Original version
Journal of Coptic Studies. 2017, 19, 57-60
Abstract
This papyrus contains the subscriptions to a contract involving land cultivation and the payment of pactum. The term pactum refers to the “rent to be paid by tenants for their leasehold property”.1 The monastery rented out land to tenants, e.g. monks, and the rent paid by the tenants might have been used to pay the taxes on the land.2 Monks might even have been “entitled to act as private lessors, letting out their small plots without direct participation of the actual land owner, the dikaion” and, therefore, the tax liability remained with the lessors, besides the rent they were obliged to pay to the monastery for their leasehold property.3 Such a leasehold construction might be attested in this document. Akene, Apa Bane, and an unknown person, seem to agree with Pieou, the person who is drawing up the document, to cultivate a piece of land as well as paying pactum (and a double amount if they leave the land uncultivated, l. 5). Apanog, a monk of the monastery of Apa Apollo, acts as a witness. [...]