Original scientific paper
INSCRlPTION OF DISTICT-PREFECT GOSTIHA, DONOR OF THE CHURCH OF ST SAVIOUR AT CETINA (VRH RlKA)
Vedrana Delonga
; Muzej hrvatskih arheoloških spomenika HR -Split 21 000
Abstract
Possessing numerous spiritual and cultural components that
result from Early Croatian feudal circumstances, the inscription by
donor Gostiha, the district-prefect, cut in Latin and in the Latin sCript on
the pre-Romanesque trabeation ofthe his pious endowment at Mediaeval
Vrh Rika, present Cetina, bears a strong imprint of its time, and is thus
one of the most significant Early Croatian Mediaeval epigraphic monuments
within the group of dedicatory pre-Romanesque inscriptions. !be
text from the altar screen, was as the church itself, determined by characteristic
religious reqUirements of its donor and the social and political
conditions ofthat area.
Within its epigraphic group this inscription in many ways sublimates the most essential characteristics of Early Croatian epigraphics, basically because the structure of its contents and meaning reflect two essential elements: the first is the devotion as a starting-point that is immanent to dedicatory and donor works, and records about them, and the second is the aspiration for a social, i.e.public recognition ofthe person, the votive act, dedication. Both elements form the axis of the expressed thought and the content of the inSCription that within the act ofthe donor's personal, religious giving has a completely clear social, i.e. public function . lt confirms the local nobleman, district-prefect or "župan" Gostiha as the owner ofthe church that was meant to be afamily pious endowment. United in an epigraphic monument both elements give Gostiha 's inSCription a historic imprint -that of reality of its time.
!be importance ofthis insCription, that was to immortalize the donation and votive deed of the Croatian district-prefect and his mother, lies mainly in the social and political connotations that it bears. As similar inscriptions in the same epigraphic category, this one from Cetina, particularly because it is so well preserved, serves as a source for distinguishing and interpreting the general spiritual life and material life in Croatia already written about in this paper. Representatives of local government (district-prefects) are the main protagonists. ln the inscriptions they bear dedicatory deeds and religious tangible of!erings, of building churches in general throughout the "županija" of early Mediaeval Croatia.
Similar by expression to the epigraphic monuments of Dalmatian, mainly Byzantine towns on the eastern Adriatic, and the wider western Meditentmean area, for the comprehension of Croatian Medieval SOCiety, it is surpassed, by a purely local feature, as a result of the smaller Croatian early Mediaeval social and political environment. lt is this particularperson (Gostiha and Nemira as noblemen and heads of the district) that speaks of and describes the organization of the early Mediaeval Croatian society in the first centuries of its development. Similarities with epigraphic monuments from closer or more distant coastal eastern Adn:atic cultural zones, are but a proof that, in spite of their different political organization, both areas -Croatia in the hinterland and the urban one in the Dalmatian Byzantine province, belong to the same Latin civilization.al group.
!be inscription on the trabeation of the pre-Romanesque church at Cetina was undoubtedly copied from the model drawn up by its writer, Latinophone, particularly revealed by the Latinized form of the name of the Croatian district-prefect Gostiha (Gastica). The names of Gostiha and Nemira, the former written in a Latinized version, and the latter in the Croatian phonological and graphic form, are Croatian anthroponyms by origin and as such reflect the ethnical picture of Croatian society at the end ofthe 9th c. As shown by the content and epigraphic division, the inscription indicates a writer, who was at his time, capable enough to draw-up the textual pattern for stone inscriptions. Unskilled when it comes to "novelties" imposed by the phonologic system of the Croatian written and spoken language, in the written text he applies the experinece as well as the graphic and phonetic standards of his own, Latin written practice, and it also seems, the spoken traditions of the Romano-Dalmatian area where he came from. He adhered to standard early Mediaeval linguistic patterns, acassionally, which was usual for the time, departing from classical linguistic Latin Mediaeval standards (ad onorem instead ofad honorem, D(omi)n(u)m instead of D(omi)ni, anime mee instead of animae meae, filiis meis namine instead offiliorum meorum namine) rather subject to the actual vernacular.
The hinterland ofsplit and Trogir as the closest urban centers of all cultural movements towards the central Dalmatian part of the early Mediaeval Croatia, therefore boasts an authentic epigraphic stone monument, and deed ofgift on the act ofCroatian nobleman -districtprefect Gostiha and Croatian noblewoman Nemira . lt is amonument that brings the early Croatian epigraphy in close relations with the cultural heritage ofearly Mediaeval Europe and at the same time leaves an undeniable and permanent symbol of uniqueness.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
93640
URI
Publication date:
27.12.1995.
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