Greek in Marriage, Latin in Giving: The Greek Community of Fourteenth-century Palermo and the Deceptive Will of Bonannus de Geronimo

T his article explores some of the difficulties inherent in the discussion of medieval ethnicity. Early fourteenth-century Palermo w as a city with a celebrated multi-ethnic Latin, Arabic, and G reek past, but by the 1300s, much had changed, with Latin culture eclipsing the others. However, two small Greek ethnic minorities persisted in this culture: one indigenous, descending from the ministers, notaries, and monks who thrived under twel fth-century Norman rule, and the other immigrant, composed primarily of Byzantine slaves and freed slaves. T he second group is identified in the sources as grecus, while the indigenous Italo-Greeks cannot easily be located in the documentation. T he 1333 will of Bonannus de Geronimo appears to offer insights into the Italo-Greek population. Bonannus was not identified as a grecus, but this testament con firms that Bonnanus was married according to the Greek marriage rite. A close examination of his will, in the context of other Latin wills within the same notarial register, indicates that this was the will of a Latin, not an Italo-Greek. T he will of Bonannus is an example of the diffi culties of document interpretation with regard to medieval ethnicity, but similar in-depth document analysis is necessary to prove or disprove the Italo-Greek presence. This article discusses the pitfalls that can occur in the study of ethnicity in the medieval period in the context of the potential existence of two separate Greek minorities—one indigenous and one immigrant—in fourteenth-century Latin-dominated Palermo, Italy. The notarial documents of the 1320s and 1330s show few connections made between these two Greek populations. The immigrant Greeks, or Byzantines, can be identified in the historical record through the use of the Latin term grecus, but the indigenous Greeks of Palermo, or Italo-Greeks, descendants of an ethnic Greek population who once enjoyed power and prestige in the city, remain elusive amid the Latin Palermitan milieu.1 It is common to identify Italo-Greeks in documentation predating 1300 through their ability to write in Greek and the evidence exists to pursue The Hilltop Review, Fall 2009 68 1 Scholars often designate the G reek population of Sicily and southern Italy as Sicilian G reek, ItaloByzantine, Italo-G reek, or “ G reeks” to d istinguish them as a provincial G reek population separated from the mainstream Medieval G reek culture that w as centered w ithin the Byzantine Empire. For example, see H erbert H ouben, “ Relig ious Toleration in the South Italian P eninsula D uring the N orman and Staufen P eriods,” in The Society of Norman Italy, ed . G .A . Loud and A lex Metcalfe (Leiden: Brill , 2002). The terms G reek or Byzantine w ill be used to describe the population arriving in the fourteenth century from the Byzantine Empire, either as free immigrants or s laves. There certainly w as contact betw een Byzantium in the East and Italo-G reek regions in the W est throughout the Middle Ages; see K enneth Setton, “ The Byzantine Background to the Italian Renaissance,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 100 #1 (Feb. 24 , 1956), 1-76, and P eter Charanis , “ On the Q uestion of this line of study. But can we tease out knowledge of this population after the Greek language falls into disuse? Is the documentation simply too uninformative or the population too integrated to make these distinctions? The last will and testament of Bonannus de Geronimo appears to offer a solution to this dilemma but, as explained below, is ultimately misleading. Bonannus had contracted a will according to Greek custom, but his devotions and donations to Latin religious institutions clearly identified him within the local Latin community, therefore exemplifying both Greek cultural heritage as well as heavy Latin cultural influence.2 As it turns out, Bonannus was not the Latinized Italo-Greek he appeared to be, and his will is indicative of the potential dangers of medieval ethnic identification. Greeks, pagan and Christian, classical and medieval, have had a long and important relationship with the history of Sicily. By the fourteenth century, Sicily had experienced a Greek presence extending back two millennia. The strength and influence of that community grew and declined repeatedly over time. After the conquest and domination of Sicily by Arabs in the ninth, tenth, and eleventh centuries, the Greek population was confined to the northeastern third of the island, centering on the