The study of an Italian village [Reprint 2019 ed.] 9783111543222, 9783111175065

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THE STUDY OF AN ITALIAN VILLAGE

P U B L I C A T I O N S OF THE

SOCIAL

SCIENCES CENTRE • ATHENS

y

Published with the collaboration of the École Pratique des Hautes Études — Sorbonne, VIe Section, Sciences Économiques et Sociales.

PARIS

M O U T O N & CO MCMLXVIII

THE HAGUE

A. L. MARASPINI

THE STUDY OF AN ITALIAN VILLAGE

PARIS

MOUTON & CO MCMLXVIII

THE HAGUE

© 1968 by Mouton & Co. Printed in France

TO THE MEMORY OF MY without

whose help this

WIFE book

would never have been written

CONTENTS ABSTRACT CHAPTER

11 I. —

Il

Salento

23

T h e Salentine Peninsula : topography and communications; Greek-speaking villages; sketch of region's history; survival of Greek tradition. C H A P T E R I I . — La

Grichia

47

Extent of the Grichia; isolation of villages and campanilismo; peasants do not travel; description of villages; " la passeggiata "; town and village; large size of villages contrasted to smallness of cities; description of Calimera; population. CHAPTER

III. —

Calimera

79

Description of village; Grico dialect; population; illiteracy; occupations; land-owning nobility; essentially an agricultural community. CHAPTER I V . — The Patterns

of Power

99

Historical sketch of development of political authority in Southern Italy; survival of feudal system; authority in Calim e r a : the municipality; " la raccomandazione"; the Carabinieri; the nobility; the tenants; the " braccianti "; forms of address; the priest; the professional families. CHAPTER V . — The Home

and Marriage

Houses in Calimera; attachment to home and family; kinship; the mother; marriage; courtship; betrothal; other sexual relationships; cousins; manliness; womanliness; brothers and sisters; marriage a family affair; bars to marriage; the marriage ceremony.

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THE STUDY OF AN ITALIAN

10 CHAPTER

VI. —

VILLAGE 169

The Family

Parents and in-laws; husband and wife; distribution of work; sexual prejudices and " dual code "; extramarital relations; women's sphere; grand-parents; siblings; unity of family. CHAPTER

VII. —

Quasi-Familial

Relationships

197

No genuine social group outside family; extension of family relationships to cover other groupings; god-parents; fosterparents; " congiunti "; servants; element of self-interest in such relationships. CHAPTER

VIII. —

The Land

211

Land-tenure; land-owners; tenants; " braccianti "; unemployment; land is symbol of wealth and status; contrast with Northern Italy. CHAPTER

IX. —

The Church

221

Greek and Latin Christianity; Jews and Turks; the Church in Calimera; the saints; powers of the priests; festivals: Christmas, " Carnevale Easter, " Ferragosto "; the dead; ghosts and werewolves; " jattura " and ligature; horns and amulets; chiromancy and the " Lotto CHAPTER

X. —

Assessment

257

Culture-change very slow; hampered by economic dependence on land, which is insufficient; conservatism of peasant; lack of organized groups; bandits. Conclusion: Calimera a closed society, which has developed in isolation; this true of all Grico villages, and of rural areas of Southern Italy: basic unity of South makes valid generalizations possible from study of single village. BIBLIOGKAPHT

POST-SCRIPT

267

269

ABSTRACT

The following is a study of a rural community in Southern Italy. The area concerned, the Salento or Salentine Peninsula, is a triangular wedge of land jutting out in a south-easterly direction, forming the heel of the boot, and separating the Adriatic from the Ionian Sea. It is part of the region of Apulia, and administratively forms the province of Lecce. Though completely lacking in streams, and depending for its water on an aqueduct and artesian wells, the area is fertile and yields crops of olives, figs, grapes, legumes, and corn. Some tobacco is also grown. The ground is stony, and considerable labour is required to clear a patch for ploughing. Nevertheless, the area is almost entirely agricultural: what industries there are, are all refineries of agricultural products: wine-making, pressing of olives and refining of the oil, cigarette-manufacture, etc. In addition, very recently, the extraction of nitrates from agricultural refuse has been introduced, in an effort to draw some of the surplus manpower from the land. There is also stonequarrying and some leather-working. A ridge of low hills, the Murge, runs north to south across the peninsula, widening into a rocky plateau at the extreme south eastern tip, whose coastline is made of precipitous limestone cliffs. The land lying north of this plateau and east of the Murge, however, is flat and suitable for agriculture, although even there, the underlying limestone makes the land stony and hard to plough deeply. The urban centres are all in the north: Lecce, the provincial capital (66,533 inhabitants), an attractive little city with magnificent Baroque churches, holds the law-courts, the provincial archives, and is the centre of provincial administration; Gallipoli (15,485 inhabitants) is the chief port of the province; Otranto (3,436 inhabitants) is a picturesque medieval port, of historical interest, but of no economic or political importance nowadays; in these, agriculture concerns but a minimal fraction of the population, and then only indirectly through trade. However, the phenomenon of the " citta contadina" or peasant city is characteristic of the Southern Italian agricultural regions, and the Salento is no exception. A number of large towns, where the

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THE STUDY

OF AN ITALIAN

VILLAGE

crops produced in the outlying villages are brought to market, are sited in strategic positions throughout the Salentine peninsula : though these have a population often larger than that of the urban centres, they are entirely agricultural in character, and retain a rural way of life. Maglie (12,560 inhabitants) is the province's chief railway junction, where all the branch lines serving the outlying districts join the main line to Otranto, Lecce, and the North of Italy. Between Lecce and Gallipoli lie Galatina and Galatone (23,743 inhabitants and 13,149 inhabitants respectively), with Nardo (25,894 inhabitants) to the north, and Casarano (13,146 inhabitants) far to the south. Between these towns and the villages, there is no real difference except size. Indeed, the use of the word town is arbitrary, as the local speech distinguishes between urban and rural centres, " città " and " paese " but not between rural agglomerations of various sizes. The only justification for the use of such distinctive terms is that it seems absurd to refer to Nardo or Galatina as villages Some ten to fifteen miles south of Lecce, lies an area known locally as " la Grichia ", Greece, where a Greek dialect is still spoken. Formerly, the Grichia extended far more widely than to-day, comprising 29 villages and the city of Galatina itself. To-day, there are only nine villages where Greek is still spoken. These are Martano (7,340 inhabitants), Calimera (5,805 inhabitants), Corigliano (5,376 inhabitants), Soleto (4,658 inhabitants), Sternatia, Castrignano, Melpignano, Zollino (all with over 2,000 inhabitants), and Martignano (1,588 inhabitants). This Greek dialect has attracted considerable attention, since these nine villages of the Salento and four other villages round Bova in Calabria are the only two spots in what was once Magna Graecia where Greek speech has survived. There is no agreement among scholars as to whether this dialect, and the related, though different, dialect of Bova, are survivals from the days of Magna Graecia, or whether they only date back to Byzantine times. In either case, it is of considerable antiquity. Its survival is due to the isolation of both regions, and the neglect in which they were left over all these centuries. It is significant that, during the X l X t h and early XXth centuries, when railway and roads were built through the Grichia, the dialect, known locally as " Grico rapidly died out, to be replaced by the current Apulian dialect, which is a dialectical form of Italic speech. Like Sicilian, Apulian is very different from standard Italian, which is a development of Tuscan, but, nowadays, broad " Apulian is rarely heard, the speech of the Salento becoming increasingly assimilated to standard Italian, though the Apulian pronunciation and numerous dialectical forms are in universal use. The inhabitants of the " ennéa chorià ( = Gk. nine villages) of the Grichia

ABSTRACT

13

are all bilingual, in so far as even the most illiterate speak Italian, or Apulian, in addition to Grico. The degree to which Grico is used varies widely from one village to another, and even from one person to another. On the whole, Grico tends to be spoken by the old people, and Italian by the young. Furthermore, Grico was a spoken dialect, and was never written. It was kept alive by the very high degree of illiteracy in the province : only Italian is taught in schools, and as literacy increases, Grico dies out. The religion of the villagers is Roman Catholicism. The province, as a part of the Byzantine Empire, was originally Greek Orthodox, but, as a consequence of the Norman invasion of 1069, was brought under the sovereignty of Rome, and gradually Latinized. Some nuclei of faithful of the Byzantine Rite still persist, and a parish church for them exists in Lecce, but these are the descendants of Albanian immigrants of the XVth and XVIth century, and there are no Byzantine Christians in the Grichia. The salento was a prosperous province under the Byzantines, and under their dynamic successors the Norman Counts of Lecce. But the sack of Otranto in 1429, and the transfer of the province to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies in 1463, initiated the long decline of the region. The sack of Otranto caused the sea-route to the Levant to shift northwards, so that Brindisi and Bari replaced Otranto as port of call, with catastrophic effect on Salentine trade. No longer controlled by the strong hand of the Norman Count, but owing only a nominal loyalty to a distant and indifferent king, the local land-owners were free to impose a drastic feudal system on the peasantry, a system which continued unaltered until the X l X t h century, and which still survives to-day, though, in the last half century, some of its more blatant abuses have been corrected. The community studied is the large village of Calimera, the second largest of the Grichia, and the nearest to Lecce, from which it is only 15 kilometres distant. It has a population of 5,805 souls, and forms an independent " comune". Topographically, it is characteristic of all Salentine villages: a huddle of houses around the central " piazza on which piazza are the Church, the Municipality, the police-station, the bank, the largest cafe, and the shops. The arable fields surround it. The peasants live in the village, and go to work on the fields every morning, often having to go a considerable distance. The houses are built of the local limestone, and have two to three rooms, of which the largest, which looks out on the street, serves as kitchen and living room. Nearly all have electric light; but only 20 have baths; and approximately half have no individual water supply, but have to depend on wells or on municipal water-taps whose use is shared by a number of neighbouring

