Multilinguicism and literary sources in medieval inscriptions on objects

Medieval epigraphy seems to favor the study of long inscriptions, but for my thesis study, I choosed to consider any type, from letters to sentences, and text imitation. Inscriptions give historical pictures, and among others, interculturality medieval one. This is precisely the topic that is discussed here, especially in the context of the city and the province of Girona, in Catalonia, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, through medieval and exhibited objects, bearing inscriptions, in its various museums. We purpose here to show how inscriptions are traces of literature and what foreign languages we can find on them.

• II.    Materials and Methods

The city of Girona is the capital of the province of the same name.

We have got about fifty objects bearing inscriptions exhibited in 5 museums of Girona city: Museum of History of the City, Museum of Art, Museum of Jewish History, Museum-Treasury of the Cathedral, Museum of Archaelogy.

Inscriptions are various, from initials or abbreviations to whole sentences. They refer to diferent kinds of text, and languages. Moreover, the fact is that various languages can use several alphabets.

The analisis is based on an analytical reading of these objects. I involve in the global study, historical, literary and linguistical aspects. Here I center on objects with foreign languages and literary references, to make a sintesis from comparisons.

Into the set of inscribed objects, of the corresponding period of nearly ten centuries, some of them can not be accepted because of lack of data on these. About ten objects are taken as examples here to evoke the themes of multilinguiscism and literary sources.

• III.    Results and Discussion

The corpus analysis shows the presence of 4 alphabets : Latin, Greek, Arabic, Hebrew.

Those are linked here to 8 languages: Latin, Valencian, French, German (it would be, actually, a dialectal mix), Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic.

These languages are related to different religious cultures, three in particular, which dominate the Middle Ages and especially the iberian peninsula: Christianity, Judaism and Islam.

Within this interculturality linked with languages, nevertheless, the set shows immediately the predominance of christian culture. On around fifty medieval objects exhibited and bearing inscriptions, only a dozen still evokes another culture. This prevalence corresponds to that of the History of Girona, conquered early from the hands of Muslims who stayed between 713 and 785. Before, the land has already been christianized by the end of the Roman Empire and during the Visigoth occupation, and overall, all medieval sovereigns have been christians. That explains a large dominance of Bible references in inscriptions too, most of them in Latin.

An object for example evokes clearly Ave Maria prayer, beside it’s called Ave Maria box, from the Treasury of the Cathedral, with dating between the XIIth and XIIIth centuries : the inscriptions “AVE MARIA GRACIA DEI DOMINA” and “AVE MARIA GRACIA DICTA DOMINA” are repited all around the box. [Catalunyà Romànica XXIII 1988: 158]

The Angelic Salutation, Hail Mary, or Ave Maria is a traditional Catholic prayer asking for the intercession of the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus. The prayer incorporates a passage from Saint Luke’s Gospel which is evoked, partly, here : "Hail, full of grace, the Lord is with thee" (Luke 1:28).

Other part of the Bible is referred in a famous object, bearing numerous inscriptions (around 45, and the object is not integral) : the Tapestry of Creation, from second part of XIth century, in the Treasury of the Cathedral too.

Words and sentences are taken from Genesis essentially : as :

“ IN PRINCIPIO CREAVIT DS CELV ET TERRAM” (Genesis I : 1)

“ DIXIT QVOQVE DS FIAT LVX ET FACTA E LVX” (Genesis I : 3)

“SPS D_I FEREBATVR SVP AQVAS” (Genesis I : 2)

“TENEBRAE ERANT SVP FACIEM ABISSI” (Genesis I : 2)

“FECIT DS FIRMAMTV IN MEDIO AQVARVM” (Genesis I : 6)

“VBI DIVIDAT DS AQVAS AB AQVIS” (Genesis I : 6)

[Catalunyà Romànica XXIII, 11988: 188– 203]

Many other objects refer to Bible or other sacred texts by just initials, abbreviations or names of Sants.

Nevertheless, christian regional authorities continued to have diplomatic relations, more or less strained at different times, with Al Andalus, that is to say the part under Muslim domination of the iberic peninsula.

It is precisely this diplomatic aspect, ambiguous, fluctuating, which seems to run through the objects of Islamic art, valued by Christian authorities as can show the items found in the Treasury of the Cathedral, like the case of Hisham II box, of the tenth century. This would be a spoil of war, without certainty.

The diplomatic aspect also appears in an object posterior less than a century, a seal of a countess, called Ermessenda, where his name appears, bilingually, still in the Treasury of the Cathedral, valued enough to be reused on a foot of reliquary few centuries later, with another seal of another Countess, who this time had only an imitation of Arabic inscription. This is rather unusual and seems to reinforce the idea of prestige of the art of a cul- ture linked to a religion rather "enemy" in the context of the Reconquest that bathes the Iberian Middle Ages.

In other hand, about Jewish culture we’ve got few items and few luxury objects among the ones which are exhibited. A misspelling for a plate of Passover, of XVth century, from the Museum of Jewish History, for example, although a very neat calligraphy, and while it always was a common religious term, wonders if this could be a sign of acculturation in a very complex context. As we said, we’ve got very few objects, even noninscribed, related to that culture, while the community, according to the texts, was placed just after the one in Barcelona in size and importance. Moreover, it has coexisted for many centuries with the Christian community, and was established even before the Visigoths, until a clear separation urban and legal, and even persecutions since the half of the thirteenth century [Christian Guilleré 1991].