city of Messina. The most celebrated and well-documented period for the Greek community occurred after the Norman Conquest. Under Norman rule in the late eleventh and twelfth centuries, the Greek population of the island enjoyed resurgence. Greek notaries and elites occupied a prized position in the administration of the Sicilian kingdom, the Greek language became the language of the royal chancery, and Greek churches and monasteries enjoyed growth and patronage. Italo-Greek migrants to Palermo, the Norman capital, revitalized the city’s Greek community.3 The era of the Norman Kings of Sicily and Southern Italy is well known for its cultural synthesis of Latin, Greek, and Islamic elements. The documents from the Norman period (1061 – 1187), often in Greek, testify to the Greek minority of Palermo. This minority of court ministers, scribes, and officials to the Norman kings, patrons of Greek rite monasteries and churches, helped to rejuvenate their culture on the island.4 After the failure of the Norman dynasty in the late twelfth century, Sicily was a coveted prize to the dynasts of Western Europe. Latin dynasty followed Latin dynasty, and the island The Hilltop Review, Fall 2009 69 The Greek Community of Fourteenth-Century Palermo and the Deceptive Will of Bonannus de Geronimo 1 H ellenization of Sicily and Southern Italy During the Middle Ages,” The American Historical Review, 52 no. 1 (O ct. 1946), 74-86. Michael McCormick points out that while the Italo-G reek could be distinguished from the Latin populations of Southern Italy, d ifferences betw een Italo-G reeks and Byzantines w ere not easy to identify in the early Middle A ges. This integration w as due in large part to the connection of the regions to Byzantine relig ious and administrative organization; Michael McCormick, “ The Imperial Edge: Italo-Byzantine Identity, Movement and In tegration, A .D . 650-950,” in Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire, ed . H élène A hrw eiler and Angelik i Laiou (Washington, D .C.: D umbarton O aks Research L ibrary and Collection, 1998), 42-45. 2 My use of the term Latin is very broad but indicates the predominantly Latin (Western , Catholic) rite population of the island. I occasionally will use the term “ Sicilian” to refer to the population at large, but w ith the understanding that P alermo has a long history of immigration from other portions of Italy, such as Campania and Lombardy, and in the fourteenth century from Iberia. The term Latin is used generally for the large number of Sicilian inhabitants w ho have no further d istinctions of ethnicity or geographic origins in the notarial documents. 3 See Vera Von Falkenhausen, “ The G reek P resence in Norman Sicily: The Contribution of A rchival Material in G reek,” Society of Norman Italy, ed . G .A . Loud (Leiden: Brill P ublishing, 2002), 258-261. 4 Von Falkenhausen, “ G reek P resence,” 281-282. experienced an intensifying Latinization through the thirteenth century. The Greek cultural resurgence had run its course by the reign of Frederick III (1296-1337). Latin culture had ascended over both Greek and Muslim cultures. The Greek monasteries were in serious decline.5 The Greek ministers and courtiers of eleventhand twelfth-century Palermo had vanished, replaced by notaries and knights of Latin heritage and culture.6 However, fourteenth-century Palermo was not without a Greek population. Some continuity existed in the Greek population of Palermo from the Norman period to the early fourteenth century, but it was limited largely to Greek priests of the remaining orthodox churches of Palermo.7 As the number of Greek documents and signatures rapidly decreased in the thirteenth century, the ItaloGreek population quickly disappeared from the historical record. During the reign of the Catalan King Frederick III, the Greeks of Palermo were not royal ministers or notaries. The decline of scholarly interests in the Greek population of Palermo mirrors the decline in extant documentation in the Greek language. The studies of the ItaloGreek minority by Vera von Falkenhausen and Joseph Siciliano conclude at the beginning of the fourteenth century.8 Salvatore Fodale believes, due in large part to the rise of the mendicant orders, that Palermo was completely Latinized by 1282.9 Mario Scaduto discusses the fourteenth-century Greek Church in Palermo, noting the decay of the Greek religious and education system, but it was not the purpose of his work to explore the interactions of the secular population.10 In the large corpus of works by Henri Bresc, fourteenth-century Greeks appear with some