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THE STUDY OF AN ITALIAN VILLAGE

houses. Of the 1,461 families residing within the comune, only 15 are land-owners whose revenues enable them not to work the fields themselves; 10 families are of professional status; 148 families are smallholders working their own land or tenants with the usufruct of the land they work; and 370 are " braccianti that is, labourers working for wages. Some 272 families work off the land for their own account, as shop-keepers, artisans, builders, etc.; 41 families derive their income from municipal or other similar employment; and some 208 families are wage-workers, working off the land. Of the 2,976 souls, comprising Calimera's active population (excluding children, those too old to work, and women who look after the house) 1,240 are engaged in agriculture; 1,736 work away from the land. Of the agricultural workers, 829 are men; of those working off the land, 796 are men. In agriculture, the majority of the workers are men; off the land, the majority are women. In this respect, it must be noted that women do not usually go out to work after marriage, and that the majority of the women in employment are young girls between 16 and 20 years old. In addition, many of these women are themselves coming from agricultural families. Illiteracy is extremely high, as it is throughout the province. Almost 22 % of the population is totally illiterate; almost 25 % are barely literate, never even having finished primary school; while 49 % are in possession of a certificate of completion of primary school. In other words, only 4 % of the population has received an education above primary school level. Thirty years ago conditions were far worse : it is doubtful if there was a literate person in the village. Communications within the Salento are poor. The railway system caters for the urban centres, and the large towns, but the majority of the smaller villages depend on coaches for travelling. The network and frequency of the coaches are adequate, but these routes are designed to link the villages with the capital, Lecce, or another large centre, not with one another, so that two neighbouring villages may be served by two different routes and have no system of communication between them. Moreover, the routes include the greatest number of villages possible in their itinerary, so that coaches are invariably crammed to capacity and even a short journey takes a considerable time, because of the innumerable halts. Consequently, only a minority of the villagers travel, and then only if they are obliged to. Though Lecce is only 15 kilometres from Calimera, few of the villagers have ever been there, and practically none of the women. The immobility of the Salentine peasant is such that, except in the urban centres, there are no inns to provide accommodation

ABSTRACT

15

for travellers, and very few villages have " locande " where food can be had. It is assumed that any journey undertaken will either be to visit relatives, who will presumably provide food and accommodation if needed, or will be a very short one allowing return home before nightfall. In such conditions of illiteracy and isolation, it is not surprising that Grico has been able to survive so long. The administration of Calimera is entrusted to an elected mayor aided by a giunta " of councillors, also elected, whose decisions are implemented by professional municipal employees. The electoral system in Italy enables the voter to choose between different party lists, and express a preference for one or more nominees on that list. In Calimera, however, the only party at the elections with popular support is the Monarchist Party. The election to mayor of the monarchist candidate is therefore almost automatic. The Monarchist Party's funds and support come from the petty nobility who in Calimera are the great land-owners. Consequently, through the elections, the control of the administration by the land-owners or their nominees is perpetuated, and the elections have never made any difference to the state of affairs in the village. The land-owning class not only controls the means of production and most of the product, but the municipal administration as well, much as it did in the past. The policing of the village is the task of a platoon of " Carabinieri under the orders of a Maresciallo " (N.C.O.). The Carabinieri do not depend from the municipality, but from the Ministry of Defence, having the status of a military garrison. However, their task is that of preserving the peace and enforcing the law, like ordinary policemen. Their peculiar status is a survival from the conditions immediately following the unification of Italy. The original aim was to ensure that the police, in the more outlying regions, would be loyal to the central government, and not contaminated with local separatist or Bourbon tendencies. Pursuing this policy, the internal regulations of corps forbids a Carabiniere to serve in his native region, or to marry a girl from the region in which he is serving. This ensured that the Carabinieri would always be " foreigners " to the region in which they served, and consequently more likely to perform their duty impartially. The effect of this system in Calimera today is to set up the Carabinieri against the municipality, in the eyes of the villagers. The powers of summary arrest vested in the Carabinieri enable the Maresciallo to act as judiciary as well as executive, in minor matters; and a large number of quarrels are settled by the Maresciallo acting as arbiter, without ever coming to court. In addition, the threat of arrest, or even a short term of " fermo " (custody), is a very effective sanction which enables the Carabinieri to

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VILLAGE

function with great efficiency. Their apparently vast powers and their energetic intervention contrast with the slowness of the municipal authority, and the Carabinieri are respected and even feared. However, their foreignness " and their impartiality tend to make them unpopular with the peasants, who are the class which most frequently comes into conflict with the law. Furthermore, the traditional mistrust and dislike of the police tends to embitter relations between Carabinieri and villagers. The Carabinieri are admired and obeyed, but they are not liked. Moreover, they remain outside the villagers' status hierarchy, and are a foreign body within the village. Status and power in Calimera depend on land-ownership. Monetary wealth means nothing. Rents are often paid in kind, and wages too. Among the peasants, barter or exchange of services for goods is the rule. Though only about half the population is directly engaged in agriculture, the existence of the village depends on the land, for all the other trades and employments are really of an accessory nature, providing services for those whose main pursuit is the cultivation of the land, whether directly engaged in tilling it, or owning the land which others till. A direct consequence of this, is that land and the ownership of land are not only of overriding economical importance, but acquire a value as a status symbol. Power, wealth, rank, are judged in terms of land. It is basically a simple equation: the ownership of land means power, and power means status. Hence, there are really only two major social groupings: the land-owners and the landless. In the past, the landowners, " the barons ", formed the nobility, and the landless, their serfs. Nowadays, the land-owners have lost their titles, but the position has not altered very much. However, the abolition of serfdom has enabled a proportion of the more well-off peasants to move off the land into shop-keeping or some craft or trade. Financially, they are superior to the " braccianti", the labourers; but the small difference in status between a shop-keeper and his labourer customer is negligible compared to the social abyss which separates both from the land-owning families. This fact is expressed in the local usage which prefixes the particle ° Don " to the name of land-owners, and of land-owners alone. The professional families, doctors, apothecaries, lawyers, teachers, lie outside the village hierarchy. Their status is not clearly defined : though recognised as socially in between the nobility and the peasants, there is no accepted fixed status for them. They are the only class where a man is judged according to his merits and not according to how much land he owns. The priest is an anomalous case: the particle Don " is attributed to him too, and his prestige is enormous. However, his exact status vis-a-vis the nobility depends also on the character of the

ABSTRACT

17

priest, and on his capacity to impose himself. Vis-a-vis the peasants, he wields enormous power, not only because he is backed by the authority of the Church, not only because he is " God's deputy ", but also because, through the sacrament of confession, he is aware of everything that goes on, and can interpose to prevent a quarrel, almost before those involved are aware that a quarrel is imminent. Yet he is not really liked: his unique position, and the celibacy of the clergy, both invite distrust. In some ways, his position is analogous to that of the Carabinieri: an integral part of the social structure, and indispensable to its proper functioning, he remains, nevertheless, outside it. The family is extremely important. Indeed, it is the only grouping within the village, with institutionalized modes of behaviour and a fixed code of reciprocal rights and duties. The basic unit is the biological family of a man, his wife, and children. This unit is considered as a whole and is indissoluble. Other forms of association are temporary, and the code of behaviour may alter according to circumstances: but the family is one being, the individuality of its components being lost in the personality of the whole. The misbehaviour of one member disgraces all the family; a wrong done to one, is a wrong done to all; and, whatever inner conflicts may exist, to the outside world the family presents a united front. The head of the family is the man; a woman can never be head of the family, but must always be subordinate to a man's authority, usually her father or brother while still nubile, then her husband. The principle of " patria potestas " is rigidly observed: the man is the absolute master of the wife and children; and this potestas ceases only at his death. This creates a number of problems: on marriage, a woman becomes her husband's subordinate; but she still remains very much a part of her father's family: this often causes a conflict of loyalties, if the interests of the two families happen to conflict. Again, though a man is master in his own house, he is still subject to his father in the latter's house; he is himself both father and son, and the rights and duties of each role are contradictory. These problems are tacitly recognized by the villagers, and every effort is made to ensure that a newly-married couple has a house of their own, separate from that of either parent, thus reducing as far as possible the possibilities of conflict. But if men have undisputed authority, the sentimental tie is much stronger between mother and child, than between father and child. Possibly because the role of father necessarily entails an authoritative and rather unsympathetic attitude, or simply because the very stress laid on masculinity must be compensated by an opposite: in any case, the bond between mother and children is the strongest. Especially between mother and son; the father is feared, respected, and loved; but he remains fallible and human. The 2

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VILLAGE

mother is sacred. Like Cod, her name may not be taken in vain; to a man, the merest disrespect towards his mother is a mortal insult. T h e authority of a woman over her children is absolute, but unlike her husband's authority which, though absolute, is based on duty and is mandatory, hers is based on love, and her children's submission is unconscious. Consequently, her power is f a r greater and can never be broken. Cases of rebellion against the father are by no means unknown. There can be no rebellion against the m o t h e r : she has no authority to impose. T h e bond is an emotional one, not a social one — and all the stronger for that. Between siblings of different sexes, there is normally a very strong attachment. It is usual for older girls to look after their younger brothers, and some of the aura of motherhood surrounds the elder sister. I n any case, f r o m childhood, the boy is brought u p to consider himself the f u t u r e head of the family, and is conditioned to consider himself responsible for his sisters. Many young men do not marry until after their sisters have been married. Between siblings of the same sex, the attachment is mitigated by a certain feeling of rivalry. The relationship between alternate generations is a much freer and friendlier one than between parents and children, especially between males. A m a n will gladly accept jokes and liberties f r o m his grandchildren which he would never have tolerated f r o m his own children. Marriage is by arrangement between families, and involves the use of a go-between. Formerly, the arrangements were extremely elaborate, and detailed documents itemizing the dowry of the girl and the contribution of the boy's family were drawn u p before a notary. This is now obsolete, but protracted discussions take place over dowry and the bridegroom's family's contribution before an agreement takes place, and the young couple are betrothed. Betrothal is a very serious thing, almost as binding as marriage. A broken engagement is fatal to a girl's chances of marriage, for no m a n will marry someone else's cast-off fiancee: after betrothal the strict conventions guarding the girl's chastity are relaxed, the couple are left alone, and the implication is that sexual intimacy takes place. Indeed, the word " fidanzata the usual Italian form for fiancee, is currently used to mean sweetheart or mistress. Formerly, the sentiments of the young couple were not consulted, it being a purely family affair. To-day, it is normal for the young m a n to choose the girl himself. Nevertheless, the customary negotiations have to be gone through. Marriage is a solemn occasion, and all the family, including distant relatives, is reunited. It is invariably a church marriage, civil marriage not being recognized as valid by the villagers. It is followed by a banquet. All in all, it is an expensive affair, and not a few marriages have been delayed by lack of f u n d s .