However, this contrasts with the rich sociolinguistic aspect suggested by the seal of Rabbi Nahman of thirteenth century, which a copy is on display in the Museum of Jewish History in Girona, his birthplace and preaching place. In this, a particle of the inscription is in Aramaic, while the rest is in Hebrew, reminiscence of the coexistence of both languages in Jewish religious practice as for marriages, despite the dominance of Hebrew in Aramaic in general liturgical practice, like in the inscription.

Moreover, we can find here a personal literary reference too, because the Rabbi wrote poems among which one beggins by the same words than this inscription on this seal (which may be traduced as “Moshe Nahman’s son, from Girona, you remain brave” and “son” is the word written in Aramaic) [ Isaiah Shachar 1972 ; Magen Broshi 1998-1999: 201-203].

When appears, on an altarpiece, exhibited in the Treasury, from XIVh century, the traditional “INRI” (“Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum” ie "Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews") from the literary source : Gospel of John, 19, 19-22, the titulus of Christ, in the scene at Calvary (particularly recurrent in painting of the Girona school of XIV-XVth centuries) suddenly shortened INR, the question is whether there is not a marker linked to this painful interculturality of late Middle Age, with lack of I for Iudaeorum, or a mere accident.

These current Christian inscriptions also contain the roman inscription SPQR “Senatus populusque Romanus” meaning "The senate and the Roman people".The expression appears many times in Roman political, legal and historical literature, including the speeches of Mārcus Tullius Cīcerō (Tully) and the Ab urbe condita libri ("Books from the Founding of the City") of Titus Livius (Livy) [Gaffiot 2000: 1441].

If the marked differences appear between religious contexts, however, this corpus shows a high correlation between writing and Scripture as in Christian circles, as in Jewish or Muslim ones.

Two boxes refer to Allah, (both from XI-XIIh centuries), exhibited in Treasury or in the Museum of Art.

In the few objects related to Jewish culture, there are indirect references to prayers too (plate of Passover for example, with names of ritual meal, repited in prayers).

At last, the vast majority of objects related to the Christian faith with inscriptions, has text which refer to Bible (references to God, to Christ, to Mary, the Saints , the prayers) because of dedication : inscription equals to consecration. This theme seems to be shared, as a magical aspect of writing, in parallel with sacred literary repetitions.

In this horizon, the alpha and omega, present in the iconography of coverage of Gospels (Treasury, XVth century) or simply capping nomina sacra in other objects, also are to be considered, probably, more as sacred literary reference more than under its multilinguistic aspect. Unlike the encolpium exhibited in the Museum of Art, from VI or VIIth century, inscribed in greek, because of byzantine source or influence without doubt.

More unusual still, but not exhibited in Girona, although it was worked in this city, the cross of the fourteenth century of Vilabertran, reused an pagan intaglio in ancient Greek whose inscription refers to a demon of the uterus. [Németh György 2004: 497–503.] Here we find this aspect of prestige above meaning and paganism, as on the seal with arab imitation of a christian countess in this reconquest period and propaganda against the "infidels".

A little box remains very mysterious, from XIVth century a priori, exhibited in the Treasury. It seems to involve a mixture of German dialects. So, here the literary source is unknown but may exist.

We can also find a regional sociolinguistic aspect in one inscription in the famous silver altar, from fourteenth century, out of Museum-Treasury, in the Cathedral itself, “Pere Bernes me feu”, referring to one of its major worker, Pere Bernes, valencian. The inscription is written in valencian language, in this command for Girona, where catalan always has been somewhat different from valencian but quite similar (“Pere Bernes em feu”, for example).

Another main medieval linguistical aspect is the context of emerging languages from Latin, that we hardly can see in this set of objects until the XIV-XVth centuries, precisely because of a phenomenon of diglossia, especially for the religious aspect. Even after the Mass will be said in the "vulgar" language, dedicatory inscriptions on objects will continue to be written in Latin, even long after the medieval period.

Breaking away from these "international" or "regional" aspects , but highly confusing, could be mentioned an object with french inscription, the crown of Pierre de Coimbra, Constable of Portugal, ephemeral Catalan-Aragonese sovereign (also known as Pere V of Aragon, IV of Barcelona, III of Valencia) and whose family motto was that "Paine pour joie" inscribed here and also found in many other places [Alba Vallès Formosa 1993: 27-31].The spelling follows the linguistical evolution of French at that time, around 1465. The presence of french in this complex context, both Portuguese, Aragonese and Catalan seems rather unusual, but it would actually be a reference to a legendary character who wore this expression as name, borrowed by the king, lover of beautiful letters, and so unrelated to French culture.

• IV.    Conclusion

There, in the north of the Iberian Peninsula, those objects bearing inscriptions give the picture of a predominant Christian culture, in this region soon taken back from the hands of Muslims with whom it maintains an ambiguous relationship, enjoying the prestige of their art, with some items included in christian Treasury.

The Jewish community, for its part, in a complex persecuted context, sees cultural impoverishment, which is reflected in one of the few items on display.

In parallel, the inscriptions on objects suggest rich sociolinguistical aspects and recurrent or more confidential literary sources.

Among them, the main literary source is Bible, of course, with pieces from Gospels and Genesis especially.

Besides, in general, the religious literary source and the sacred aspect of inscriptions seem to predominate, and to connect all these three medieval cultures linked to religions, above all linguistical aspect.