2. Literature of the Dalmatians or Illyrico-Servians of the Romish Church.
a) GLAGOLITIC LITERATURE.
It is not without some hesitation that we approach a region, into which we cannot penetrate without stepping through a border of perfect darkness. We allude to the introduction of the Glagolitic alphabet; the great antiquity of which, supported by numerous traditions and legends, as well as by its venerable and almost hieroglyphic look, Kopitar's recent investigations and discoveries have again made probable; without, however, throwing any more light upon its origin.
As Christianity was first introduced into Dalmatia by Romish priests, the Latin language was of course adopted for religious purposes. But so soon as the people became acquainted with the liturgy of Methodius in a language intelligible to them, this innovation met with such a general and heartfelt welcome, that all the severe decrees of synods, nay, of the holy chair of Rome itself, were unable to stop its progress.
Even more than a hundred and fifty years afterwards, when Methodius was solemnly declared by pope Nicolas II. a heretic, and the Romish mass again introduced, the attachment to their own language was too deeply rooted to be taken away at once. Hence the Old Slavic idiom, with the pope's reluctant permission, continued to be the language of the Church service. It appears, however, that the alphabet which their priests employed for writing their ecclesiastic documents, was not the same with that used by other Slavi of the oriental church: but was of a different character, and evidently not derived from the Greek, with the exception of a few letters. It was called the Glagolitic.
Glagol signifies in Old Slavic the word or rather the verb;[pg.124] but the reason of the application of this term to the Illyrico-Servians of the catholic communion (Glagolitæ), and to the language of their sacred writings (Glagolic or Glagolitic), has not yet been ascertained; all that has as yet been asserted by Slavic philologians being mere hypothesis. The oldest monument known up to 1830. in which these letters were extant, was a Psalter of A.D. 1220. This Psalter was by tradition ascribed to St. Jerome himself, who was in general called the inventor of the Slavic, that is the Glagolitic alphabet. According to a popular legend of the Dalmatians, this father, who was a native of Illyria, also translated the whole Bible into the Slavic; but it has been since clearly proved, that while (as is well known) he corrected the old Latin version of the Bible, he yet never wrote a single line of Slavic.
The mystery, in which the origin of the Glagolitic was and still is buried, gave birth to the singular hypothesis already above mentioned.[[129]] The discovery however of several very ancient Glagolitic manuscripts, and especially of one which could be proved to be older than the Council of Spalatro[[130]] destroyed it at once; but unfortunately, without clearing up the mystery either of its invention or of its introduction.
Another Glagolitic manuscript of some interest may be mentioned here. It was generally known, that the kings of France were accustomed, at their coronation at Kheiras, to take the oath on a large book, called Texte du Sacre, bound in gold or gilding, and covered with unwrought precious stones, which contained the Gospels written in some unknown hieroglyphic language. When in 1717 Tzar Peter I. visited Rheims, this book was shown to him among other curiosities, and he exclaimed at once: "This is my own Slavonic!" This view was soon spread[pg.125] among Slavic scholars. But the precious parchment was written in two columns, and in two languages. What idiom could the other be? The French, it is said, took it for Greek: more probably for Coptic. In 1789, a learned English traveller, Thomas Ford Hill, was shown some Glagolitic manuscripts in the imperial library at Vienna; whereupon he declared without hesitation, that this was the mysterious writing of the Rheims manuscript. Before the Vienna scholars, Dobner and Alter, then at the head of Slavic matters, had time to investigate the matter further, the revolution broke out, and the precious document disappeared. No trace was left of it; and for half a century the patriotic Slavic scholars supposed they had cause to lament the loss of a document of the very highest antiquity. It was conjectured that the book had originally been brought to France by some Slavic princess; for instance, by a princess of Kief, who is said to have been sent for by Henry I., son of Hugh Capet and king of France in the beginning of the eleventh century. Application was made on the subject to Sylvestre de Sacy; whose report gave some hope, that the precious relic might still be preserved. Search was made by Kopitar in Italy and at Paris, but all in vain. At last it was again found at Rheims by the Russian scholar Stroyef;[[131]] who, however, seems not to have been acquainted with the Glagolitic writing, and therefore laid little stress on it. The volume was stripped of its costly ornaments, and had therefore been the more easily recovered during the reign of Napoleon; who endeavoured, as much as was in his power, to restore the spoils of the revolution, while he himself filled Paris with the spoils of all other nations.
The librarian at Rheims, in order best to meet the numerous inquiries of Slavic scholars, caused a fac simile of it to be taken; audit was finally committed to the learned Kopitar's care. It was now discovered, that this long deplored document contained two[pg.126] unconnected portions of the Gospels; one in Cyrillic letters, the other, considerably longer, in Glagolitic; and both executed with remarkable calligraphic skill. The Glagolitic portion was marked with the date 1395. It was written at Prague, and presented by the emperor Charles IV. to the Abbot of Emaus; with the injunction, that these Evangelia should be chanted at mass; and the remark was added, that the accompanying Cyrillic portion was written by St. Procopius with his own hand. Procopius was one of the patron saints of Bohemia, who died in 1053. How this valuable manuscript was finally removed to France, is still unexplained. At Rheims nothing further was known, than that it had been presented by the Cardinal of Lorraine in A.D. 1554. A rumour ascribed to the Cyrillic portion a Greek origin; the Glagolitic part was generally considered as a relic from St. Jerome's own library. This supposed immediate connection with two saints, may well account for the reverence with which the book was treated in France.[[132]] A splendid edition of this work, under the patronage of the emperor of Russia, was prepared by Kopitar, and appeared in 1843 at Paris.[[133]]
Although the use of the Slavic language was in a certain measure authorized by the pope, yet the clergy of Dalmatia preferred unanimously the Latin for their theological and ecclesiastical writings. The Glagolitic literature was therefore almost exclusively limited to copies of the productions of their Cyrillic brethren. The Glagolitic letters had, however, the precedence of the Cyrillic alphabet, in respect to printing. The first printed Glagolitic missal, is of the year 1483; whilst the earliest work[pg.127] printed in the Cyrillic letters is not older than A.D. 1491. In the sixteenth century books were printed at Zengh (Segna), at Fiume, at Venice, and at Tubingen, with Glagolitie letters. In the year 1621, the emperor Ferdinand II. presented the Propaganda with a font of Glagolitic types, which he obtained from Venice. Several improved breviaries and missals have since been printed at Rome. In our day, this city possesses the only Glagolitic printing office in existence. On the Dalmatian islands, books are still copied in manuscript, just as before the invention of printing.