Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta

: The Myhrr-exuding tomb of St Symeon of Serbia at Studenica; The latest results of the investigation of the royal tombs at the monastery of Studenica, Serbia, have inspired a reconsideration of the place of burial of some members of the Nemanjić family. There is further evidence that the tomb and sarcophagus of the ktetor, Stefan Nemanja, formed part of the original design for the church. Based on their construction and comparative material, it is assumed that the relics of St Symeon, upon their translation to Studenica, were laid in the sarcophagus from which they exuded myrrh. The myrrh-exuding of St Symeon is looked at against the broader background of cult practice in the Byzantine world. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177003: Srednjovekovno nasleđe Balkana - institucije i kultura]

: The Serbian emperor Stefan's icon from the Hilandar monastery; The Story of the miracle-working icons of the Hilandar monastery, written down in 1558/9 in Moscow, contains an interesting legend about the processional icon of the Mother of God Abramiotis(s)a with Christ and the representation of the Prophet Elijah on the background, still kept in the treasury of the Serbian monastery on the Holy Mountain. According to the legend, this icon, which was taken from Bitolj by the Serbian ruler Stefan Dušan, played the decisive role in the Serbian conquest of Serres in 1345. This Mother of God with Christ belongs to the rare Pelagonitissa type and it used to have revetment. To judge by its later copies, the icon was held in high reverence on the Serbian Court and later in the Hilandar monastery where the legend says the Serbian imperial couple brought it on the occasion of their visit to the Holy Mountain in 1347/8. On the basis of its style, the icon can be dated around the middle of the 14th century and it is a copy of the older and now non-existent Mother of God from Bitolj. However, the iconographic type was in existence also independently of Pelagonia, and it is safe to assume that its sources were probably in Constantinople. The unique epithet of the Hilandar icon also points to the Capital, or, more precisely to the monastery tSv AppocuiTrov, as the place of origin. In the second half of the 9th and in the 10th century, this monastery treasured a venerated icon of the Mother of God which was considered as Acheiropoietos. Nothing is known about the appearance of this icon, unless the Hilandar icon, dealt with in the present paper, represents its replica. The miracle-working icon of Pelagonitissa from Bitolj was probably treasured in the city cathedral, i.e. in the seat of the Pelagonian bishopric, dedicated to the Virgin, up to the Ottoman conquest and subsequent destruction of the town in 1385.

: The Serbian panagiarion from Vatopedi; The panagiarion made out of rhinoceros horn from Vatopedi is one of the few vessels of that kind which originate from the Middle Ages. Its creation can be dated to the end of the 14th, or first half of the 15th century, at the time of very lively relations between this Athonite monastery and the Serbian despotate. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177032: Tradicija, inovacija i identitet u vizantijskom svetu, registrovanom pod brojem]