frequency. Yet, Bresc, in his article “La formazione del popolo Siciliano,” argues that the early fourteenth century was an important period for the construction of a Sicilian identity and only turns to the island’s Greek minority briefly to name the group as an impediment to the formation of a Sicilian people.11 He claims that the influx of Byzantine Greeks into Sicily during the fourteenth century fortified a failing indigenous Greek population against absorption by the Latin majority, but he fails to provide justification of his assertion.12 Therefore, the end of the Italo-Greek population in fourteenth-century The Hilltop Review, Fall 2009 Jack Goodman 70 5 Clifford Backman, “ The P apacy, the Sicilian Church, and K ing Frederick III (1302-1321),” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies 22 (1991), 243-244. 6 Von Falkenhausen, “ G reek P resence,” 282; Joseph Anthony Siciliano, “ The G reek Relig ious and Secular Community of Southern Italy and Sicily D uring the Later Middle A ges,” U npublished PhD Dissertation . (Rutgers University, 1983), 261. 7 Von Falkenhausen, “ G reek P resence,” 283-284. 8 See Vera Von Falkenhausen, “ Friedrich II und die G riechen im K önigreich Sizilien ,” Friedrich II: Tagung des Deutschen Historischen Instituts in Rom im Gedenkjahr 1994, ed . A rnold Esch and N orbert K amp (Tubingen: Niermeyer, 1996.); Von Falkenhausen, “ G reek P resence,” and Siciliano, “ Greek Religious and Secular Community.” 9 Salvatore Fodale, “ L’ encadrement Latin ou les orders mendicants ,” in Palerme 1070-1492: Mosaïque de peoples, nation rebelle: la naissance violente de l’indetité sicilienne, ed . H enri Bresc and G eneviève Bresc-Bautier (P aris: Èditions A utrement, 1993), 141. 10 Mario Scaduto , Il Monachesimo Basiliano Nella Sicilia Medievale (Rome: Edizioni d i Storia e Letteratura, 1982). 11 H enri Bresc, “ La formazione del popolo Siciliano,” Tre milleni di storia linguistic della Sicilia, Atti del Convegno della Società italiana di Glottologia (Pisa: G iardini, 1985); reprint Politique et société en Sicile, XIIe-XVe siècles (H ampshire, G reat Britain: Variorum, 1990), 243-265. Bresc, “ La formazione,” 253. Palermo remains a largely unexplored issue with scholars making assumptions about its survival or decline without extensive verification from available sources. Beginning in the first decade of the fourteenth century, new Greeks began to arrive in Sicily, as the Sicilian kingdom began piratical and expansionist policies in the Aegean Sea.13 The notarial registers of the 1320s and 1330s show a new influx of Eastern Greeks into Palermo. These Greeks were slaves, freedmen, immigrants and visitors. They were not even from Sicily but were de partibus Romanie.14 These new Greeks are found often in the notarial registers and are easily identifiable. The notaries called them grecus or greca from parts of the land of the Romans or, as we say today, the Byzantine Empire. Medieval notaries were the record keepers of their day. Working in royal, noble and urban circles, notaries kept records of business transactions such as bills of sale, loans, work contracts, and the payment of debts. Marriage contracts, slave manumissions, and wills were also recorded by notaries, and a few precious registers of this everyday, urban interaction survive to offer insights into medieval life. Thus we find Maria, an eight-year-old Byzantine Greek, being sold at market by one Catalan from Majorca to another Catalan from Barcelona in the Sicilian city of Palermo.15 A number of Byzantine Greeks, formerly slaves now freedmen, were working as farm laborers on local vineyards, like Constantine grecus de Romania, freedman, working for seven and a half tari16 per month on the vineyard of Symon de Cisano.17 The registers also preserve records of free Greeks who were voluntary immigrants to Palermo. Nicholas de Andrea and Basil, two Byzantine Greeks attested to in the registers, made a living in Palermo by selling linens to men like the Latin priest Peter de Heraclia.18 These three instances illustrate the common interaction between the Byzantine Greeks and the city they shared with the Latin population. Greek slaves were bought and sold by Latins and, indeed, freed by Latins. Greek laborers contracted themselves to work for Latins, and enterprising Greeks bought and sold products to and from Latins. The notarial registers also provide evidence for Byzantine Greek interaction within their population, like the example of Nicholas and Basil mentioned earThe Hilltop Review, Fall 2009 71 The Greek Community of Fourteenth-Century Palermo and the Deceptive Will of Bonannus de Geronimo 13 Backman, Decline and Fall, 282, and D aniel Duran I Duelt, “ La Companyia Catalana I El Comerc D’ Esclaus A bans de L’ Assentament A ls Ducats D’ Athens I N eopatria,” in De l'esclavitud a la llibertat: Esclaus i lliberts a l'Edat Mitjana. Actes del Colloqui Internacional celebrat a Barcelona del 27 al 29 de maig de 1999, eds. María Teresa Ferrer i Mallo l and Josefina Mutge i Vives (Barcelona: Consell Superior d 'Investigacions Científiques, Institució Milá i Fontanals , D epartament d'Estudis Medievals , 2000), 564-566. 