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The inscription of archbishop John of Split: Iconoclasm and dissidence in late 8th-century Dalmatia

A sarcophagus inscribed with the name of archbishop John (Hic requiiscet fragelis ei inutelis Iohannis peccator harchiepiscopus), has survived in Split and features carvings by the city’s earliest medieval workshop, the Split Stonecarvers' Workshop. This workshop’s carvings can be dated fairly accurately to the last few decades of the 8th century, and has been associated with Archbishop John, who attended the Council at Nicaea in 787. The remodelling of the interior of Split Cathedral corresponds chronologically with the episcopate of John of Ravenna, the earliest recorded prelate of Split – mentioned in Archdeacon Thomas’ 13th-century chronicle Historia Salonitana – who re-established the archbishopric of Salona in Split during the last decades of the 8th century. Judging from all the evidence, the sarcophagus in question belonged to this archbishop, sent from Rome as an exponent of papal-Carolingian policy at the end of 8th century. This paper will address a less studied feature of John's sarcophagus: its lid, decorated with a cross and bearing an inscription in Greek characters carved around the arms of the cross. The Greek inscription is contemporary to the Latin one (archbishop's epitaph) on the front side of the sarcophagus. The epigraphic formula IC XC NIKA ultimately derives from the military and imperial acclamations developed within the Byzantine court rituals and the solemn ceremonies held at the hippodrome in Constantinople. The Split inscription one of the earliest dated attestations of the formula IC XC NIKA (certainly in the West, but also in general). Furthermore, the inscription of Split is a unique example of bilingual and biscriptural epigraphy in early medieval Dalmatia – the only Latin epigraphic monument in Dalmatia with prosopographical data, containing a Greek text as well. A very similar formula was used since the early 8th century on Byzantine money, in Greek but using the Latin script: Ihsus Xristus nica. It was a kind of a substitute for the old formula Victoria Augustorum. Since the co-rulership of Leo III and Constantine V (in 720) a practice was introduced to mint and issue a silver miliaresion of exactly this type, in order to commemorate the coronation of the junior ruler ; the practice was upheld by every subsequent emperor, with few exceptions, up until 1025. Starting off as ceremonial money, miliaresion gradually became regular currency, and its original function pertaining to the coronation of co-rulers disappeared starting with the rule of emperor Theophilus (829-842). Byzantine money and its iconography were among the most important means of imperial propaganda, throwing further light on the cultural origins and models of the Split inscription. The aniconic formula IC XC NIKA was sometimes attributed to the Iconoclastic tendencies in contemporary Byzantine art, although the recent scholarship has persuasively shown that the formula originated prior to Iconoclasm, continued long after its disappearance, and was widely used by Iconodule emperors, as well. This paper will argue that – rather than in the context of Iconoclasm – the appearance of this comparatively rare and in those times rather unusual Byzantine formula (from the Western standpoint) in late-8th century Spalatum should be seen as a result of activities of the owner of the sarcophagus, archbishop John. This early and isolated example of Christ's monogram in Greek letters on a sarcophagus of a local archbishop probably stems from him attending the Council of Nicaea in 787. At the same time, bilingual and biscriptural character of the inscription is closely correlated to the special church-political and cultural position of the newly established Diocese of Split between West and East.

Early Middle Ages, Dalmatia, Split, Church, Iconoclasm, Epigraphy

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