The Talmud enjoins Jews to wear shoes, and clean ones at that; it also says that white shoelaces are required rather than the usual black.182 On Yom Kippur, leather footwear was entirely forbidden in order to afflict oneself as much as possible. King David allegedly walked barefoot on that day, but Talmudic rabbis accepted sandals made of cork, and one of Anav’s contemporaries, a Rabbi Shmuel of Bari, ruled that if there was danger from scorpion bites then even leather shoes were permissible.183 The custom of walking barefoot on days of mourning, including funerals and Yom Kippur, would have made Salentine Jews stand out among their neighbors.
Gloves had symbolic value as indicators of authority; they were worn by high-ranking clergy and other notables [58.C]. Fourteenth-century terms for gloves included guanti, ciroteche (from the Greek), and mofele.184 Shibolei ha-Leqet confirms that medieval Jews also wore gloves and used the first term, rendered in Hebrew letters as
In the tortures of Saint Stephen at Soleto with which we began this investigation, the figures wearing red rotellae (or rotae) in accord with Maria d’Enghien’s legislation are not otherwise clad or shod differently from others in the same fresco stratum [113.sc.1; Plate 14]. Nevertheless, an artist felt compelled to “update” these Jews in accordance with the actual appearance of local Jews following the early fifteenth-century edict. Prior to this time, “regular” Jews looked like their neighbors. Some of the more pious and learned Jews—perhaps the ones who wrote Hebrew chronicles and poetry and scientific works in the ninth to eleventh centuries, or those who made Jewish Bari and Otranto famous as far away as France in the twelfth century—probably did wear the type of white head covering often worn by depicted Jews [Plate 1]. This exceptional attribute of piety was then extended by Christian artists to representations of most Jews. The same process was responsible for the dominant image of Jews with beards.187 Yet neither convention was consistently applied, and neither was the rule about wearing the rotella, as indicated by the diverse and unbranded group of Jews in the Brindisi scene of Pilate Washing His Hands [Plate 3].
Sumptuary Laws
Beginning in the early fifteenth century, several Jewish communities in northern Italy imposed sumptuary laws to combat public ostentation that might be interpreted by non-Jews as a claim of status and power. Initially these laws addressed excessive spending for weddings and funerals, but later they focused on clothing, with strict rules about women’s dress to be enforced by their husbands.188 It is clear from these restrictions that Jewish social and juridical inferiority was not reflected in the way they dressed and adorned themselves.189 However, we have no trace of Jewish sumptuary laws in the south of Italy. Because Jews looked like their neighbors, the Franciscans enjoined Maria d’Enghien to issue a law that distinguished them.
Sumptuary legislation was not only or even primarily for Jews. Limitations on the public display of finery and expensive clothing by Christians became more widespread beginning in the twelfth century with edicts issuing from both the church and secular authorities. The earliest such law in southern Italy dates to 1290, when Charles I of Anjou forbade men from wearing superfluous ornaments associated with women; a similar law was issued in 1308. According to the earlier legislation, no one could wear gilded shoes (calcareia deaurata) and only certain women were allowed fringes of pearls, gold, or silk. Doctors, jurists, and professional men could don garments of vair, but for burghers and merchants this fur was restricted to their hoods and hats (caputio and birreta). No woman could wear more than seven buttons, nor could their value exceed twenty-two tari, and pearl garlands adorned with gems and gold were permitted only if they were less than two fingers wide.190
This corporate regulation of bodies privileged certain social groups while restricting others, with the aim of limiting competition within the highest social classes and imposing an ideal social order that distinguished classes and genders.191 Alan Hunt’s study of sumptuary legislation found that while more medieval legislation was directed toward men, enforcement of the laws was more rigorous toward women.192 We can assume, I think, that supplicants represented on Salento church walls were not violating any legislation then in force. The fur-trimmed dress of so many painted individuals at Santa Maria del Casale supports the conclusion that these individuals belonged to the uppermost social class, while a similarly consistent but certainly different social group seems to be represented in Santi Stefani at Vaste. Whether it is viewed as a form of individual or corporate communication, appearance is among the most public manifestations of economic and social power.193 All the evidence indicates that status, not faith, determined both actual dress and its representations, and it is to these and other aspects of status that we turn next.
CHAPTER 4
Status
“Status” refers to an individual’s position in relation to others, especially his or her social standing within and between groups, and relative status is a major factor in interpersonal behavior. Like other aspects of identity, one’s status is imputed by others and interpreted according to subjective cultural categories. It generates expectations that can range from respect and admiration to contempt. A higher position in the social hierarchy, manifested in manifold ways within different social frameworks, is sought not just by humans but also by many kinds of animals (not only primates), which suggests that the pursuit of status may be intrinsic to communal life.1 Material culture, clothing, funerals, architecture—everything associated with enduring or ephemeral visual experiences—both reflect and constitute the social realities associated with status.2
As a postmedieval Salentine proverb sums it up, “Vesti muntone [or zzurrune], ca pare bbarune” (Clothing of fur, or colored blue, makes a man appear to be a baron).3 The semblance of nobility is vested in clothing associated with and appropriate to that social group—an issue of economic rather than cultural capital.4 Appearance often constitutes the most immediately perceptible index of social status, and the preceding chapter, particularly the concluding section on the legislation of appearance, would have been appropriate here as well. However, I focus in this chapter on nonsartorial features that also constructed and restricted an individual’s place in medieval Salentine society. I discussed surnames in Chapter 1; when these were still rarities, as was the case until the thirteenth century, they stood out from the norm and distinguished their bearers. Supplementing surnames as indicators of special standing are the titles and professions cited in inscriptions or indicated by painted clothing or accoutrements; in addition, certain occupations can be extrapolated from archaeological data. In the later Middle Ages, heraldry became an important signifier of status. The construction and contents of tombs announced family wealth, not only at the moment of burial but also thereafter. Age, gender, and marital status had clear and not-so-clear implications for social standing as well. Finally, it is possible to discern some facts about the relative status of churches, monasteries, and even communities from the visual and archaeological record. All of this information about status provides a richer context for the individuals depicted or recorded in medieval Salentine art.
Titles and Professions
The most impressive title in or on a Salentine monument belongs to the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros II Phokas: