DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.63447#0465
DEVELOPMENT OF ART.
449
losing ground in the Southern Provinces. Even after the
Latin rite was established in the churches we find in many
of those provinces, the Greek service continued long to be
performed simultaneously with it, though in another part
of the building.
Records still extant prove that Greek was the habitual
language spoken by the educated classes, and even to this
day, in rural life, in some of the provinces, youths sing,
under the windows of fair maidens, love songs, handed
down by tradition, in a sort of rustic Greek; bearing about
the same relation to the language of Homer that rustic
Latin bore to that of Virgil. The monks of the order of
St. Basil (the only one recognised in the Orthodox Greek
Church) also instructed the higher orders in the Greek lan-
guage, and held schools for youth in the numerous monastic
establishments they possessed in the Southern Provinces.
Public colleges, in which Greek was the only language
spoken, were originally founded at Otranto, Nardo, and
in other provinces1, and were never formally suppressed.
Numberless MSS. are found in the Greek language dating
from the Swabian and Norman era. Frederick II. is
described as being a perfect master of the language. But
the most important and convincing proof of the influence
of the Greek language was the publication of the “ Laws
and Institutions ” of Frederick II. These were intended
as the code of the Kingdom of Sicily and Naples, and were
written both in Greek and in Latin; the former was spoken
and written in the debased form known as Alexandrine
Greek, and is much the same as has come down to our
days ; it is not so noble and pure, indeed, as that of an-
cient Greece, but it is a harmonious and varied and im-
pressive language, living and breathing still over a great
part of the Levant. The dialect called Romaic, or Lingua
franca, which has been adapted to suit the commercial
and daily wants of innumerable populations, is based on
a very impure Greek; and from that foundation it springs
into many accommodating transitions, which render it
indispensable to the lower orders.
1 Signorelli, “ Vicende della coltura delle Due Sicilie.”
449
losing ground in the Southern Provinces. Even after the
Latin rite was established in the churches we find in many
of those provinces, the Greek service continued long to be
performed simultaneously with it, though in another part
of the building.
Records still extant prove that Greek was the habitual
language spoken by the educated classes, and even to this
day, in rural life, in some of the provinces, youths sing,
under the windows of fair maidens, love songs, handed
down by tradition, in a sort of rustic Greek; bearing about
the same relation to the language of Homer that rustic
Latin bore to that of Virgil. The monks of the order of
St. Basil (the only one recognised in the Orthodox Greek
Church) also instructed the higher orders in the Greek lan-
guage, and held schools for youth in the numerous monastic
establishments they possessed in the Southern Provinces.
Public colleges, in which Greek was the only language
spoken, were originally founded at Otranto, Nardo, and
in other provinces1, and were never formally suppressed.
Numberless MSS. are found in the Greek language dating
from the Swabian and Norman era. Frederick II. is
described as being a perfect master of the language. But
the most important and convincing proof of the influence
of the Greek language was the publication of the “ Laws
and Institutions ” of Frederick II. These were intended
as the code of the Kingdom of Sicily and Naples, and were
written both in Greek and in Latin; the former was spoken
and written in the debased form known as Alexandrine
Greek, and is much the same as has come down to our
days ; it is not so noble and pure, indeed, as that of an-
cient Greece, but it is a harmonious and varied and im-
pressive language, living and breathing still over a great
part of the Levant. The dialect called Romaic, or Lingua
franca, which has been adapted to suit the commercial
and daily wants of innumerable populations, is based on
a very impure Greek; and from that foundation it springs
into many accommodating transitions, which render it
indispensable to the lower orders.
1 Signorelli, “ Vicende della coltura delle Due Sicilie.”