: The Serbian state in the work of Byzantine historian Doucas; While the first two chapters of Doucas's historical work present a meagre outline of world history - a sketch which becomes a little more detailed from 1261 on, when the narration reaches the history of the Turks and their conquests in Asia Minor - the third chapter deals with the well-known battle of Kosovo, which took place in 1389. From that point on, the Byzantine historian gives much important information on Serbia, as well as on the Ottoman advances in the Balkans, and thus embarks upon his central theme - the rise of the Turks and the decline of Byzantium. Doucas considers the battle of Kosovo a key event in the subjugation of the Balkan peoples by the Turks, and he shows that after the battle of Kosovo the Serbs were the first to suffer that fate. At the beginning, Doucas says that after the death of Orhan, the ruler (o archgos) of the Turks, his son and successor Murad conquered the Thracian towns, Adrianople and the whole Thessaly, so that he mastered almost all the lands of the Byzantines, and finally reached the Triballi (Triballous). He devastated many of their towns and villages sending the enslaved population beyond Chersonesus, until Lazar, son of King Stefan of Serbia (Serbias), who ruled (kraleyōn) in Serbia at that time decided to oppose him with all the might he could muster. The Serbs were often called Triballi by Byzantine authors. For the fourteenth century writers Pachymeres, Gregoras, Metochites and Kantakouzenos the Serbs were Triballi. However, Pachymeres and Gregoras refer to the rulers of the Triballi as the rulers of Serbia. Fifteenth century writers, primarily Chalcondyles and Critobulos, use only that name. It seems, nevertheless, that Doucas makes a distinction between the Triballi and the Serbs. As it is known, the conquest of the Serbian lands by the Turks began after the battle on the river Marica in 1371. By 1387. the Turks had mastered Serres(1388) Bitola and Štip (1385), Sofia (1385), Niš (1386) and several other towns. Thus parts of Macedonia, Bulgaria and even of Serbia proper were reduced by the Turks by 1387. For Doucas, however, this is the territory inhabited by the Triballi. After the exposition of the events on Kosovo, Doucas inserts an account of the dispute of John Kantakouzenos and the regency on behalf of John V, which had taken place, as it is known, long before 1389. At the beginning of his description of the civil war, Doucas says that by dividing the empire Kantakouzenos made it possible for the Turks to devastate not only all the lands under Roman rule, but also the territories of the Triballi Moesians and Albanians and other western peoples. The author goes on to narrate that Kantakouzenos established friendly relations with the king Stefan Du{an, and reached an agreement with him concerning the fortresses towns and provinces of the unlucky Empire of the Romaioi, so that, instead of giving them over to the Roman lords, he surrendered them to barbarians, the Triballi and the Serbs (Triballoys te kai Serbous). When he speaks later how the Tatars treated the captives after the battle of Angora in 1402, Doucas points out that the Divine Law, honored from times immemorial not only among the Romaioi, but also among the Persians, the Triballi and the Scythians (as he calls Timur's Tatars), permitted only plunder, not the taking of captives or any executions outside the battlefield when the enemy belonged to the same faith. Finally, when he speaks of the conflict between Murad II and Juneid in Asia Minor, Doucas mentions a certain Kelpaxis, a man belonging to the people of the Triballi, who took over from Juneid the rule over Ephesus and Ionia. It seems, therefore, that Doucas, when he speaks of the land of the Triballi he has in mind a broad ethnical territory in the Balkans, which was obviously not settled by the Serbs only or even by the Slavs only. According to him Kelpaxis (Kelpazēsis) also belonged to the Triballi, although the name can hardly be of Slavonic, i.e. Serbian origin. On the other hand, he is definitely aware of Serbia, a state which had left substantial traces in the works of Byzantine authors, particularly from the time when it usurped (according to the Byzantine view) the Empire. Writing a whole century after Dušan's coronation as emperor, Doucas is not willing, as we shall see later to recognize this usurpation. Although he ascribes to Serbia, in conformity with the Byzantine conception of tazis, a different rank, he considers Serbia and the Serbs, as they are generally called in his work (particularly when he describes the events after the Battle of Kosovo) an important factor in the struggle against the Turks. Therefore he makes a fairly accurate distinction between the Serbs and the other Triballi. In his case, the term may in fact serve as a geographical designation for the territory settled by many peoples, including the Serbs. When he uses specific titles and when he speaks of the degrees of authority conveyed by them in individual territories Doucas is anxious to prove himself a worthy scion of the Romaioi, who considered that they had the exclusive right to the primacy in the Christian hierarchy with the Roman emperor at its top. He makes distinctions of rank between individual rulers. The Emperor in Constantinople is for him the only emperor of the Romans (basileys tōn Rōmaiōn). King Sigismund of Hungary is also styled emperor, but as basileys tōn Rōmanōn, meaning Latin Christians. The last Byzantine emperor Constantine XI Dragaš Palaleologus is not recognized as an emperor, and the author calls his rule a despotic rule (despoteia). He has a similar view of the Serbs. Thus he says, erroneously that Lazar was the son of King Stefan of Serbia (yios Stefanoy toy kralē Serbias) and that he ruled Serbia at that time (o tote tōn Serbian kraleyōn). Elsewhere, Doucas explains his attitude and says that o tōn Serbōn archgos etolmēsen anadusasthai kratos kai kralēs onomazesthai. Toyto gar to barbaron onoma exellēnizomenon basileys ermēneyetai. Lazar exercises royal power (kraleyōn) in Serbia, which is appropriate, for the author thinks erroneously that Lazar was the son and successor of King Stefan Du{an. It is significant that he derives the werb kraleyō from the Serbian title 'kralj', i.e. from the title which never existed in the Byzantine Empire. Moreover, there is no mention of this werb in any other Byzantine text. When he narrates how Serbia fell under the Turkish rule in 1439, Doucas says that Despot Đurađ Branković seeing his ravaged despotate (despoteian), went to the King of Hungary hoping to get aid from him. There can be no doubt that the term despoteia here refers to the territory ruled by Despot Đurađ Branković. Doucas correctly styles the Serbian rulers after 1402 as despots. The space he devotes to Serbia in his work, as well as the manner in which he speaks of it, seems to indicate, however, that he regarded it, together with Hungary as a obstacle of the further Turkish conquests in the Balkans. Doucas's text indicates that Serbia, though incomparably weaker than in the time of Dušan's mighty empire, was in fact the only remaining more or less integral state in the Peninsula. The riches of Serbia and, consequently, of its despots, is stressed in a number of passages. Almost at the very beginning Doucas says that Bayezid seized 'a sufficient quantity of silver talents from the mines of Serbia' after the Battle of Kosovo. When Murad II conducted negotiations with Despot Đurađ for his marriage with the Despot's daughter Mara, Doucas writes, no one could guess how many 'gold and silver talents' he took. Doucas also says that the Despot began to build the Smederevo fortress with Murad's permission. The building of a fortress has never been an easy undertaking and if we bear in mind that Despot Đurađ built the part of the Smederevo fortress called 'Mali Grad' (Small fortress) in two years only, we realize that his economic power was really considerable. When Fadulah, the counselor of Murad II, sought to persuade his lord to occupy Serbia, he stressed the good position of the country, particularly of Smederevo, and the country's abundant sources of silver and gold, which would enable Murad not only to conquer Hungary, but also to advance as far as Italy. After Mehmed II captured Constantinople, the Serbs undertook to pay an annual tribute of 12.000 gold coins, more than the despots of Mistra, the lords of Chios Mitylene or the Emperor of Trebizond. Already in 1454 the Despot's men brought the tribute to Mehmed II and also ransomed their captives. Critobulos's superb description of Serbia is the best testimony that this was not only Doucas's impression: 'Its greatest advantage, in which it surpasses the other countries, is that it produces gold and silver… They are mined everywhere in that region, which has rich veins of both gold and silver, more abundant than those of India. The country of the Triballi was indeed fortunate in this respect from the very beginning and it was proud of its riches and its might. It was a kingdom with numerous flourishing towns and strong and impregnable fortresses. It was also rich in soldiers and armies as well as in good equipment. It had citizens of the noblest rank and it brought up many youths who had the strength of adult men. It was admired and famous, but it was also envied, so that is was not only loved of many, but also disliked by many people who sought to harm It'. It is no wonder that George Sphrantzes once complains that Christians failed to send aid to Constantinople and that he singles out for particular blame that 'miserable despot, who did not realize that once the head is removed, the limbs, too disappear'. It may be said, therefore, that Doucas regarded Serbia as one of the few remaining allies of at least some ability to stem the Turkish advances, and that this opinion was primarily based on its economic resources. Serbia was clearly distinguished as a state structure, as opposed to most of the remaining parts of the Peninsula, inhabited by peoples which Doucas does not seem to differentiate precisely. According to him, the authority over a particular territory issued from the ruler's title, the title of despot, which was first in importance after the imperial title, also determined the rank of Serbia in the Byzantine theory of hierarchy of states. Doucas's testimony also shows that this theory not only endured until the collapse of the Empire, but that it also persisted even in the consciousness of the people who survived its fall.