ABSTRACT

19

The birth of a child is followed within forty days by its baptism. A god-father is chosen and a god-mother. The choice is an invidious one, as the role of god-father creates a bond which is considered equal to bloodkinship. This link is not only between god-father and god-child, but between the god-father and the child's parents. The " compare " relationship comes into existence between the god-father and the child's parents. The compare is the only man who can visit the family informally and unannounced, even in the absence of the husband. It is a very close relationship, and, inevitably, is somewhat suspect : on the one hand, there are ribald jokes current about the intimacy of " compare " and " commare on the other, a current use of " compare " to mean " accomplice, boon companion " implies a degree of intimacy with the child's parents. Similarly, other social relationships are brought into the kinship classification. These are usually social relationships of peculiar closeness : one's next-door neighbours will be referred to as " compare " and " commare " to indicate a close association. The word " commare " is extended to all the women a man is fairly friendly with. Servants are spoken of as famigliari ", members of the family. Often, a man will ask his landlord to be god-father to his child : it is an attempt to cement an already close relationship. Foster-brothers are considered as close as brothers, and any sexual relations between them would be incest. A close friend of the family will be called a cousin. In short, the only intimate and close social relations which the villagers recognize are kinship ones; consequently any existing social relationship of a close and intimate nature is institutionalized by being considered as a kinship one. Friendship is not accepted as a close tie. Wherever friendship goes beyond mere acquaintanceship, it is usually given another name : a friend is called " compare or congiunto " (which means relative), or by some other kinship or quasi-kinship term. Otherwise friendship is merely acquaintanceship. Usually, one's friends are chosen with an eye on their usefulness. Consequently, wealthy or influential persons have many friends. Even though friendship is not expected to be either deep or everlasting, it implies reciprocal rights and duties : it is expected that friends will help one another. Hence arises the practise of the " raccomandazione " : this is the practice of obtaining an introduction to some influential person from a friend of both. Often, if the original introducer is an influential person, a " raccomandazione " will be transmitted through a whole chain of " friends " to the actual person whose help is needed. This last person may well not be acquainted either with the man recommended to him or with the original introducer. The " raccomandazione " will be transmitted from one person to his friend, who will transmit it

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OF AN ITALIAN

VILLAGE

to his friend, and so on, until it reaches its destination. It is to one's interest therefore to cultivate influential friends. On the other hand, certain kinship relations are considered in a peculiar way. The best example is one's first cousin of the opposite sex. This is a close relationship, almost as close as that of brother and sister. But a considerable amount of intimacy is allowed. So much so that the word " cugina " (female cousin) has come to mean mistress. I n this case, the closeness of kinship justifies the intimacy, which would not be permitted between boys and girls who were not k i n ; while the distance nullifies the kinship prohibition on incest. However, marriage between cousins is rare and disapproved of. The religion of the village is Roman Catholicism. However, the hagiology is somewhat unorthodox, including many saints not otherwise known. Moreover, each saint is attributed a distinct function, so that every trouble requires a different saint to be propitiated. The m a j o r saints have functions almost universally recognized; but some of the more obscure ones may have different functions attributed to them by various persons. I n many ways, the relationship between the votary, the saint, and God, is visualized as similar to that between the supplicant, the m a n who issues the raccomandazione, and the m a n who receives it. The saint acts as intermediary and advocate between God and m a n . Belief in the supernatural is strong; but has been well canalized by the Church into orthodox channels. However, belief in the " jattura ", usually translated evil eye, though the act of overlooking is not important in Calimera, has resisted all attempts to quash it. The " jattura " is conceived as an impersonal evil force, which will bring misfortune to those on whom it is directed. It may be so directed voluntarily through envy, or quite involuntarily. Some persons may be foci of this force : contact with them is disastrous. They need not themselves be evil. It is their misfortune that they bring disaster to anyone who associates with them. Very dark people, persons wearing black, are usually suspect. But anyone may be a " jattore Any exclamation of admiration may trigger off the " jattura ". On the other hand, some persons may deliberately use this power for evil. Habitually malicious and ill-tempered persons are suspect. Often, the word " j a t t u r a " is used to mean bad luck; but, usually, it has sinister undertones. Belief in ligature, incapacity to have children or even intercourse, is linked to belief in the jattura, since it may be caused by it. But it may have many causes, not necessarily supernatural ones. It is believed that a woman who has remained chaste too long, will be " legata " for a while. Similarly, a m a n not showing the normal male virility is suspected of being " legato ". A number of charms and amulets are used as prophylactics against the jattura, the most power-

ABSTRACT

21

f u l being horns, preferably red or blue. Not only men, but even animals and inanimate objects may be affected by jattura. There are no witches; but some old women, and all midwives, are reputed to know rather more about these things than is strictly proper. I n conclusion the outstanding characteristic of Calimera is the extraordinary conservatism of its social structure. The medieval structure of lord, vassal, and serf, survives as the hierarchy of land-owner, tenant, and labourer. There is no powerful mercantile middle-class to act as buffer between the land-owners and their tenants and labourers. The ten bourgeois families are recent immigrants, and do not really fit into the village hierarchy. The municipality is a recent development, and has made little if any change to life in the village. The abolition of nobiliary privileges is an empty phrase where the economic conditions are unchanged, and where fifteen noble families retain a stranglehold on all the rest through their ownership of all the available land. The importance of the relationship between landowner and the villager, living on the land, is such that each village is a closed society with almost no outside contacts, m u c h as the serfs of a medieval fief might be. This isolation enabled the ancient Greek dialect to persist unchanged through the centuries, helped too by the illiteracy of the peasants. Another result of the isolation of the village has been the enormous increase in population without scission or any alteration in the structure. The peasant was tied to the land and had nowhere to go. T h e economic stranglehold of the landowners made it impossible for h i m to alter his mode of living. T h e result was the " citta contadina " of to-day: a village with a population larger than that of Otranto, but where the vast majority of the population are labourers, and where the rural way of existence has remained unaltered.

CHAPTER

IL

I

SALENTO

In the extreme south-eastern end of the Italian peninsula, forming the heel of the Italian boot and the southernmost quarter of the region of Apulia, a roughly triangular limestone peninsula juts out towards Corfu and the coast of Epirus, from which it is separated by a mere fifty miles of sea. This bit of land, still known to its inhabitants as " il Salento a survival of the ancient Roman name of " Provincia Sallentina is better known to the world at large as the " terra d'Otranto " of Romantic writers, and forms to-day the " provincia di Lecce " of modern Italian administration. The two names by which it is more generally known express the general ignorance about this area: to the Romantics, the Salento was merely the somewhat barbarous hinterland of Otranto, a picturesque little harbour, whose chief importance lay in the fact that it provided a convenient stopping-place for the sailing-ships bound for Greece; to the modern Italian, the area is just the environment of the capital city, Lecce, which lies in the north of the area, where the peninsula joins the mainland, thus being more accessible to Neapolitans, Milanese, and Romans, than the actual territory of which it is the capital. Also, Lecce is sufficiently populated to count as a fairly important centre, and enjoys some renown among the more artistic as the " Florence of Apulia a misnomer it owes to its numerous churches, all of which are built in a characteristically grandiloquent baroque style, and thus give the city a superficial resemblance to Florence. The system of communications reflects this state of affairs. Contrasting strongly with the conditions in the Neapolitan Campagna or the areas around Rome, Milan, and other large cities in the North and Centre of the peninsula, the railway system of the Salento is among the poorest in Italy. A main line runs down from Bari and Brindisi to Lecce, where it meets another main line coming from Taranto and Messina. For both lines, Lecce is the

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terminus. They link Lecce to the rest of Italy, and provide the principal means of access to the province. Two express trains (" rapidi") run daily to Rome and Milan, and slower trains northwards, to and from Brindisi, are frequent. To and from Taranto, the service is similar. There is consequently no difficulty in getting to Lecce from Rome, Naples, Bologna, Milan, or any other large city. The problem arises when one desires to explore the Salento, that is, the peninsula to the south of Lecce. The provincial railway system is quite inadequate. A branch line runs from Lecce to the main market and railway junction of the Salento, the town of Maglie, whence it runs eastwards to Otranto. On this line, and as far as Otranto, the service is adequate. From Maglie, a minor branch line runs south to Santa Maria di Leuca, a tiny fishing harbour on the extreme southern tip of the peninsula. From there, it turns back and follows the line of the uplands to Galatone, where it meets another branch line which runs from Lecce, through Galatina and Galatone to Gallipoli, the province's largest harbour. From Gallipoli, a loop serves a number of villages in the south-west coastal zone, including Galatone itself. On all three of these lines, the service is somewhat erratic, depending chiefly on the demand. Thus, though it is always possible to travel from Lecce to Otranto, Maglie, or to Galatina, Galatone and Gallipoli, the smaller villages to the south of Maglie and Gallipoli are served only about twice a week in winter: in the case of the very small, there may be no service at all during the winter. Even so, these villages which are, however occasionally, visited by a train, are only a very small minority. The largest number of inhabited centres of the Salento, and they are many, have no access to the railway at all. Even those which are allegedly on the railway are often only nominally so, for they often have to share a station with one or more neighbouring villages, and this station may be at any distance up to 5 miles from the village which it is supposed to serve. In fact, the presence or absence of the railway depends purely on the accident of location, those villages which happen to lie reasonably near to the line serving two major centres, such as, for instance, Gallipoli or Galatone, being permitted, so to say, to avail themselves of that line. But the railway, in the Salento, was never intended to serve for purely local travel. In fact, the railway system of the Salento makes it evident that the tourists and the better-off customers of the railways are simply not expected to go to any of the minor villages: and, in actual fact, they do not. To get, therefore, from one village to another, or from a city to an outlying village, one has to depend on motor-coaches (" corriere " ) . Each large town or village is a centre from which radiate a number of coachroutes linking it to the villages in its periphery. These, depending on the

