| Popis: |
In this paper the primary focus is on several examples of “belief ” in the Medieval Croatian Glagolitic culture in Istria and the Kvarner. First and foremost, the Plomin Inscription or, perhaps better stated, graffiti, is one of the oldest epigraphic monuments and also the oldest Croatian Glagolitic inscription in general, from the 11th century. It is kept in the Church of St. George the Elder in Plomin (Istria). This is a stone record (se e pisъlъ s /…/, i.e., written/drawn or carved/ by s…) secondarily carved onto a Late Antique slab featuring a relief image of the Illyrian-Roman god Silvanus or, less likely, some private individual, but then later interpreted as St. George (‘George the Green’). During recent archaeological excavations in Hungary, in the village of Zalavár (Cro. Blatnograd), south-west of Lake Balaton, a potsherd was found on which there is a (so-called ‘runic’) symbol identical to the one on the Plomin Inscription, and possibly two more triangular Glagolitic letters (slovo and azъ) or some manner of symbol (a cross). The second example is from Beram in Istria, from the Church of St. Mary on the Stones (‘na Skrilinah’), in which a fresco contains a depiction of “the fool” (insipiens) or the image of the mythical Sporyš, who oversees the fertility of the harvest as a component of pagan symbolism. The third example of specific belief in the Glagolitic culture can be shown in a case of folk superstition recorded in the Glagolitic parishes on the island of Krk in the 16th and 17th centuries. Namely, after the Council of Trent, data on heretics, non-believers, the excommunicated, and also witches, soothsayers, werewolves, etc. are contained in the records of the canonical visitations by bishops. It was the Church’s intent to combat such phenomena among the populace. All of these examples demonstrate marginal forms of belief which were partially inherited from the pre-Christian times, and partially appeared owing to the influence of individuals in search of healing through ‘folk medicine’ or originated in imagination of the populace itself. |