14 Romanie refers to the lands that once constituted the heart of the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire, w hich called itself the Roman Empire and its G reek subjects Romans, w as a shadow of its former self in the fourteenth century . “ De partibus Romanie,” those predominantly G reek areas from coastal and w estern A sia Minor through the southern Balkans, G reece, and the A egean islands, to the A driatic coast of present day A lbania, w as fractured after the Fourth Crusade into a number of Byzantine and Crusader s tates. 15 A rchivio di Stato di P alermo [hereafter A SP ], Notai D efunti, Reg. 77 , 72r. 16 There w ere three basic Sicilian monetary d istinctions: the ounce, or “ uncia” (never actually minted), the tari, or “ tarenus,” and the grain , or “ granus.” An ounce w as worth thirty tari and a tari worth tw enty grains. 17 A SP, N otai D efunti, Reg. 76 , 24r. 18 M. Silvana G uccione, Le imbreviature del notaio Bartolomeo de Alamannia a Palermo, 1332-1333 (Rome: Roma Centro d i Ricerca P ergamene Medievali e P rotocolli N otarili , 1982). doc. 255, p . 370. lier, and George, a Greek freedman, who convinced his former master to provide the funds for Nicholas, a Greek slave, to purchase his freedom.19 Enough evidence exists for the study and analysis of the new Greek population. However, the descendants of the indigenous Greek population are far more difficult to ascertain. Without the distinction of grecus, this population cannot be easily distinguished from the surrounding Latin population. A popular method for studying ethnicity, onomastics, or the study of names, is very difficult for fourteenth-century Palermo. Some names were common to Greeks, such as Demetrius or Theodore, and some names common to Latins, like Roger or Francis, but some names were also used by either population, such as Andrea, John, or Nicholas. The problem of name identification is compounded even more by a tendency in Sicily since the time of the Norman Conquest for names to be shared across ethnic or religious lines.20 For example, a papal tax list from the early fourteenth century provides a detailed listing of Greek-rite churches, monasteries, and priests from across Sicily. The names found in this record, which identified Greek priests uniformly as presbyter grecus, are indicative of the problem of using onomastics to sort and identify the Sicilian population. In addition to traditional Greek names that we expect to find, such as Basil, Leo, and Theodore, and names that are used for either tradition, such as John and Nicholas, we find names that we would not expect from a Greek priest, like William, Dominic, Roger, and Richard.21 The search for Italo-Greek identity in the fourteenth century is difficult , and the naming patterns make it all the more confusing. The will of Bonannus de Geronimo, at first glance, appears to be a valuable insight into the elusive world of the indigenous Greek population. Bonanno made the declaration in his will that he had contracted a marriage with his current wife according to the custom of the Greeks.22 The will of Bonanno seems to be a document that could be analyzed and provide insight into the life and society of the descendants of the Italo-Greek elite of the twelfth century, definitively proving that these descendants were extremely Latinized and practically indiscernible from their Latin neighbors, although maintaining a trace of their heritage. Bonannus had identified himself in his will with an aspect of Greek culture, a marriage by Greek custom instead of Latin custom. However, the Greek marriage custom was not limited to the Latin population, and the will of Bonanno de Geronimo is not evidence of the Italo-Greek population but, rather, is indicative of the problem of identifying such a group. In the four notarial registers dating from 1326 to 1333, no Byzantine Greek immigrant carried the name Bonannus, and the name was not among the common names used by fourteenth-century Byzantine Greeks.23 In fact, the name is derived from the The Hilltop Review, Fall 2009 Jack Goodman 72 19 A SP, N otai D efunti, Reg. 77 , 25v-26r. 20 See Alex Metcalfe, Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily: Arabic Speakers and the end of Islam (N ew York: RutledgeCurzon, 2003), 74-98, for Muslim, G reek, Latin name mixtures. 