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size of the villages and the time of year, vary considerably. In winter, very few coaches run at all, and only to the larger and more important villages. In summer, on the contrary, there are a great number of such services and to even the smallest hamlets. Then, these coaches vary also according to the town which they are based on. Thus, the coach service based on Lecce, and serving its environing villages, is adequate at worst and, in summer, excellent. On the other hand, the coach services based on such minor centres as Gagliano are at best merely adequate, and at the worst simply non-existent. At the best of times, the coaches are grossly overloaded, passengers simply piling in, some even hanging on to the doors which cannot close because of the crush. A journey by coach is nearly always uncomfortable; it is time-wasting; yet it is usually more reliable than the railway. On the other hand, if one aims to go to a particularly out of the way village, such a journey may well involve two or three journeys to intermediate stopping-places, with waits, at each stop, varying from a few minutes to anything up to a day. It is astonishing to a stranger how little the Salentines travel in their own province. It is normal to hear professional men talk of going to Rome, to Bari, to Milan, or even abroad; but if one mentions the name of some village some ten miles away, one is apt to get in return only a blank look of ignorance. The fact is that the inhabitants of the cities are interested, not in the villages of their own provinces, but in the " centres of civilization ", by which they mean Rome, Naples, or Milan. On the contrary, the peasants are interested merely in their own village and the nearest market-town. It could be said that the peasants are too preoccupied with making a living to waste time on travelling; and the upper classes are too busy copying the large cities to be interested in villages. The roads reflect the lack of mobility. There are two trunk roads: one runs from Lecce to Maglie and thence to Otranto; the other from Lecce to Galatone, and thence to Gallipoli. Both these are good roads, being upkept by the state. The other roads, however, are the concern of the local communes; and these may be anything from large towns to mere hamlets. The condition of the road varies in proportion to the importance of the commune whose concern it is: a few are tarred and suitable for motor traffic; many are beaten earth on which coaches can still run; but the largest number are mere cart-tracks which can and are only used by the horse-drawn carts of the local peasants. Furthermore, it must be confessed that there is little to attract the traveller. Though the Salento's history goes back to pre-Roman times, it has few interesting monuments. There are, admittedly, a large group of megalithic monuments, menhirs and dolmens, on the west coast: indeed, there are probably more than in the alleged centre of megalithic

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culture, Brittany. But these usually lie far from the villages, in the middle of fields, and, having never been cared for, are usually in very poor condition. Similarly, Greek, Roman, Byzantine, and Norman remains crop up in the most unexpected places; but there again, since no one knows about them, nobody goes to see them; contrarywise, those few specialists who might care to go are put off by the difficulties. Nevertheless, there is one area which has attracted a fair amount of attention. It lies astride the main road from Lecce to Maglie, stretching for some 5 kilometres on either side of a stretch of road some 12 kilometres long; it encloses nine villages, and is locally known as " la Grichia " or Greece. The reason for its local name, and for the interest it has aroused, lies in the fact that the inhabitants of the area speak a Greek dialect. Since there is only one other locality in mainland Italy where Greek is spoken, and that is a small enclave in Calabria containing only three villages, it has naturally attracted the interest of linguistic scholars. The Calabrian enclave was discovered by the German scholar, Karl Witte, in the early years of the X l X t h century. But serious interest in the dialect and in the problem of its origins goes back to the end of the XlXth century only. Since then, a great number of scholars have studied the dialect, the two most important being the Italian, G. Morosi, and the German, Gerhard Rohlfs, the latter being the chief authority on the dialect of the Salentine " Grichia ". Though there has been and still is a great deal of discussion about the origins of the dialect, it seems as if Rohlfs' thesis of uninterrupted hellenism of the area is now prevailing. The dialect belongs to a group of Greek dialect characterized by the use of double consonants in a great number of words where standard Greek uses a single consonant. Thus, in the Apulian dialect, we find the words yiouwo, noXkit, iivvo... instead of the standard Greek yufxvo;, noXu, utcvo?. This reduplication links the dialect with those spoken in Kymi, Chio, Icaria, Rhodes and the Dodecanese, Cyprus, Carpathos, Seriphos, Siphnos, and Kimolos. It should be noted that in such words as ypapifxa, svvsa, ap.[xo, app0U0T0..standard Greek retains the double consonant in spelling, though not in pronunciation. The chief characteristic of the dialect is that, though it is never written, it is always pronounced with marked doubling of the consonants. On this, and other archaic traits, Rohlfs based a theory according to which this dialect would be the last remnant of the Greek spoken in the area since the Dorian invasion and the days of " Magna G r a e c i a I n support of Rohlfs, it should be added that when first discovered, in the X l X t h century, the area of Greek Speech was considerably more extensive than it is now. (See map p. 4 8 ) . It spread on either side of the present " Grichia meeting another area of Greek speech, now vanished, centring round Gallipoli

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and extending southwards along the western coast of the Salento. There also existed an isolated nucleus of Greek speech around Lucugnano. According to Pulgram, citing Rohlfs, Greek was spoken in 49 villages in the XVIth century, in 29 villages around 1750, and in 12 in 1928. Today, as already mentioned, it occurs in only nine villages. These villages, which form the subject of this study, are, in order of importance: Martano (Population: 7,340), Calimera (Population: 5,805), Corigliano (Population: 5,376), Soleto (Population: 4,658), Castrignano de' Greci (Population: 3,205), Sternatia (Population: 2,581), Zollino (Population: 2,266), Melpignano (Population: 2,089), and Martignano (1,588). I n none of these is Greek the only tongue. All peasants are bilingual, irrespective of education, even the totally illiterate speaking Apulian dialect in addition to their Grecian patois. Furthermore, depending on the degree of education, a number speak more or less correct standard Italian in addition to Apulian dialect. Moreover, the Greek dialect is never written, and, in fact, the " Grichi " are totally ignorant of the Greek alphabet. Indeed, though most linguists who discussed the " Grico " write it using the Greek alphabet, as I myself did above, it would be more correct to write it in Latin letters, since any Grico sufficiently literate to be able to write would automatically use the latter even when writing Grico. Indeed, the latest scholar to discuss Grico, himself a Greek, S. C. Caratzas, gives two texts both written in Latin letters and using " v " for y and sc " for y . Indeed, even the pronunciation of Greek is peculiar; it has been contaminated by the prevalent Apulian dialect to which it assimilates in a number of phonemes, most typical being the transformation of " 11" at the end of words into dd " : e. g. " addo " for Greek aXXoi or " pondicuddi " for Greek -rtovx'.'^oiJA'.. This is a direct imitation of the same sound-shift in Apulian dialect: e. g. curieddu " for Italian coltello ". Vice-versa, some words of Greek have passed over into Apulian dialect and are now used throughout the province : e. g. "pcpone" to mean a watermelon instead of the Italian " melone and the use of " anguria " to mean a normal melon as distinguished from the red watermelon, for which Italian would use the same word " melone ". T h e amount of Greek spoken varies considerably: in Sternatia, when speaking among themselves, the peasants may use Greek continuously, but in Calimera, they more usually use Greek words mixed with Italian or Apulian dialect: indeed, even the purest Greek speakers never speak a completely Greek sentence; there are some words of Apulian which are used instead of the Greek equivalent: typical is the use of Apulian " mancu " or " manco " which has completely replaced the Greek ou8e. Some may even speak almost wholly in Italian or Apulian, using only one or two Greek words,

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which are of common use. Indeed, the Greek patois is rapidly dying out. To-day, compulsory education and increased contacts with the world outside the Grichia is increasingly undermining the Greek dialect. The use of Italian is compulsory in schools, and dialect is not taught in them. It is a characteristic of the last 50 years that, throughout Italy, dialects and patois have gradually diminished in extent and purity, being more and more replaced by standard Italian. Some dialects, chiefly those of the more neglected areas, still are spoken by a considerable number, but unless the speaking of dialect confers a certain status, there is a marked tendency for the dialect to be replaced by standard Italian. In regions whose historical autonomy has been continued through geographical or political causes, the use of the local dialect is a symbol of that autonomy, and hence there is, among the people, a deliberate reaction against the spreading use of Italian. This is the case in Sicily, where a strong separatist movement exists, and where, moreover, an autonomous regional government has been instituted; here, naturally, though Italian is being taught in schools, and is the language of the organisms of the State, such as the police and the army, Sicilian dialect is commonly used in the regional parliament and even by some members of the magistrature; it is practically the only language used by the organisms of local government. In Sardinia, the geographical isolation of the island and its extreme poverty and high illiteracy have preserved the local dialect. In the Southern Tyrol, the use of German persists stubbornly as a reaction against the Italian occupation in 1918 of a predominantly Austrian area. But everywhere else the dialects have been weakening. Except for Venetia and Tuscany, where even the educated classes continue to use dialect simply because the dialect is the only survival from the days of their independent glory, Italy is becoming increasingly uniform in speech. Slight variations in pronunciation and vocabulary still exist, but no longer is the old saying true that an Italian can neither understand nor make himself understood outside his native province. A rather amusing result of this extinction of the dialects was the fact that Americans of Italian origins, who had religiously continued speaking their mothertongue, and who during and after the war found themselves in Italy, were amazed to find that the " Italian " they had learnt at their mother's knee was incomprehensible in Italy. The explanation was, of course, that, whereas in Italy the change from local independent dialects to a uniform standard speech had been continuous for nearly a century and particularly marked during the last fifty years, the emigrants in America had religiously preserved and transmitted to their children the dialectical forms which were current two or three generations ago, forms which to-day are obsolete in Italy.

