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Nobile hoc Romani Imperii monumentum: Laudes imperiales in Byzantine Dalmatia

Despite the fact that direct liturgical sources of laudes dalmaticae chanted in honour of the Byzantine basileus have not been preserved, the existing historical sources, especially from the 11th–12th c., offer sufficient arguments for the conclusion that these imperial ritual acclamations were once really practised. Given the fact that the liturgical tradition of chanting laudes to the ruler was observed continuously all until modern times only in the eight Dalmatian maritime cities (Kotor, Dubrovnik, Split, Trogir, Zadar, Rab, Krk and Osor) which were once under the supreme political authority of Byzantium, and not in any other city, it is to be presumed that this kind of mediaeval ruler worship had existed already in the period the Byzantine theme of Dalmatia (θέμα Δαλματίας), created after the Aachen Peace in the year 812, and constituted of the same “octapolis”: Δεκάτερα, Ῥαούσιν, Ἀσπάλαθον, Τετραγγούριν, Διάδωρα, Ἄρβη, Βέκλα, Ὄψαρα. Furthermore, the inner structure of laudes dalmaticae, especially the cumulation of best wishes to the ruler (e. g. salus, honor, vita et victoria), as well as their position within the rite of liturgy, reveals that the oldest Roman-Byzantine roots of laudes dalmaticae are to be traced back to the imperial acclamations (εὐφημία) contained in ancient festivities such as Lupercalia. These acclamations were later liturgicized in the Constantinopolitan Rite and thereby undoubtedly influenced the practice of imperial worship in the whole Byzantine empire. However, one should specially point out that laudes dalmaticae represent the unique preserved trace of evidence of acclamations chanted in honour of the Byzantine Emperor within the realm of the Latin liturgical tradition. From the point of view of the local urban community, it is hard to overestimate the fundamental political, legal and religious value of laudes for the Byzantine basileus in Dalmatia. These liturgical acclamations did not have a mere symbolic significance, but represented “a token of submission and public recognition of the respective overlord and at the same time a pledge binding the Church as well as the people” (Kantorowicz). Furthermore, for the ordinary mediaeval people, these liturgical acclamations undoubtedly also served as a source of knowledge of the most important public law information related to questions such as: what were the highest state and church functions of that time, who were the current incumbents of those functions and what kind of hierarchy existed among them. Laudes dalmaticae faithfully fulfilled these purposes for more than one millenium: from the times of the Byzantine θέμα Δαλματίας until the end of the Habsburgian Königreich Dalmatien. This pulcherrimum Romani decoris monumentum in Dalmatia was really of a longue durée.

Laudes imperiales, Dalmatia, Byzantium, Emperor, Liturgy

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