: The Serbian translation of the "Evergetis synaxarion" in two Sinaitic manuscripts; When the Greek substrate of the Hilandar (and Studenica) typikon was discovered, scholars raised the issue whether the complete Greek text of the Evergetis Typikon had been translated into the Serbian language or not (1895). There were several attempts to prove that a complete version of the Evergetis Typikon had been used in the territory under the jurisdiction of the Serbian Church before the introduction of the Jerusalem Typikon (1318/1319). In the Description of the (Old) Manuscript Collection of the Sinai Monasteries, Đorđe Sp. Radojičić suggested that there must have been a Serbian Small Euchologion (trebnik, hagiasmatarion) with a synaxarion modelled in accordance with the typikon of the monastery of the Virgin Evergetis. Over the past several decades, attention has also been drawn to the presence of liturgical rules typical of the Evergetis Typikon in Serbian liturgical books (menaia and oktoechoi) from the late 13th and early 14th century, but no definitive answer has been given to the question whether the whole liturgical section of the Evergetis Typikon was translated at the time of Saint Sava (at the turn of the 12th and 13th centuries) or it happened later. The character of the Evergetis synaxaria, which were on various occasions identified in two Sinaitic manuscripts though no mutual relationship between them was established, also remains unknown. This paper seeks to offer a partial answer to these questions, with the idea of encouraging new research that will provide as detailed picture as possible of liturgy in the Serbian Church in the 13th and 14th centuries. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 178030: Obrada starog srpskog pisanog nasleđa i izrada Rečnika crkvenoslovenskog jezika srpske redakcije]