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This is even true of the Apulian dialect. Though a speaker of standard Italian may occasionally fail to understand one or more words, it is extremely unlikely that he will meet someone, however illiterate, who can speak only dialect. I n Lecce itself, what is known as dialect is merely a particular way of pronouncing and the occasional use of dialectical forms of speech in an otherwise standard Italian. I n the country, among the old folk, dialect is more current, but even they now speak quite correct Italian as well. Hence, if the Italian dialects have been dying out so rapidly, it is not surprising that a totally foreign speech, which is completely incomprehensible even to neighbouring peasants has been dying out even more rapidly. Greek is still currently spoken in the villages, but the peasants are growing increasingly self-conscious, and their unwillingness to speak Greek outside the safety of their village is quite noticeable. Two young women from Soleto who heard a friend and myself chatting in Greek in a café in Lecce, smilingly joined into the conversation to point out that they could understand what we said, even to some questionable remarks about themselves; but they said that in Italian and refused to speak Greek at all, their excuse being that their " Greek was not " proper " Greek but merely what was spoken in Soleto. Two factors militate against the Greek of Apulia. One is the natural tendency of a tiny linguistic enclave, which has neither political nor status reasons to maintain its purity, to assimilate in speech to the surrounding majority. T h e second may well be that the ground has been knocked f r o m under their feet by their increasing acquaintance with Greek as it is spoken in Greece. During the last twenty to thirty years, the poverty of the area has led a great number to emigrate to the nearby large cities in search of better wages, and a considerable number of Grichi " have concentrated in Bari and Brindisi, where the dockyards are always in need of willing workers, and where their knowledge of Greek was presumed to be an advantage, since the greatest part of the traffic handled by these harbours is that to and f r o m Greece. Unfortunately, it was soon enough found that " Grico " is not all that easy to understand even for a Greek. Indeed, to most genuine Greeks, " Grico " is almost as incomprehensible as it is to an Italian. Increasingly, the peasants are growing conscious of the fact that " Grico " is not " proper " Greek. And this naturally diminishes any resistance they may have had to using Italian instead of Greek. They are, of course, quite ignorant of the long history of their dialect, and of the immemorially ancient tradition of Hellenism of their province. To understand why Apulia in general, and the Salento in particular were f r o m such early days part of the Hellenic sphere of influence, and

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why this influence has been so strong as to persist, in some way, to this day, a glance at a physical map of Italy is helpful: the province is surrounded by sea on three sides: only to the north is it connected to the mainland. But across this connection run the last foothills of the Appenine chain, foothills which rise steeply to heights above 1,200 feet, just north of a line from Brindisi to Taranto, and increasing to some 8,000 or 9,000 feet as one proceeds northwards. To the northwest, the province of Matera is nearly all mountainous and behind it rises the massif of the Sila. To the north, the highlands get increasingly steep and barren to culminate in the granite massif of the Abbruzzi. Two narrow plains on the coastlines give access to the gulf of Taranto on the east and to the long narrow strip of the Adriatic coastal plain. To this day the massif of Basilicata, north of Taranto, is almost impassable, and the railway line follow the coastal plain to the north, going around the obstacle. But, because the mountain chain runs continuously along the peninsula of Italy, the only possible way of reaching the Tyrrhenian coast is to cross the mountains. Even modern electric railways are shy of attacking directly the giants of the Sila and Basilicata, and the only railway line to Rome and the west, runs north to Foggia, where it turns inwards following the narrow valley of the Cervaro to Benevento on the western slopes of the Appenines, whence the road to Naples and Rome is downhill. These steep granite bastions form a wall which cuts off the Salento from the rest of Italy, and, if they are formidable to-day, they must have been completely impassable in past centuries. On the other hand, across the Adriatic, Corfu is only some 60 miles away, while the shortest distance between Otranto, the extreme eastern point of the Salentine peninsula, and the nearest point on the Balkan shore of the Adriatic Sea, the promontory of Cape Linguetta, just south of Valona, on the Albanian coast, is just under 50 miles. Indeed, from both Otranto and the cape of Santa Maria di Leuca, in the extreme southern tip of the Salento, it is possible, on clear sunny days to see on the eastern horizon the shadowy outline of the mountains of Epirus. Thus, while the province is hardly accessible from the landward side, it is easily reached by sea across the straits of Otranto, particularly as the eastern coast of the Salento is adequately furnished with natural harbours. The economic aspect too is important. The Salento is a fertile plain, producing olives, grapes, tobacco, and greengages. Since Roman days it was known for its strong heady red wine. It is part of the third great plain of Italy, the lowlands of Apulia coming immediately after the Po Valley and the Campanian Plain for extent of fertile land, and the Salento itself forms a considerable portion of the whole Apulian plain, which, except around Foggia, consists of a narrow strip between the

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mountains and the sea. The Salento however is flat for over two thirds of its area. A range of hills, the Murge Salentine, continues the Appenine Chain downwards, but they never rise over 600 feet, except in the commune of Ugento, just south of the formerly Greek commune of Casarano. The Murge run in a gentle curve, just inside the western coastline to its extreme southern point, Santa Maria di Leuca. Still fairly well covered by woods and olive groves, they give an idea of the original aspect of the province, before extensive and excessive deforestation had reduced it to the treeless sunburnt plain it is to-day. Though barely more than hills, the Murge are quite steep and rocky on their western slopes, which often run down to a precipitous cliff overlooking the sea. To the east, the slope is gentler. Indeed, the whole eastern half of the Salento forms the slope of the Murge, for, having climbed up the steep escarpments on the west to the ridge at the summit, one then descends to the Adriatic along a barely perceptible slope. Nonetheless, they have proved a sufficiently great obstacle to settlement and occupation, at least judging from the distribution of the villages. For these are much less frequent along the western coastline, and, as a rule, the western communes are considerably less thickly populated than the eastern ones. Thus whereas the commune of Calimera, in the east, has a density of population of 521 inhabitants per square kilometre, the commune of Nardo in the west has a density of 1 1 7 inhabitants per square kilometre. If such paltry heights could so affect the distribution of population, one can easily imagine how forbidding and impassable must have seemed the wolf-haunted granite peaks of the Appenines to the plain-dwellers of the Salento, and it is easy to understand why, through the centuries, the area was open to the cultural influences of Greece, lying across an easy and narrow channel, while it remained shut to any influence from the civilization of Rome, cut off from it by the unbreachable barrier of mountains to the north. One also perceives how inviting this low-lying plain, with its vast stretches or fertile land, must have seemed to the Greeks, struggling to eke a living out of their own rocky and mountainous soil. The history of the Salentine peninsula is not easy to trace. It is an area in which historians have not been very interested; and the history of the Salento is known only in so far as it affected the history of more important empires or states of which it was a part. Yet the first evidence of human occupation of the area goes back to Palaeolithic times. The Grotta Romanelli, one of a group of caves sited near the little coast-town of Castro, some 22 kilometres south of Otranto, explored and described by Blanc, contained a characteristic lithic industry of Gravettian type, together with some crude graffiti. The systematic archaeological exploration of the area has never been attempted, and it is probable that among

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the numerous caves in the limestone cliffs which form the peninsula's eastern coast, south of Otranto, there are a number containing traces of h u m a n occupation. However, even the unsupported evidence of the Grotta Romanelli is sufficient to prove that, as early as the Upper Palaeolithic period, men were already inhabiting the Salento. T h e Mesolithic and Neolithic periods are known only through scattered and accidental finds of pottery, and no satisfactory scheme can be built u p on such fragmentary evidence. But the numerous dolmens, menhirs, passage-graves and standing stones, which are found in great abundance all over the peninsula, though they have never been systematically excavated and studied, do show that the Megalith Builders on their way from the Aegean to the Balearics, Spain, Brittany and England, had here an important halting-place. Whether the Megalithic culture was actually carried f r o m the Aegean to Brittany by actual migration and colonization, or merely diffused along what must have been then a m a j o r trade route, it is certain that it had, in the Salento one of its m a j o r centres. Indeed, the megalithic remains are so numerous as to be inferior in quantity only to the cluster of megaliths centring around Carnac in Brittany. To this day, the little village of Alberobello, between Brindisi and Bari, is composed exclusively of houses put together by corbelling stones without mortar, after the model of the Megalithic corbelled tombs, showing the persistence of a tradition of building through an immensely long period of time. Alberobello is now classed as a " Monumento Nazionale " and is under the care of the Italian Ministry of Fine Arts, but such " trulli " or " trughi " (as these strange corbelled houses are locally called) can be found dotted about all over Apulia and the Salentine peninsula. How ancient any individual " trullo " is; whether it is an actual corbelled tomb of the Early Bronze Age, which successive generations have put to a different use than that for which it was originally built; or whether it is a fairly recent structure built according to an immemorially ancient pattern; it is impossible to say, in the lack of adequate archaeological evidence. But the persistence of such a tradition of building, through all these centuries, is evidence of the importance of the Megalithic culture in Apulia, as well as of the remarkable conservatism of the Apulian peasant. Some thousands of years after the disappearance of the Megalithic culture, the city of Lupiae (nowadays Rocca, a few miles f r o m Lecce) was known to the Romans, around the year 600 B. C., as a centre of Messapian power. Who the Messapians were is a moot question. The Greeks of Magna Graecia called all the tribes of Apulia Messapians. It was a handy term to cover those tribes of Apulia which did not speak Greek. The centre of

