The Medieval Salento. Linda Safran
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and eighth centuries Latin became a more frequent adjunct [81, 122–127, 131–133, 135]. All but one of these bilingual examples come from Taranto, where the overall epigraphic record is dominated by Latin even though Greek-speaking Jews and Christians also are attested there.20 The latest funerary texts, which are usually assigned to the ninth or perhaps tenth century, use only Hebrew [10–14, 16–18, 121, 128–130, 134, 149–150],21 and in one case Aramaic [136]. It is risky to draw broad conclusions from such a small set of data, but I agree with Cesare Colafemmina that communication solely in Hebrew reflects an emerging sense of Jewish identity vested in language and manifested simultaneously in a flourishing of Hebrew literature that included the first historiographic work (Sefer Josippon), the first family chronicle (Megillat Ahima‘az), and astrological, philosophical, mystical, and medical treatises in addition to liturgical poetry (piyyutim).22 Perhaps this literary production had a trickle-down effect, resulting in a wider Jewish (male) literacy and more Hebrew epitaphs. The religious texts and poetry produced in Apulia were known outside the region: several piyyutim became part of the Ashkenazic prayer book, and a scholar in twelfth-century France remarked that “from Bari comes forth the Law, and the word of God from Otranto.”23 The preponderance of Hebrew-only tombstones may also indicate that Jewish graves became less visible to non-Hebrew readers as the centuries progressed. The Christian and Jewish cemeteries at Taranto were contiguous,24 but later Jewish burials may simply have been farther from the neighboring Christian ones and so had a more limited and homogeneous audience. It seems likely that the bulk of Jewish tombstones at Taranto were used to rebuild the city walls after the tenth-century Arab raids [139],25 but the fate of later Jewish epitaphs there and elsewhere is unknown.26 Were Salentine Jews not permitted such public displays? Did they lose the epigraphic habit for other reasons? Or were all of their tombstones after the ninth or tenth century simply repurposed by Christians for either practical or ideological reasons? Unfortunately, we lack answers to all these questions.
Among the formulas used to commemorate the Jewish dead are the Hebrew po schichvat (here lies), po yanuach (here rests), and mishkav (tomb of). In the Latin parts of the Jewish epitaphs, Hic requiescit (here rests) predominates.27 The deceased is sometimes remembered positively as bene memorius, in Hebrew b’zikaron tov.28 An invocation for shalom al minuchato, “peace upon the resting place,” echoing Isaiah 57:2, is very common; it is equivalent to the Latin Sit pax in requie eius or, in one case, Sit pax super dormitorium eorum [123.B]. “Amen” often concludes a short Hebrew funerary text. Often the deceased is noted as a righteous man whose memory merits a blessing, zecher tzaddik livrachah, from Proverbs 10:7 [12.D, 14, 124.B, 126.B, 128.B]. This is the most common biblical citation or paraphrase, although a few epitaphs quote from Psalms, Job, or Isaiah [18, 124.B].29 Overreliance on phrases drawn from the ancient funerary ritual of the land of Israel led the composer or the carver of Leah’s epitaph in Brindisi [16] to conclude that text with a line from Song of Songs in which the male gender of the original has not been amended for a female commemoration.30 Similar errors of gender are not uncommon, as in a funerary inscription at Taranto [121], where the verb “rests” is masculine even though the commemoration is for an unnamed wife.31
All-Hebrew epitaphs tend to multiply scriptural and liturgical references, and two examples in Trani abbreviate the common prayer “May his soul be bound in the bond of life” (1 Sam. 25:29) [149, 150], echoing the earlier abbreviation in Brindisi of “The holy one, blessed be he” [16]. Such complex textual referencing and abbreviations are indications of Hebrew literacy that serve to advertise and solidify Jewish identity through language. Some epitaphs are notable for their relationship to contemporary Hebrew liturgical poetry [18.A], and there are rhyming lines as well as acrostics that yield the name of the text’s author.32 This is the case at Oria [81], where “Samuel” may have composed the commemoration for his mother, Hannah, if indeed this eighth-century pair deliberately echoes the well-known biblical mother and son of 1 Samuel 1–2.33 Not only was the Oria inscription composed by and for a Jewish patron, but it seems to have been carved by a native Hebrew speaker as well. He mistakenly began the Latin text at the right rather than the left and had to correct himself; the letter N is consistently rendered with a backward diagonal;34 and ES at the beginning of line 3 is a meaningless repetition of the letters immediately above [81.B].35 In most of the Hebrew inscriptions the quality of carving is quite good, and in the bilingual epitaphs the Hebrew text tends to be better than the Latin, carefully incised and with more regular letters. Were two different carvers employed, or does a Jewish craftsman betray here his greater familiarity with Hebrew? In a seventh–eighth-century stela from Taranto, the Latin epitaph omits a syllable and reads benemorius rather than benememorius, although the correction is inserted above the line [133.C]; in another, requiescit is misspelled.36 Yet the only Latin error in a four-line seventh- or eighth-century epitaph from Taranto [123.B] is suum for suo; the unusual preceding word, barbane (uncle), is a third-declension ablative from barbas, here rendered properly.37 When both languages are executed well, it is impossible to link the carver’s competency to his religious affiliation.
Another important body of information about the use of Hebrew in medieval southern Apulia comes from inscriptions originally placed inside synagogues. The texts from Gravina [50] and Bari [9] were introduced previously because they provide onomastic data. Two other synagogue inscriptions, devoid of names, survive in Trani [147] and Lecce [56]. Despite its brevity, the latter is especially valuable as the only physical testimony for a synagogue building in the Salento proper. A Jewish community in Lecce is attested by 524, and because this particular edifice was not transformed into a church (dedicated to Santa Maria Annunziata) until 1495,38 it testifies to the endurance of Salentine Jewry.
These synagogue inscriptions differ from the majority of Jewish epigraphs because three of them bear specific dates (1184/85, 1246/47, 1313/14), given in years since the creation of the world. The epitaphs communicate the age of the deceased and not the date of death. Unlike Christian inscriptions, Jewish ones pay no attention to such specifics of dating as day, month, ruler, or indiction. The three dated synagogue dedications specify the extent of the construction or renovation for which the donor was responsible. Trani’s synagogue may have been built entirely by one unnamed individual, but the patron commemorated at Bari gave only a window and his counterpart at Gravina provided the pavement and seats. Such parceling out of donations implies communal effort and has its roots in the Jewish synagogues of late antiquity, where the mosaic decoration was often credited to many individuals.
The synagogue texts occasionally include both non-Hebrew loan words and nonstandard orthography. For instance, the word for benches or seats, iztabaot, used at Gravina [50] and Trani [147] comes from the Greek stibadion, here spelled two different ways
Even formal texts seem to betray the influence of spoken language. Two such elements are present in the Latin on the Oria epitaph [81.B], where the Italianate G replaces the Latin I at the