The Medieval Salento. Linda Safran

her devoted husband, Nicholas Castaldo. A now-lost sarcophagus lid for a magister states “Here lies the body” (hic jacet corpus) and warns of excommunication by the archbishop for anyone disturbing the tomb [31]. Like the Brindisi epitaph the lid gave a specific date, and this seems typical of elite commissions.

      If we consider not only epitaphs and dedicatory and devotional inscriptions but also the didactic explanatory labels that accompany wall paintings, we find some evidence for the Latin literacy of a few painters. At Acquarica del Capo [1.A], where a long dedicatory inscription in Latin is signed by two artists in Greek, the caption for Saint Hippolytus on horseback is labeled both in Greek, “Ο ΑΓ(ΙΟC) ΙΠΠΟΑΥΤ(OC),” and in Latin, “S(AN)C(TV)S VPOLIT[VS].” The initial U (as V) in the Latin legend betrays the hand of the Greek painters.⁵⁷ In the Saint Catherine cycle in the vault at Casaranello, which is entirely Latin in its captioning, the evil emperor is mislabeled once “MANSENCIUS” (for Maxentius), and “AGVSSTA” (Augusta) is also misspelled.⁵⁸ This is sloppy Latin and hardly indicative of the artist’s better Greek if he was trained in France, as scholarly consensus has it.⁵⁹ Vernacular pronunciation probably influenced the spellings of “CATERINA” (T for TH), “MASENCIUS” (S for X), “PORFILIUS” (L for R), and “IMPERATRICS” (CS for X).⁶⁰ Similarly, at the Candelora crypt in Massafra, Saint Stephen is identified as “STEFANUS” (F for PH) and Nicholas the Pilgrim as “PELLEGRINUS” (LL for R) [63.B].⁶¹

      Greek

      The impressive quantity of Greek texts produced in the medieval Salento gives the lie to Nikephoros Gregoras’s lament that by his time, the first half of the fourteenth century, nothing remained of Greek poetry or spoken language in the ancient Magna Graecia: καὶ οὐδὲν ἔτι ἴχνος ἐλλέλειπται μὴ ὅτι γε μούσης ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ διαλέκτου .⁶² Greek public texts of a funerary and devotional nature greatly outnumber Latin and Hebrew ones, but there are fewer dedicatory and didactic inscriptions in Greek than in Latin and only four hortatory texts, [43.A, 48, 114.B, 156.A], which are both dedicatory and funerary. The Greek dedicatory inscriptions commemorate a village [48], walls [139], a tower [30], hospitals [4, 46], a ciborium [114.C], and several churches [36, 43.A, 108.A, 109.A, 113.A, 146.A, 154.A]. A church (ναός) is invariably all-holy (πάνσεπτος), except for one humble δόμος (house) [154.A].⁶³ The usual Greek term for constructing, ἀνοικοδομέω, is preferred, albeit often misspelled, but κατασκευάζω and ἀνηγέρθη are other options. Decorating church walls with frescoes is communicated by ἐζωγραφήθη or ἀνιστορήθη, which might be done at the “efforts and expense” (κόπου και ἐξόδου), “cooperation and effort” (συνδρομὴς και κόπου), “labor and travail” (πόνου και μόχθου), or simply the “expense” (δαπάνης) of the patron. Only three of the dedicatory inscriptions in Greek include the name and titles of the secular ruler, far fewer than in the Latin texts and good evidence that most patrons who chose to be remembered in Greek were disinclined to use a method of dating that highlighted a European ruler after the Byzantines were evicted circa 1071. The date is regularly included at the beginning or end; the month is noted three times, the day and hour once each.⁶⁴ Few of the Greek dedications share the concern with precise details of dating seen in Latin dedicatory texts; most are content with the year since the creation of Adam (like the Hebrew, and unlike the Latin post-Incarnation dates) and the indiction. Reference to the indiction was much more widespread in Greek and used by a larger group of patrons from different social classes.

      As was also the case in Latin, almost all of the Greek devotional texts begin with the injunction “Remember,” Μνήσθητι, directed to the Lord (Κύριε). Only in a single late monument is the addressee Christ [157.G], the Virgin (δέσποινα) [157.A], or an unspecified saint, presumably the one depicted adjacent to the relevant text [157.I, K].⁶⁵ With very few exceptions, the supplicants identify themselves as “servants” (δούλοι) of the Lord, just as they did in Latin. The only other devotional formula is “Lord, help your servant” (Κύριε βοήθει) [53.C, 64.A, 66.G, 71.A(?), 94.D, 143.C–E, 154.A, 155.B (only 154.A is a dedicatory text)].⁶⁶ The overwhelming popularity of Μνήσθητι Κύριε is not paralleled in other regions where abundant Greek inscriptions are found, including Cappadocia, Greece, and the Balkans.⁶⁷ There the usual invocation is either Κύριε βοήθει or δέησις τοῦ δούλου τοῦ Θεοῦ, “petition of the servant of God,” and the latter is nonexistent in the Salento. The verb μιμνήσκωμαι rarely appears in public texts outside of Italy, where its popularity probably derives from its use in the liturgy. Salentine diptychs of the dead endlessly repeat the formula “Remember, Lord, your servant(s),” and from the mid-fourteenth century onward the local euchologia (service books) were supplemented by an amplification of the anaphora unknown in other regions that also begins with Μνήσθητι Κύριε.⁶⁸ There may also be a connection with the identical Latin phrase “Memento Domine,” used in the Roman-rite canon of the mass.

      The majority of funerary texts in Greek also use a repetitive formulation, Ἐκοιμήθη ὁ δούλος (ἠ δούλη) θεοῦ, literally, “The servant of God has fallen asleep” but usually translated as “The servant of God died.” In the devotional texts variety was introduced only in the fourteenth century, but in the epitaphs variety preceded standardization: in the tenth through early twelfth centuries there were still such phrases as ‘Υπὲρ κοιμήσεως καὶ ἀναπαύσεως (“for the sleep and repose”) [159], ἀπόθανε (“died”) [33.K],⁶⁹ Ἐνθαδε (“here lies”) [111], and Ἔνθα τέθαπται (“here is buried”) [32.J]; μακαριώτατος (deceased) is also used once [33.E].⁷⁰ These recall the semantic range found in contemporary and earlier Hebrew epitaphs.

      Unlike the liturgical diptychs, which often commend the deceased to the bosom of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,⁷¹ very few epitaphs in Greek add such injunctions as “help your servant” or “pray for him.” They do, however, supplement the declarative statement of death with multiple details about the date. In this they resemble Greek and Latin dedicatory inscriptions more than devotional texts.⁷² The year of death is always given according to the Orthodox calculation from the beginning of the world. Only a few epitaphs cite the indiction, but more give the month and date and some even the day of the week or the precise hour of death [37, 99.A, 114.A, 137.A, 156.A].

      The Greek used in all types of inscriptions and graffiti ranges from excellent to crude. Every possible iotacism is found: η–ι, η–ε, η–ει, ει–ι, ι–οι, and others (for example, μη for μοι [143.D]), and much exchanging of other vowels (ω–ο, ω–ου) and consonants (θ–τ) as well. The large number of undeclined names in public texts—Βενεδίτους at San Vito dei Normanni in the late twelfth century [109.A], Μαργαρίτα at Vaste in the fourteenth [157.I]—suggests vernacular influence.⁷³ Some of the damned in the Last Judgment at Santo Stefano in Soleto are identified in Greek (Ο ΠΛΟΥΟΙΟ, NECTOPHO) but consistently omit