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Greek speech, at that time, was Tarentum (Taranto). From there, it spread to the southern part of the peninsula where, to this day, towns and villages exist with pure Greek names: Calimera ( = beautiful day in Greek), Gallipoli ( = Kali polis — beautiful city), Otranto ( = Hydrous, of the waters), Leuca ( = the white), Galatina ( = milky white), and numerous others. For some centuries, Greeks and Messapians lived undisturbed in Apulia. But, in the third century B . C., the Romans arrived in Apulia. The war with Tarentum was followed by the occupation of the whole Salentine peninsula: in 268 B . C . , the Romans under Attilus Regulus conquered Lupiae; and in 246 B . C. established a colony at Brundisium. Two years later, the Via Appia was extended through Tarentum to Brundisium. By the end of the century, the whole area was under Roman domination, and it remained Roman till the collapse of the Empire: in 476 A. D., the Goth Odoacer became king of Italy, and the Salento was invaded by the Goths. Reconquered by the Byzantines in 527, it was ravaged by the Ostrogoths of Totila in 542. Liberated once more by the Byzantines of Narses, it was once more invaded by the Lombards (or Langobards) in 568. However, the Lombard occupation was but a short one, and Apulia became once more part of the Eastern Roman Empire, under whose rule it was to remain until the Xlth Century. In the IXth and Xth centuries, Saracen raiders ravaged the country a number of times. In 860, Lupiae was destroyed, and its place as capital of the Salento was taken by the neighbouring city of Aletium or Lycium, a city which, in spite of its Messapian origin and of never being part of Magna Graecia, was sufficiently hellenized to claim to have been founded by Lictius Idomeneus, a mythical king of Crete mentioned by Homer in the Iliad. The only claim to importance that Lycium (the modern Lecce) could make, apart from its nearness (about 8 kilometres) to the ruins of Lupiae, was that it was the birthplace of the poet Ennius, whom the Romans considered the father of their epic poetry. The Byzantine rule of the Salento came to an end in 1069, when the Norman king of Naples and Sicily, Robert Guiscard de Hauteville, invaded and occupied Apulia, proclaiming himself Duke of Apulia, and making the Salento into a County of Lecce, which he gave in fief to his relative Geoffrey, son of Accard. From then onward, the Salento became part of the Kingdom of Naples. But, for over three centuries, it was practically an autonomous petty state, under its independent and aggressive Norman Counts. In 1445, however, Isabel of Clairemont, niece and only heiress of Antonio Orsini del Balzo, prince of Taranto and count of Lecce, married Ferdinand I of Aragon, King of Naples. At the death of the count of Lecce, in 1463, Ferdinand of Aragon inherited the county, which from then on became a fief of the Neapolitan crown. From now 3

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on, the county ceases to have an autonomous existence, and its history is but the history of the kingdom of Naples. Indeed, after the death of Frederic of Aragon, son of Ferdinand I, the Salento begins its long decline. Imperceptibly, it slips out of the main stream of history, until it becomes a forgotten province of the kingdom of Naples, which the Kings of Naples only remembered when they had taxes or tributes to collect. The land became the property of a small number of powerful families, most of whom did not even reside on their lands. Forgotten, mismanaged, misgoverned, the once prosperous province became what it is now, a quiet and poverty-stricken backwater, a depressed area which successive governments found it more convenient to forget. Unwise and excessive deforestation had, from early times, been taking place. Though the land was fertile, the wanton destruction of trees exaggerated the aridity of a land with already inadequate precipitation and no perennial rivers. That the Salento was once far more wooded an area than to-day is evidenced by place-names: not only was Lupiae, the Messapian capital-city, given a name incorporating the Italic word for wolves, but its Vth Century successor, Lecce, or Aletium, was also known by the Greek name Lykion (sometimes Lykia), meaning " of the wolves ", and from immemorial times the escutcheon of the city has been a sable she-wolf under a spreading oak. To this day, a live wolf is kept in the Municipal Park of Lecce, as a living blazon of the city. Yet no land is a less likely habitat for wolves than the modern Salento, a flat, almost treeless plain, with no rivers, and scarcely any streams, none of which can resist the drought of summer. The nearby mountains of Lucania are far more likely: high, wooded, granite peaks, still infested, in parts, by wolves, where the Appenines, after reaching their apogee in the Abbruzzi and the Gran Sasso, plunge steeply into the bay of Taranto. Apart from deforestation, the prosperity of the country was also affected by its political vicissitudes. As long as it formed part of Magna Graecia, or of the Byzantine Empire, it lay on the principal trade route from the Orient to Europe. Its harbours, Otranto, Brindisi, Taranto, Leuca, were great and prosperous centres of commerce. The collapse of the Western Roman Empire did not affect the area as much as it might have, as it still remained the obvious bridge between the Barbarian kingdom of Italy and its nominal suzerain, Byzantium. Even when the Lombard invasion severed all links between Rome and Byzantium, still trade naturally passed through Apulia. But it was now a distant and troublesome dependency of the Byzantine Empire: its fertility and prosperity was a constant temptation to the Barbarians who occupied the rest of Italy; the growing Saracen power was also striking at this undefended flank of the Byzantines: in 860, Lupiae was destroyed by the Moslems;

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in 924, Scalabin the Saracen ravaged the Salento; and the Byzantine Emperor was far too occupied preserving his territories in Greece and the Levant both from the encroaching Moslems and the often destructive zeal of Latin Crusaders, to care very much what happened to his Apulian territories. The Norman invasion and occupation revived the country: the Normans' vigorous rule brought a new prosperity to the land, and trade, with the other Norman dukedoms and principalities in the Mediterranean, began to flow through Apulian ports once more. But with the passing of the Norman power, Apulia became once more a politically and commercially unimportant dependency. Trade passed through new harbours to the west. The Arragonese was more interested in his Neapolitan and Sicilian domains. In 1428, the Turks invaded the Salento and utterly destroyed Otranto. In the Cathedral of Otranto, a visitor will be shown a grim reminder of that incursion: namely the skulls of the Otrantines massacred by the Turks on that occasion and preserved under glass ever since. This " Ossuary " is indeed one of the chief " sights " of the city. Otranto never recovered from that incursion of the Turks. The destruction of the most important harbour of the Salento meant that hence-forth the trade with the Levant passed through Brindisi and Bari, thus bypassing the province. In 1453, the fall of Constantinople gave the « coup de grace » to an already stricken province, and sealed its doom. At all events, after the XVth Century, the Salento drops out of history. But it might be fairer to say that the beginning of the decline was due to a great extent to the end of the Norman counts. Though nominally subjects of the Duke of Apulia and ultimately of the King of Naples, the Norman counts retained a considerable autonomy, and living on their lands were never completely separated from their serfs. Like all Byzantine possessions, the Salento followed the Greek Orthodox Church. Nonetheless, the missionary activities of the Roman Church, particularly during the Ostrogothic and Lombard interreigns, must have resulted in a considerable number of conversions to the Roman rite. At all events, in 968 A. D., the emperor Nicephorus Phocas found it necessary to issue an edict by which he elevated Otranto to the rank of Metropolis, in addition to which " ... nec permittat in omni Apulia seu Calabria latine amplius sed graece divina misteria celebrari " (" ... no longer permits in all Apulia or Calabria the divine services to be celebrated in Latin instead of Greek "). From that date, through all the vicissitudes afflicting the once-amical relations of the Roman and Greek churches, the Salento was de jure, and to a considerable extent de facto, part of the Greek Orthodox Church. But the Norman occupation brought an end to this and gave the victory to the Latins. Indeed, these fanatical warriors of Roman Catholicism could scarcely allow their province to be

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the subject of the " r i v a l " Church. Nevertheless, whatever the official religion of the area, the Greek rite persisted among the peasants, the fairly frequent contacts between Apulia and Byzantium keeping the Byzantine tradition alive. W i t h the replacement of Norman by Arragonese, coinciding within a few years with the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, Greek language and Greek rite both received a formidable blow from which they never recovered. True, the immigration of a number of refugees f r o m Albania and Epirus at the end of the XVth and troughout the XVIth century increased the ranks of the Orthodox. But these immigrants either centred in Lecce itself or passed « en masse » trough the province until they reached the mountains of Lucania where, in familiar environment, they established their villages, and went on living as they had previously done in Albania, remaining distinct f r o m the local population almost to this day. I n Lecce itself, the Albanian colony prospered giving its name to a whole street, Vico degli Albanesi, and survives to this day, not as a distinct segment of the population, but as a number of families which, more or less conscious of their origin, stubbornly persist in worshipping according to the Greek rite of their ancestors. Indeed, the one surviving Uniate Church of the Greek rite is San Niccolo de' Greci in Lecce, which though it is the parish of all followers of the Orthodox rite of the province, is mainly patronized by a number of families of Albanian origin in the city itself. I n the country, the Greek rite died out faster than the Greek language: to-day, even the Greekspeaking villages have churches of the Roman obedience, and worship according to the Latin liturgy. Nonetheless, there are enough Christians following the Orthodox rite to justify the frequent absences of the priest f r o m the church of San Nicolo de' Greci. Since he is the parish priest of all the Uniate Christians of the province, he alone can provide baptism, celebrate marriages, give the last sacrament, and recite the office for the dead. Marriages, baptisms, and, to some extent, burials can be carried out at San Niccolo itself; but it stands to reason that the dying are not expected to travel by coach or donkey-cart to Lecce to receive the last sacrament. Instead, it is the priest who goes to them. Hence, though it surprised me the first time, it was in reality quite reasonable to hear of the priest's frequent absences and the consequent closure of the church justified by the statement that he had to attend to one of his parishioners at the other end of the province. However few its followers, however diminished in importance, though almost moribund, the persistence of the Greek rite in the Salento, in the very heart of its capital, is significant of how deep and strong were the roots linking the modern Salentines to their Grecian ancestry.

