440 Mele
3 Glimmers of Byzantium in Sardinian Liturgy and Music
After the short-lived dominance of the Vandals in Sardinia (456/466–533/534),
the island remained under Byzantium rule for about 500 years, from the sixth
to the tenth or eleventh centuries. But political hegemony does not always
imply, ipso facto, ecclesiastical jurisdiction, and even less a liturgical-musical
one. The presence of Greek-Byzantine religiosity and devotion on the island
should always be justified by concrete evidence.25
Among the few accounts of the abbot Theodore the Studite (759–826)
there is a document written by Nicephorus Callistos (1256–1335) which at-
tests to the existence in Sardinia of canons of the Byzantine liturgy in the form
of Triódon by the middle of the ninth century.26 At the same time, in papal
and Carolingian courts, as well as in Byzantium, a song of cheer (laus regia)
was performed; it was in the formula Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus
imperat.27
In the Byzantine context, hymns of praise for the emperor were called
euphemía. Interestingly, in the second book of his De caerimoniis, Emperor
Constantine Porphyrogenitus (945–959), who was fond of painting and music,
refers to “the imperial hymn of praise sung by the people of Sardinia (he para
tôn Sardon adoméne euphemía tois basileûsin) .”28 The Leipzig code, which
25 On the cultural and linguistic aspects of Byzantine Sardinia, see Giulio Paulis, Lingua e cul-
tura nella Sardegna bizantina: Testimonianze linguistiche dell’influsso greco (Sassari, 1983);
and Paolo Maninchedda, Medioevo latino e volgare in Sardegna (Cagliari, 2007), pp. 57–92.
For an ecclesiastical history see Turtas, Storia della Chiesa, pp. 140–175; Infra Turtas. On
the history of the arts, see Roberto Coroneo, Scultura mediobizantina in Sardegna (Nuoro,
2000); and Roberto Coroneo, Arte in Sardegna dal IV alla metà dell’XI secolo (Cagliari,
2011): Infra Coroneo. And on liturgical and musical history, see Giampaolo Mele, “Note
storiche e paleografiche sui manoscritti liturgici nella Sardegna medioevale,” in Studi
Storici in memoria di Alberto Boscolo, ed. Luisa D’Arienzo, 3 vols (Rome, 1992), pp. 147–149;
Giampaolo Mele, “Il canto delle ‘laudes regiae’ e una ‘euphemía’ di Sardi a Bisanzio nel
secolo X,” in Miscellanea di studi in onore del Cardinale Francesco Maria Pompedda, ed.
Tonino Cabizzosu (Cagliari, 2002), pp. 213–222; and Giampaolo Mele, “Notula su culto e
canti nella Sardegna bizantina,” in Orientis radiata fulgore: la Sardegna nel contesto storico
e culturale bizantino: atti del convegno di studi, Cagliari, 30 novembre–1 dicembre 2007, eds
Lucio Casula, Antonio M. Corda, and Antonio Piras (Cagliari, 2008), pp. 247–261.
26 Jacques-Paul Migne, ed., Patrologiæ Cursus Completus [...]. Series Graeca (Paris, 1856–
1866), no. 99, cols 312–313.
27 Ernst Hartwig Kantorowicz, Laudes regiae: A Study in Liturgical Acclamations and
Medieval Ruler Worship (Berkeley, 1946); See also, Mele, “Il canto delle ‘laudes regiae’,”
pp. 213–222.
28 Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus Completus [...]. Series Graeca, no. 112, col. 1212.