’, the document gives a blueprint of the rules for a professional association of artisans, listing regulations for the conduct of the association and its members. These range from entrance fees to penalties for burning the roast meat at common meals, procedures for dealing with brawls, arrangements for funerals, and a number of other topics.