TL

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This Greek tradition, however, manifests itself differently in different contexts. In the Grichia it is at its most obvious: there Greek speech still sounds around one, and is the language of the illiterate peasant, not the affectation of a historically conscious elite. Thus, at first sight, it is easy to exaggerate the importance of the linguistic phenomenon, at the expense of the Italian-speaking remainder. It is, in fact, what most of the scholars who have investigated the Greek dialect of Apulia, have done. Starting from the established fact of a Greek dialect still spoken by a large proportion of peasants in a given area, they have tended to stress the Greekness of this area, helped in this by the local name for the area, the Grichia, which identifies it with Greece and its inhabitants with Greeks, and by the attitude of the surrounding Italianspeaking population who tend to stress the language difference overlooking the remaining basic similarities. Yet this separation of the Grichia from the rest of the Salento is unreal. In the first place, the Grichia is not a territorial entity with well-delimited boundaries, though it has territorial connotations. In reality, it is impossible to delimit it on a map. It is true that a map of the nine communes where Greek is still spoken can be drawn. It is equally true that one can add to this map a number of communes where Greek was known to be spoken in the more or less recent past. Inevitably, such maps will have sharply drawn confines, simply because they will depict the administrative boundaries of the various communes. But such sharp and clear-cut demarcation lines are illusory. The reality is that the Grichia is, in the usage of the Salento, a vague concept, recognizing the linguistic difference, but making no formal statement as to territory. At no point can one say: " Here the Grichia starts ". Of no one can one say with absolute certainty: " He is or is not a Grico ". As an example: there are a number of persons in Calimera, born there of Calimeran parentage, who nonetheless do not speak a word of Greek and barely understand a few words of it; yet Calimera is one of the nine Greek villages. Are these people Grico? On the other hand, there are still a few families in Bari or Brindisi who have retained the dialect, though they have been living away from the Grichia for generations: are these families Grichi? Supposing, one limits the term to the inhabitants of a given area; where is one to draw the boundary? Nowhere is Greek the only language; there is no centre of Greek speech with the frequency of Italian-speakers increasing the further one departs from it; wherever one draws the boundary it will necessarily exclude some Greek speakers and include a number of Italian-speakers. Supposing one decides to drop the territorial basis, and reserve the name only to Greek speakers; it may seem, at first sight, more satisfactory, but closer examination will reveal glaring paradoxes, such as families artificially

38

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cut in half with, say, the mother and daughters speaking Greek, and the father Italian; or with parents who are Grichi and children who are not. You will also find that the Grichia is limitless, since there is nothing to stop an emigrant from carrying away with h i m his dialect, thus taking the Grichia to Rome or Naples or perhaps as f a r as the United States! I n fact, too much can, and has been made, of this name. I n reality, though its meaning in any given context is clear enough, it is essentially not precise. T h e meaning itself shifts according to contexts. Thus, two girls may say : " We are Griche ", or : " We come from the Grichia to explain their understanding of Greek; or an inhabitant of Lecce use the phrase " the Grichia" to indicate very approximately the area where one is likely to meet a Greek speaker. Again, it may be used disparagingly to mean an illiterate; or proudly to imply a superiority in a bilingual person to a mere Italian speaker. B u t it is impossible to define exactly. Thus, especially since the war, there are in Italy a number of persons one of whose parents, usually the mother, is Greek and whose knowledge of Greek is quite good; yet these are not Grichi under any usage of the word. There are even, in Apulia as elsewhere in Italy, persons of Greek origin, usually f r o m the Dodecanese, who, at the end of the war, emigrated to Italy but continued to speak Greek at home. These are not Grichi. So the use of Greek is not in itself sufficient. I n fact, it may be unnecessary. The ironic c o m m e n t : " Ask X : he is a Grico ", followed by the discovery that the person concerned can neither speak nor understand Greek is commonly heard. From all this, one would deduce that the Grichia is primarily a territorial concept. B u t again, though Calimera is in the Grichia, not all its inhabitants are Grichi. And the same is true of the other villages. The fact is that the concept of Grichia is one with a number of meanings. It is probably a very ancient one, dating back to a time when Greek was f a r more widespread and important than it is now. Perhaps one of my informants, a judge in Lecce, was right in tracing it back to the days of the Byzantine rule, when it would have had a precise territorial meaning, signifying, in fact, the areas under Byzantine control. If this is correct, and it is no more than a plausible hypothesis, it would explain the vagueness of the concept to-day. Its meaning would have been precise enough while Byzantine rule lasted; when it ended, the word would be retained for these areas where the population continued to use Greek and retained its Byzantine customs. As assimilation with the rest of Apulia progressed and a u n i f o r m culture spread through the province, it would become increasingly vague, though the stubborn persistence of Greek as a spoken dialect would keep it alive. To-day, the term is at once so vague and at the same time so specific as to defy definition. In reality, each user of the word implies

IL

SALENTO

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something slightly different, the exact nuance depending on the point of view of the speaker. On the whole, it is used as a convenient term for indicating these areas where Greek is still spoken, without, however, any exaggeratedly precise territorial connotation. The word for the inhabitants, Grico, is used more usually to indicate a person who is of a family that has spoken Greek in the past and has always resided in the Grichia, irrespective of the fact that he or she no longer speaks Greek to-day. I must stress that it does not mean a Greek speaker in general, nor does it mean a genuine Greek. The reason, of course, why the term is so vague and uncertain, is that assimilation has progressed to such an extent that a visitor who was ignorant both of Greek and of Apulian dialect would never notice any difference between a village which formed part of the Grichia and one that did not. The name of the village means nothing. The Salento abounds in Greek place-names, more or less recognizably so: Galatina, Galatone, Leuca, Gallipoli, Melissano, obviously enough owe their names to the Greek words for milk, white, a beautiful city, and bees; Lecce and Otranto are less obvious, yet go back to the Greek Anoxia and iiopouc which are connected with the Greek words for wolves and water respectively. Yet none of these places are in the Grichia to-day, though, according to Cavatzas, Gallipoli and Galatina once were. On the other hand, of the nine villages forming the Grichia to-day, only one has a recognizable Greek name, Calimera ( = beautiful day). The others, with the possible exception of Sternatia, have names which are typically Apulian and not recognizably Greek. Our traveller would get little help from the religion, since the churches in all the villages conform to the usual Roman Catholic type and the rite is the normal Latin one. The names on the shops would not help him: they are Apulian names, in fact Southern Italian names, and he would probably harvest a greater crop of Greek-sounding names in the poorer quarters of Naples than he would in the Grichia. There is no difference in the administration. The signs and notices on shops are all in Italian. Street-names, where they exist, are Italian too. If he was interested in folklore, he would find that with very minor local differences, which have no connection with the dialect spoken, the customs and superstitions were the same all over, and not remarkably different from those current throughout Southern Italy, south of Naples. Even granting that he was acquainted with Greek enough to recognize a badly-pronounced word, it would be unlikely if he could definitely decide one way or another, except perhaps in Sternatia or Zollino. Apulian dialect includes a number of recognizable Greek words which are used by Grichi and non-Grichi indifferently. Moreover, the Grichi are all

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THE STUDY

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bilingual and invariably use Italian when speaking to a stranger. I n fact, except for the fact that a tradition of Greek speech, which is to a greater or lesser extent carried on to this day, exists in some villages, and not in others, there is no difference between the Grichia and the rest of the Salentine peninsula. Indeed, so complete is the assimilation, that one wonders when reading scholars discussing the linguistic phenomenon whether they have not unconsciously exaggerated the issue. Indeed, one text given by Cavatzas, written by one of his informants in Grico (using Latin characters) and stressing the separateness of the " ennea choria seems to be due chiefly to the influence of the scholar himself and the inevitable boost in the status of Greek-speakers given by his obvious interest, rather than by any tradition of separateness. Indeed, on the whole, the Grichi themselves are somewhat vague as to the exact number of villages speaking Greek. One rarely gets a numerical answer, the usual reply being to name a few of them. Rarely is the list complete; though some do name villages which no longer speak Greek to-day. Furthermore, it should not be forgotten that illiteracy is extremely high (varying f r o m 35 % in Martano to 20 % in Soleto, and averaging about 25 % ) , while of those literate barely a h a n d f u l have gone beyond secondary school. It is unlikely that such an eloquent text (it is in verse) could have been obtained f r o m any but a person coming from the very literate, which f o r m a tiny majority in the village. Such highly educated persons living in such a despised and backward area would enthusiastically clutch at any straw to increase the prestige of the area, and what better boost to the prestige of the village t h a n the recognition by the distinguished foreign scholar of their unbroken descent f r o m Byzantium and Ancient Greece could there be? I n fine, without wishing to cast any aspersions on the very valuable work done by Cavatzas on the linguistic problem, I must say that I did not find that there was any feeling of apartness in the Grichia. On the whole, the opposite was true. If anything, the fact that, a quarter of a century ago, everyone in Sternatia spoke Grico was given as evidence of the backwardness of the area at that time, and contrasted to the situation to-day when schools, easier communications, etc., had greatly diminished the number of Greek speakers. No doubt, many will feel an attachment to the dialect spoken by their parents, even if they do not speak it themselves; and perhaps the interest shown in the dialect during the last half century by Italian and foreign linguists may have helped to keep it alive. But the overall picture is that of a rapidly disappearing dialect, nowadays spoken chiefly by the aged or the illiterate, which does not give its speaker any particular status or prestige. Moreover, it must be stressed that nowhere does Grico imply a barrier to com-

IL SALENTO

41

munications with other Salentines, since all Grico-speakers speak dialect as well. I n other words, t h o u g h Italian-speakers m a y speak n o t h i n g but Italian, all Greek speakers speak Italian as well. I n fine, to-day, at least, there is no significant difference between villages of the Grichia and those outside it. Indeed, so m a r k e d is the u n i f o r m i t y prevailing over the whole of the Salentine peninsula, t h a t what is t r u e of one village is t r u e of all. Hence, t h o u g h most of m y data comes f r o m Calimera, it is valid, in the m a i n , not only for all the Grichia, but, in m y view at least, for the rest of the Salento. One could go f u r t h e r , even, a n d suggest that village life is fairly m u c h of a k i n d and that, in the area of the north-eastern Mediterranean basin a similar climate, a basic c o m m o n cultural heritage, and a similar geology has to a great extent permitted a quite remarkable u n i f o r m i t y of life in the r u r a l areas not only of different provinces, but even of different countries. T h e r e are in the Grichia m a n y traits which are similar to those one finds i n villages i n Greece; b u t these are not typically Greek traits, any more t h a n they are Italian or A p u l i a n . T h e y belong to the common background of r u r a l life in the whole Mediterranean basin. T h e Grichi m a y still speak Greek; b u t they are not Greeks. Except for the dialect, w h a t they share w i t h villagers, in Greece, is the same as all the villagers of the Salento, irrespective of their language, share with G r e e c e : namely, a common origin, and a cultural background which was Greek for over a thousand years. T h e history of Greece and Apulia diverged considerably a f t e r the N o r m a n conquest of Apulia in 1061. B u t the life of the peasant went on m u c h as it had always done, and this stagnation increased r a t h e r t h a n declined t h r o u g h o u t the centuries as the long and sad decline of the province grew worse. Even to-day, it is only in the last twenty-five years that any m a j o r change has t a k e n place. Until the " twenties the life of the peasant has been the same wretched existence that h a d been lived for centuries, as the vicious clutch of an anachronistic and degenerate feudalism prevented any change. Hence it is not surprising that the Grichi are in essence not Greeks but Salentines. I n countries whose history goes back very f a r , there are always strange survivals of past epochs. Grico is one such survival in Apulia. Another is the survival of the Greek Orthodox Byzantine rite. Another still is t h e use of mortarless corbelling to roof houses in the fashion of the old Cretan graves which still survives in the province of Bari. A n d there are m a n y more. B u t it is significant t h a t they have different geographical locations. I n the Grichia, the churches are of the Latin rite; the followers of the Byzantine rite are, in the m a j o r i t y , not Grichi. Neither have a n y t h i n g to do with the builders of corbelled roofs. By some fortuitous chain of circumstances, here one trait, there another,

THE STUDY

42

OF AN ITALIAN

VILLAGE

survived anachronistically throughout the centuries. But the basic pattern of existence was identical throughout the province, and in the long run the basic identity of existence in rural Apulia is of more significance than such anomalies as the speaking of a Greek dialect or the following of a Greek form of worship — both of which, in fact, are rapidly dying out.