21 Scaduto , Il Monachesimo, 309-320. Scaduto provides a summary of the G reek presence in the documents. For published edition of complete tax register see Sicilia: Rationes Deciarum Italiae nei Secoli XIII e XIV ed . P ietro Sella (Città del Vaticano: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1944), and for P alermo see pages 9-21. 22 G uccione, Le imbreviature del notaio Bartolomeo de Alamanna, doc. 261, pp . 376-378. 23 A ngeliki Laiou, Peasant Society in the Late Byzantine Empire: A Social and Demographic Study (P rinceton, N .J.: P rinceton U niversity P ress, 1977). Latin bonus annus, or “good year.” However, Bonannus was still an uncommon name for a Latin, and as mentioned previously, the first name is not a good indicator of ethnicity in fourteenth-century Palermo. His surname makes a stronger case for Italo-Greek heritage. Geronimo, or Jerome, was a Latin name, but could have been a rendering of the Greek name Hieronymus. His wife, Francesca, carried a name commonly reserved for Latins, but mixed marriages were common in the medieval Mediterranean. The names of his youngest children and heirs, Allegranzia and Johanuccio, were ethnically neutral names, as was the name of his granddaughter, Margarucia. His eldest son, Andrea de Geronimo, bore a name very common among Greeks, but which occurred in the Latin population too. When the Bonannus name and the names of his family members are taken into consideration, his choice of marriage custom remains the most convincing piece of evidence. Bonannus is still acceptable as an Italo-Greek. The next important details are the religious donations that Bonannus declared in his will. Medieval wills reflect the earthly concerns of their makers. These included their fears for the inheritances of their children and their outstanding debts, which either had to be paid or collected, but the primary concern of the average medieval testator was the well-being of his soul in the hereafter and the proper burial of his body. Bonannus’s religious legacies were very Latin. He chose the Church of St. Augustine for his burial, bequeathing to the church three tari for its works. For the right of burial, for making the grave, and for ringing the bells, he granted St. Augustine’s an additional four tari. Bonannus showed a more personal connection with the friars of St. Augustine’s. When he requested masses be sung (undoubtedly in Latin) by the brothers of St. Augustine’s, Bonannus singled out a Brother William of Palermo by name to lead them, granting them the tidy sum of ten tari and five grains. This monastic was also present at the creation of Bonannus’s will. His name is first among the witnesses recorded at the bottom of the document. Most importantly, though, Bonannus made Brother William an executor of his will, together with his wife Francesca, illustrating the trust he must have felt for the friar. The will indicates that Bonannus’s ties with Brother William, a Latin monk, must have been close. Two more instances of religious donations must be mentioned. We know from his will that Bonannus’s parish church was St. Hyppolitus’s. For various rights and works, Bonannus bequeathed a total of eight tari and ten grains to the church of St. Hyppolitus. The two churches, St. Augustine and St. Hyppolitus, were the only churches to receive grants of money from Bonannus. Bonannus’s final request concerning the religious life was that a Brother Hyppolitus of St. Mark’s church accompany his funeral procession. These churches and donations mean litt le unto themselves, but when placed in the context of the other wills from the same notarial register, a pattern develops. The wills of eight other testators, four men and four women, are recorded in the register of Bartolomeo D’Alemannia. Four of these testators were from Bonannus’s parish, St. Hyppolitus. Four testators, including Bonannus, requested burial in St. Augustine’s, thus making it the most common burial site among the surviving wills. Three others, all women, chose to be buried in St. Hyppolitus’s. Five of the eight made a gift of some kind to St. Augustine’s or to a brother of the church. Palerma, wife of Matthew Platia, made the Prior of St. Augustine’s, Brother Berrardo, an exThe Hilltop Review, Fall 2009 73 The Greek Community of Fourteenth-Century Palermo and the Deceptive Will of Bonannus de Geronimo