: The Serbo-Bulgarian relations at the end of the 13th century; Relations between the Serbs and the Bulgarians at the end of the 13th century has been a part of global international relations in the Balkans and in the Danube region. The Tatars (Mongols) as the powerful warring people represent external factor that highly influenced those relations. They also made powerful impact on the Serbian and Bulgarian states of the time. The relations between the Serbs and the Bulgarians had not been at the time determined by their attitude toward the Byzantine Empire which was of the Serbian state, while Bulgaria went through tough period of disintegration of the central power. The internal affaires of those two states influenced their mutual relations. During the war with the Byzantine Empire, king Milutin tried to keep Bulgaria on his side, which is the reason why he became related by the marriage to the Bulgarian imperial family. However, strong involvement of Nogay made this alliance non-useful. After 1299 Serbia lost interest for Bulgaria, and behavior toward the queen Ana made two states enter the 14th century as the enemies. The close relations would be maintained with Vidin. In the frame of those relations Milutin's marriage and release of the Bulgarian princess Ana should be regarded, while Stefan's marriage had been motivated differently and happened around 1305/1306.

: The Skylla group in Constantinople’s hippodrome; The Skylla group was among the most famous bronze sculptures installed in the hippodrome at Constantinople. This paper suggests that the Skylla was a feature of Constantinople at its re-foundation, but perhaps originally stood facing the Bosphorus. In around AD 400 it was moved to the hippodrome where it stood until its destruction in 1204, and where it may for some time have served as a fountain.

: The Slavs and Vlachs in the Byzantine system of provincial organization in the Southern Balkans until the XI century; The paper is devoted to establishing the circumstances and manner under which the Slav tribes and Vlachs in the southern Balkans were being integrated into the Byzantine system of provincial administration. Constantinople militarily imposed sovereignty on the settled Slavs, which was the first step towards their integration into the Byzantine state and society. When it comes to Vlachs, there was no use of military force. Special methods were applied to fit their autonomous organization into the frames oh the empire. In this regard, the paper compares the patterns of the integration processes of the two mentioned ethnic groups. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177032: Tradicija, inovacija i identitet u vizantijskom svetu]

: The Slavs of the mid-Danube basin and the Bulgarian expansion in the first half of the 9th century; The Annals of the Frankish kingdom, under the year 818, contain a description of the arrival of legations of certain Abodrits, Guduskans and Timotans at the Frankish court in Heristal. This paper is devoted to an attempt at the further identification of these tribes and their habitats. It mainly discusses the possibility that the Timotans and Abodrits should be recognized as two of the so-called Seven Slavic tribes, over whom the Bulgarians imposed their power in 680/681. The final part of the paper is dedicated to an overview of the question of the expansion of Bulgarian authority in the area of the Morava River valley.

: The agreement to exchange (permutatio) in roman, Byzantine and Serbian mediaeval law; The first part of this paper is dedicated to the definition of the agreement to exchange (permutatio) and emphasizes the difference, made by Roman lawyers, between exchange (barter) and sale (emptio-venditio). The second part analyses Byzantine legal sources that mention this old contract, while the third part is dedicated to Serbian legal documents. In Serbian legal documents the exchange was mentioned as the agreement between a monarch and a monastery or a natural person (individual), concerning donations that were given to the Church.

: The authority of the ecumenical patriarch in the Orthodox Church; During the 20th century, the exact role and the scope of jurisdictional authority of the Ecumenical Patriarch was an object of attention of both theologians and historians. The problem of defining the Patriarch was reactualized through the intensification of conciliar negotiations of Orthodox Churches. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate that the pretensions of the Ecumenical Patriarch for universal jurisdiction over the entire Orthodox Diaspora, and the pretensions for the right of final arbitration in the ecclesial matters of the entire Orthodox communion, do not have a support in the Orthodox Ecclesiology. This will be argued in a historical analysis of the relevant prescriptions of the Eastern Orthodox Canon Law, which will be placed into the context of the history of the Christian Church, primarily of the Patristic period, since there disciplines play a vital role in the Orthodox understanding of Ecclesiological Tradition.

: The beauty of dialog; On the basis of the chosen Latin primary sources on religious disputes held by the Greek and Latin theologians in the 12th century we assess the intellectual climate in both camps in the eve of the great crisis and the outbreak of mutual hostilities after the government of the Emperor Manuel I. Komnenos, as well as the concrete contribution of these disputes to the Western intellectual culture.

Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta

Primary tabs

Pages

Pages

You are here

Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta

Primary tabs

Pages

Pages

User login