NOTES

1.

Lecce.

The earliest mention of the city I have been able to find is the Geography " of Ptolemy (Ilth Century A. D.) who mentions it under the name " Aletium": " Inter Brundusium et Hydruntum Lupia ad mare, et paullo interius Aletium " (Between Brindisi and Otranto lies Lupia by the sea, and a little inland Aletium), quoted by G. Paladini in Guida Storica ed Artistica della Citta di Lecce, Lecce, 1952. According to the article " Lecce ", in the 1951 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the city " occupies the site of a Messapian city of unknown name. Hardly a mile west was Rudiae, the birthplace of the poet Ennius. The name Lycea, or Lycia, begins to appear in the Vlth century ". The same article, however, gives " Lupiae " as the ancient name of the city, in its heading: " LECCE (anc. Lupiae) ". The last-quoted information, however, is wrong. All information available, quoted and discussed at length by Paladini (op. cit. Chap. X ) , stresses the separate identity of Lupiae as an important city on the shore of the Adriatic, while Lecce is 15 km inland. The site of Lupiae has been identified as being in the vicinity of the modern village of Rocca Vecchia. However, the confusion between Lecce and Lupiae is of ancient standing: Ferdinando Ughelli, in Italia Sacra, Rome, 1662 (Tomo I X , pp. 89 sq.), mentions " Aletini seu Lupienses, sive Lycienses Episcopi " and explains that after the destruction of Lupiae the bishopric of Lupiae was united with the bishopric of Aletium or Lycium (i.e. Lecce), thus leading to the confusion of the two originally distinct cities. The origin of the name " Aletium " is unknown. Pomponius Mela (1st Century A. D.) is quoted by Paladini as mentioning among the cities of the Roman Calabria (modern Salento) : " ... Brundusium, Valetium, Lupiae, Hydruntum ". If one identifies his " Valetium " with " Aletium ", this would be a correct list of the chief centres of the eastern coastline of Apulia, as they would be successively encountered by a traveller going southwards: Brindisi, Lecce, Lupiae or Rocca, and Otranto. The name " Lycea or Lycium ", which is a late form of the name seems to be a Greek translation of the Italic " Lupiae which seems to

IL SALENTO

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be connected with the Italic root for wolf. Probably the change from Aletium to Lycium" or " Lycea " was made at the time of the union of the two Episcopal Sees, in the Vlth Century A. D., and it is significant of the strong Grecian element in the city that the new name of the city was a deliberate transcription into Greek of an Italic word connected with wolves. The connection with wolves is witnessed to by the city arms which show a she-wolf standing beneath an oak, and by the live wolf kept in the Municipal Gardens as a living symbol of the city. 2. Otranto. The Latin name of the city is given as " Hydrus, Hydruntum " by the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1951 edition), and as " Hydrus " by the Dictionnaire Latin of Quicherat and Daveluy (Hachette, 1923), which traces the form " Hydrus " back to a Greek uSpoús. 3.

History.

There is no history available of the Salento as a whole. The various cities of the Salento are mentioned by historians whenever they make one of their rare appearances on the stage of Italian history. No mention is ever made of the rural centres. This is natural enough, since these were never of any strategic or political importance, and thus held no interest for Italian historians. Consequently, one can only trace the history of the province in very general outlines. For Lecce itself, the Guida Storica ed Artística della Citta di Lecce, by Guglielmo Paladini (Lecce, 1952) is an extremely useful book, because of the extraordinary amount of information it contains and its author's meticulous, almost pedantic, citation of his sources. Unfortunately, the plan of the book was mistakenly (in my view) made to conform to that of a touristic guide-book, so that the historical information is not presented in chronological order, but according to its relevance to the various topographical features described. This results in the fragmentation of the historical material: the various snippets of history do not follow one another in either logical or chronological sequence, but are scattered haphazardly through the book. This is extremely confusing, and makes it extremely difficult to get a clear view of the historical sequence of events. Nonetheless, as the book is still the most detailed historical work on the city of Lecce, and contains a great amount of information about the history of the province as a whole, I have had to depend upon it, in preference to the scanty passing mentions of Lecce and its County of more reputable histories. For the Norman period, a certain amount of information is incidentally given by S. Runciman in his monumental History of the Crusades (passim), which is also useful for the political background to the Schism between the Greek and Roman Churches. Runciman's The Sicilian Vespers (Cambridge University Press,

44

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VILLAGE

1958) gives a considerable amount of information as to the troubled condition of the Kingdom of Naples, after the end of the Norman dynasty, and during the Swabian occupation of the throne, and the Angevin usurpation. However, mentions of Lecce and the Salento are purely incidental, and extremely rare : Lecce is only mentioned twice by name, in connection with its Norman Count Tancred, and the Salento not at all. Mentions of Apulia are quite numerous, but incidental and of very general nature. See also S. Runciman, The Eastern Schism, Oxford, 1955; Gibbon, Decline

4 . Grico

and Fall

(passim).

G . G . N o r w i c h , The

Normans

in the

South.

dialect.

The Greek dialects of Italy have attracted considerable attention, and a full bibliography of articles and books discussing the question would take up far too much room. It is fully given in L'origine des dialectes néo-grecs de l'Italie méridionale by Stam. C. Cavatzas (Collection de l'Institut d'Études Byzantines et Néo-Helléniques, Fascicule 18, Paris, 1 9 5 8 ) . In addition, this last book gives a full discussion of the controversy over the origin of the dialect. The author rejects the hypothesis that the dialect is due to late Byzantine immigration into the area, showing that whenever any such immigration can be documented it is too insignificant, and too far removed from the area in question, to have seriously affected the language spoken in the Salento. Mention of the Greek dialects in Southern Italy is made also in The Tongues of Italy by Ernst Pulgram (Harvard University Press, 1 9 5 8 ) on page 50. Pulgram, quoting the German authority, Rohlfs, states that Grico " prevailed in forty nine villages in the XVIth century, in twenty nine about 1750, and in twelve... in 1928 " (op. cit., p. 5 0 ) . Since Grico is now spoken in only nine villages, the dialect must have completely died out in three villages in just over thirty years : this is a good indication of how rapidly the area is being latinized. Cavatzas is the most useful reference for anyone interested in the dialect, as, not only does he fully discuss the various opinions as to the origins of the dialect, examining the few historical documents which have some bearing on the question, but also carries out a thorough linguistic analysis of the phenomenon characteristic of Grico, namely the pronunciation of double consonants, and provides texts for comparison of Grico with other related Greek dialects, namely : the Greek dialect spoken at Bova in Calabria, Salentine Grico itself, and the dialects of Kymi, Cyprus, Karpathos, and Chio. The pronunciation of double consonants is stated by Cavatzas to be characteristic of the dialects spoken at Kymi, Seriphos, Siphnos, Kimolos, Amorgos, Astipales, Karpathos, Rhodes, Cos, the Dodecanese, Ikaria, and Chio, as well as at Livissi on the Turkish coast, Cyprus, and in Cappadocia. In Italy itself, there are two centres of Greek speech : one is the Grichia, the other consists of four villages and the little town of Bova,

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in the mountainous Aspromonte region of Calabria. In both areas, the former extension of Greek speech was far greater than the present one. Both are in isolated areas with little communication with the rest of Italy. The two dialects, Grico and Bovese, are related but not identical. This implies considerable isolation of those two centres, not only from the rest of Italy, but from one another. Note that the Greek speakers of either area are not aware that there exists in Italy another area where Greek is spoken.

CHAPTER

LA

II

GRICHIA

The Grichia to-day is made up of nine villages, and covers an area of approximately 144 sq. km, contained in an irregular rectangle some 10 by 14 km. Each village constitutes an independent commune; and since it is necessary to affix some arbitrary boundary to the Grichia, I have chosen to consider the boundaries of the Grichia as being identical with the external boundaries of the eight outer communes. This is a quite arbitrary procedure; but the Grichia is such a vague term that to fix topographical boundaries to it is necessarily a matter of personal choice or convenience. However, since there is a general agreement that these nine villages contain all the Greek speakers and since, when speaking of the Grichia, the Salentines refer to the area containing these particular villages, though admittedly without delimiting it with any preciseness, it is convenient to adopt the official boundaries of the external communes as those of the Grichia. These nine villages are, in decreasing order of importance: Martano with an area of 2,184 hectares and a population of 7,152 Calimera — 1,114 — — 5,805 Corigliano — 2,806 — — 5,376 Soleto — 2,995 — — 4,658 Castrignano — 952 — — 3,205 Sternatia — 1,661 — — 2,581 Zollino — 989 — — 2,226 Melpignano — 1,093 — — 2,089 Martignano — 635 — — 1,588 The area administered by each commune is not necessarily correlated to its population, with the result that the population density varies considerably, the highest density being that of Calimera (521 souls per

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