The Medieval Salento. Linda Safran
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epitaphs disappear after the tenth century and women are poorly represented in official documents. Even in the lengthy and ostensibly genealogical Chronicle of Ahima‘az, only three female names appear: Cassia (the name of two different women, one of whom was known for her beauty, disposition, and piety), Esther, and Albavera of Capua, the latter well outside our geographical range. All three are recorded as the wives of more important males. Besides Cassia, only once does a Jewish woman—or any woman—in the Salento receive a title, domina, that supplements the simplest assertion of filial or spousal kinship [81]. The lone dated Jewish epitaph in the region, that of Leah at Brindisi, was erected by her grieving father, Yafeh Mazal, who himself boasts an augurial name meaning “good fortune” equivalent to the Greek Eutychios [16].35
Jewish sacred names supplement the personal name with that of the father or mother (the patronymic A son of B or matronymic C daughter of D), although this is not always attested epigraphically or in documentary sources. At least in some families, there was a tendency to reuse particular Hebrew names over time. In the ninth-to-eleventh-century “family tree” of Ahima‘az, most male names, including the author’s, appear more than once. In some cases the same names repeat in alternate generations, with the oldest son named after his paternal grandfather,36 but this is not consistent. On at least one tombstone, a son has the same Latin name as his father [125]. This also occurs with Hebrew names: a ninth-century or later Aramaic epitaph from Taranto identifies the tomb of Joseph son of Joseph [136], and in the 1490s an Elijah son of Elijah is attested at Alessano and Gallipoli.37 Yet there are also many cases of relatives having names of different linguistic origin. One Latin-named father (Justus) gave his son a Greek name (Anatolius) [124]; another, Silanus—whose own brother had the Hebrew name Ezekiel—named his son Samuel [123]. The family relationships attested in the sources are wife (ayshet), son (filius, ben, bar), daughter (filia, bat), and uncle/father’s brother (barbanus, ahi avi).38
There is some evidence for Jewish surnames that are not simple patronymics. An early epitaph from Taranto recalls the unnamed wife of Leon son of David min Meli, probably a toponymic surname indicating his or her origin on the island of Melos [121].39 Moses de Meli, of Copertino, was perhaps of the same origin as David; he had an exchange of letters in 1392 with Sabatino Russo, a fellow Jewish merchant in Lecce with a more generic surname that is now the third most common family name in Italy.40 An unusual case of a profession used as a surname is the tenth-century41 Otrantine poet “Menachem named Corizzi,” identified more fully in another of his acrostics as “Menachem the humble, son of rabbi Mordechai, the administrator, who is strong, Amen, Corizzi, of the community of Otranto, mohel.” In addition to being one of the earliest Italian authors of Hebrew liturgical poetry, Menachem was apparently a (the?) mohel in Otranto, charged with circumcisions;42 one of his professional identities became a surname. Shabbetai Donnolo’s surname, the Greek Δόμνουλος, is a diminutive of Latin dominus; “little master” would be an appropriate nickname for a physician.43 Yet unlike the case with Christian names, where “Rossi,” from “red,” is today the most common Italian surname,44 nicknames rarely became surnames in Jewish communities.
Jewish surnames followed the tendency of personal names in having a vernacular equivalent. Santoro de Iosep Sacerdote45 was surely the son of the erstwhile Joseph ha-Cohen or ha-Levi, whose distant ancestors were of the priestly class. Those with old-fashioned Hebrew first names, like Elya Nicolai of Lecce,46 sometimes added a more Christian-sounding one. From the beginning, the Jewish civic name had a Greek, Latin, or (later) Italian equivalent: either a simple translation (Baruch, “blessing,” became Benedict; Hayyim, “life,” became Vito); a vague phonetic similarity (Pinchas–Felice); or a logical or homiletic connection (Judah, whose tribal sign in Gen. 49:9 was the lion, became Leon). These equivalents became more or less fixed by the early fourteenth century,47 and Christians in the late medieval Salento probably knew their Jewish neighbors only by their familiar-sounding civic names.
Christian Names, Ninth to Eleventh Centuries
When we turn to medieval Christians, a much larger stock of names can be recovered from visual sources, making it unnecessary (and impractical) to consider the kinds of texts upon which we relied to enrich the corpus of Jewish names. My findings differ somewhat from those of André Jacob, who examined Salentine onomastics by drawing upon a broader range of material—inscriptions, manuscript colophons, diptychs of the dead, acts, family annals, charters, and the like—but focused exclusively on Greek names in the southern part of the Salento.48 Jean-Marie Martin and Joanna Drell addressed more of southern Italy, not just the Terra d’Otranto, but their sources were limited to notarial documents.49 My Database is at once larger and smaller than these earlier noteworthy efforts: it spans the whole Salento but is limited to names that were publicly visible in the form of painted or carved inscriptions and graffiti, regardless of length or content. I have divided the evidence into two broad periods: ninth to eleventh century and twelfth to fourteenth century. In most cases a specific year is not provided by the primary source and I rely on stylistic or paleographic evidence, whether of the names themselves or of the monuments with which they are associated, to assign a general date. It can be assumed that all of these names belonged to Christians even though not all are “typical” Christian names (for example, Aprilios).50 My lists omit the names of rulers who were not based in the Salento (e.g., Charles, king of Jerusalem and Sicily [1]), but they do include clergy whose presence in the region may have been limited. Only names that can be restored with a high probability of accuracy are included.
Male names in the earlier period include Akindynos [33.D],Andrew [80.A], Aprilios [32.D, F], Arsakes (of Armenian origin) [159], Blasios [32.K], Constantine [32.I, 101], Demetrios [33.B], Eustathios [32.D], George [33.A], John [25, 33.F, 33.I, possibly 115], John Pankitzes [32.I], Leo [5, 32.A, 32.E], Leon(?) Kephalas [33.E], Magelpotus [84], Michael [33.G], Michael the African [154.A], Michael Korkouas [154.A], Nikodemos [114.A], Porphyrios [72.A], Stratigoules [32.J], Theodosius [83], Theophylact [32.A], and Vincent [32.G, 115]. The few female names recorded between the ninth and eleventh centuries are Anastasia [32.H], Anna [32.B], Chrysolea [32.A], Maria [33.J], T(h)ecla [25], and possibly Veneria [146.A].51
Among Christians who left a visible record of piety, presence, or death there are names that are Greek, Latin, Armenian, and Germanic in origin, but also many universal Christian names. John is the most commonly attested name in inscriptions, epitaphs, and graffiti between the ninth and eleventh centuries, and this accords with the “supremacy of John” noted by scholars who rely primarily on written texts.52 However, the other popular male names—Leo, Michael, and Constantine—differ slightly from those other results, in which Nicholas was second to John in popularity, followed by Leo and Constantine.53 What factors might explain the local preference for Michael rather than Nicholas? While the cult of Nicholas was diffused in southern Italy under Byzantine domination long before the Norman translation of his remains to Bari in 1087,54 it appears that the personal name followed more slowly, at least among the social classes documented in epitaphs and wall paintings.55 Michael had been enormously popular among the Lombards (or Longobards) as their regional patron saint, with his cult site at Montesantangelo in northern Apulia, although his name was not especially common.56 However, Michael had a much longer history than Nicholas of being depicted in Byzantine wall paintings, and he was included in prayers as a miracle worker and intercessor at the Last Judgment.57 It is probably his long-standing association with healing and battling demonic forces that accounts for Michael’s earlier popularity as an augurial name.58 Nevertheless, in the succeeding centuries Nicholas would become one of the two most