ABSTRACT
Among the wide-ranging Romanian and Slavo-Romanian manuscripts scattered in various public or private archives, diptychs (Ro. pomelnice) stand out as valuable historical, philological and genealogical sources. An expression of a life lived in the Christian spirit and of the concern for the post-mortem fate of the dead, the diptych is also a reflection of links among family or community. There are numerous extant Moldavian diptychs, but so far they have remained under-researched. The present study looks at eighteenth-century Moldavian diptychs and explores the importance – as well as the pitfalls – of the data they contain. These data yield information on the social structures of the principality, kinship and family solidarities, lineages, and interactions between the old Moldavian families and the Greek merchants in the region, as well as on the roles and status of scholars.
