Zerezindo

Zerezindo (died 30 July 578) was a Visigothic "dux" (duke), probably of Baetica, where he was buried. [ [http://thales.cica.es/rd/Recursos/rd99/ed99-0448-01/historia.htm Historia de Villamartín.] ] His funerary inscription was found in the house once belonging to Juan Álvarez de Bohorques in Villamartín in Écija. It reads: [Ernst Willibald Emil Hübner (1871), [http://books.google.ca/books?id=hFcW9mYpf0sC "Inscriptiones Hispaniae christianae edidit Aemilius Hübner: adiecta est tabula geographica"] (G. Reimerum), 26.]

A † ω
ZEREZINDO · DVX · FD
VIXIT ANNOS PLVS MINVS
XLIIII · OBIT · III · KAL · AG
ERA · D · C · XVI

The first line of the inscription, a symbol of Jesus Christ, shows the Greek letters alpha and omega on either side of a cross. The rest of the inscription reads "Zerezindo, duke, FD, lived forty-four years and died on the 3 kalends of August of the Era 616." The interpretation of "FD" has illuded scholars. Rodrigo Caro and Fray Christoval de San Antonio read it as "filius ducis", "son of the duke", implying that Zerezindo's father was also a duke. Juan Francisco Masdeu reads it as "Famulus Dei", "servant of God", and cites the inscription of a certain Exuperantius from the same year near Frexenal. [Juan Francisco Masdeu (1791), [http://books.google.ca/books?id=rxFXAAAAMAAJ "Historia critica de España, y de la Cultura Española"] (A. de Sancha), 361–2.] It has also been intrepreted as an abbreviation for "fidelis", "faithful one, loyal one [of the king] ".

The most intereting fact about Zerezindo is his Germanic name and the implication of his headstone that he was a Catholic at a time when most Visigoths were Arian Christians. [E. A. Thompson (1960), "The Conversion of the Visigoths to Catholicism," "Nottingham Mediaeval Studies", 4, 8 n19.] This is especially noteworthy considering his high rank; a Catholic Goth had managed to ascend to the uppermost military rank in an Arian noble society. [E. A. Thompson (1969), "The Goths in Spain" (Oxford: Clarendon Press), 37n.]

Etymologically, Zerezindo's interesting name attests to his probable Gothic identity. [Though it is possible he was a Hispano-Roman—they were mostly Catholics—with a Germanic name.] His name has been normalised as Seresind ("Seresindus"). [Adalbert Kuhn (1872), [http://books.google.ca/books?id=yom2sX6ncIIC "Zeitschrift für vergleichende Sprachforschung auf dem Gebiete der indogermanischen Sprachen"] (Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht), 435.] The Germanic root of its first component may be "swērs" ("swear"); [Gerhard Köbler (1989), "Gotisches Wörterbuch" (BRILL), 707.] or perhaps "skari" ("band"). [Moritz Goldschmidt (1887), [http://books.google.ca/books?id=AxUTAAAAYAAJ "Zur Kritik der altgermanischen Elemente im spanischen"] (Druck von J. L. v. d. Velde Veldmann), 60.] The latter component comes from "swinþs/ô" ("strength").

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