Zbornik Radova Vizantološkog Instituta
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Publisher: Institute for Byzantine Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts
ISSN: 0584-9888
eISSN: 2406-0917
Pages
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- The historical methodology of Anna Komnene
- In this paper we examine Anna Komnene’s editorial procedure in Book XII chapter 3 of the Alexias and reappraise her historical methodology. We investigate the two dates at the end of XII.3.1, which are incompatible: the indiction does not correspond to the regnal year. Our investigations come to the following conclusions: Anna composes XII.3 using reliable sources, Alexios I’s official letters and court logbook; both of the dates originate in the trustworthy imperial documents that she consulted; the discrepancy between the two, commonly regarded as a mistake made by Anna, was caused by editorial work on the text after her death. As far as we can tell from XII.3, her method of historical composition is entirely clear and this suggests that the Alexias is a reliable historical source.
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- The icon of the Holy Virgin Vatopedini with a portrait of Voevoda Ioan Radul
- In this article, the author discusses iconography and stylistic characteristic of the icon featuring the Virgin Vatopedini with the Hungarian-Wallachian Voevoda loan Radul. The icon is treasured in the cathedral church of the Holy martyr Demetrios in Bitola. In more recent times, a new layer was painted over the icon, but not so long ago the icon was restored to its original condition. The inscriptions on the icon reveal that the Voevoda was a "new ktetor" of Vatopedi and also testify the painting was completed on November 28, 1502. The representation of the enthroned Virgin with the infant Christ sitting in her lap, flanked by St John Prodromes and the founder, belongs to the iconography of Deesis. Its stylistic features indicate that in most probability it was the work by a Cretan painter from the Ritzos family.
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- The idea of civil war in thirteenth and fourteenth-century - Byzantium
- This paper discusses thirteenth and fourteenth-century Byzantine perceptions of civil wars, which were a common feature in the late Byzantine period. It investigates how the most important authors of the period understood and defined the idea of civil war. It explores the Byzantine understanding of the differences between military conflicts which were fought between subjects and employees of the emperor and wars the empire fought against its external enemies. In addition, it examines the views the imperial authorities and the authors of the period express about wars against enemies with whom the later Byzantines shared a common cultural, ethnic and religious background.
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- The identity of Diocletians according to the De administrando imperio
- The article discusses the issue of ethnic identity of the Diocletians referred to by the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus in his work De administrando imperio. Of all the tribes of the southern part of the eastern Adriatic coast, only for them the emperor fails to point out that they belonged to the Serbs. Based on the analysis of various segments of the emperor’s narrative on the South Slavs, we come to the conclusion that he considered Diocletians to be Serbs also, although he nowhere explicitly recorded that. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177032: Tradicija, inovacija i identitet u vizantijskom svetu]
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- The image of Michael VIII in the historical works of the Palaiologan period
- The present paper tends to examine the image of the founder of the Palaiologan dynasty, Michael VIII(1259-1282), in the historical works written during the reign of the last Byzantine dynasty and after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. With the analysis of Michael’s coming to the throne and the union of the churches in Lyons in 1274, it looks as if the first ruler of the Palaiologoi was mostly remembered, in historiography and among the most learned, elite circles of the capital, as a usurper of the throne and rights of his minor predecessor, Emperor John IV Laskaris. The blinding of the son of Theodore II was an event that had far reaching consequences not only during the reign of Michael VIII, but also his consequent heirs. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 177032: Tradicija, inovacija i identitet u vizantijskom svetu]
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- The impact of financial institutions on the development of the Byzantine economy (10th-12th centuries)
- This article attempts to ascertain the nature of the financial institutions fashioned diachronically to ensure the orderly operation of the Byzantine economy, encompassing the currency in circulation, credit availability, and the nexus of financial services; to analyze their role and evolution over time; to examine their ability to make rational use of the available financial resources; and ultimately to assess their contribution in ensuring the effective functioning of the marketplace and the economy in the 10th-12th centuries. Emphasis is placed on the effectiveness of the monetary system in providing the requisite liquidity to meet the needs of the productive sectors of the economy; the determining factors of money supply and its sectorial penetration; the measures taken to prevent hoarding and alleviate the gold-dependence of the fiscus; the functional distinction between money-changing and moneylending and its rationale; the rules established for the orderly conduct of currency transactions to prevent unsavory practices; the participants involved in lending operations and the extent of market competition; the importance of credit (and hence debt) financing in promoting agriculture, manufacturing, and trade; and the role of the state in safeguarding the soundness of the monetary system, banking services, deals in precious metals and valuables, and in the pricing of capital. Moreover, the paper addresses collateral issues in dispute providing more cogent answers, identifies misinterpreted sources and unsupported assertions, and fills in lacunae. It is hoped that the searching examination of the design and operation of the enacted financial institutional arrangements will provide valuable insights as to their genesis, adaptation over time, and likely performance in light of the Byzantine economic, social and political realities.
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- The importance of Mount Athos and the Ohrid Archbishopric for the policy of Basil II in the Balkans
- The essay ascertains that the monastic center located on Mount Athos and the Ohrid Archbishopric played a very important role in the policies pursued by Basil II. It was during his rule that the first foreign monasteries, which later Greek sources refer to as monastic communities διφόρωυ γλωσσωυ (Iveron and Amalfi), were established. The third monastery displaying this characteristic was the Serbian monastery Hilandar. Since Hilandar had been established after the Bulgarian and Russian monasteries, the question arose why sources dating from the late 12th century do not mention Zographou and St. Panteleimon’s monastery among the διφόρωυ γλωσσωυ monasteries. The answeris to be found in the circumstances surrounding the establishment of Slavic monasteries on Mount Athos. The essay also assesses the importance of Mount Athos and the Ohrid Archbishopric for the process of deeper integration of Slavs into the Byzantine religious and political-ideological system. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177032: Tradicija, inovacija i identitet u vizantijskom svetu]
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- The joint charter of the Branković brothers and the magnate chancery in the Nemanjić state
- A recent discovery shows that the documents Chilandar №58 and №59 are a compilation of two documents issued by the members of the Branković family. For the most part, it is the joint charter issued by Grgur and Vuk in 1364/1365. This paper investigates an unexamined formulary of the Branković brothers‘ joint charter and considers it as a type of a formulary that could be characteristic to the magnate chancery in medieval Serbia. A diplomatics analysis shows us how the vassal-suzerain relationships were represented in the documents of a nobleman’s chancery during the reign of Stephan Uroš, the Emperor of the Serbs and Greeks (1355-1371) and probably earlier in the Nemanjić state.
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- The king’s body in Serbian hagiography
- Conceptions of the holy in Serbian hagiography were deeply inspired by the translations of patristic, byzantine and, partly, chivalric literature. Whether the corporal is exalted or rejected, in the tradition of Serbian hagiography it is never an evaluatively neutral notion. Against the intellectual background, crucial for understanding the manner the Serbian medieval society conceived of the body, this paper gives an account of the “invincible body” topos, i.e. considers the rise of the chivalric idea of the hero, as well as the ideological and symbolic context of its formation. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 177003: Srednjovekovno nasleđe Balkana - institucije i kultura]
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- The last hesychast safe havens in late fourteenth- and fifteenth-century monasteries in the northern Balkans
- At the end of the fourteenth century and through the first half of the fifteenth century, during the rule of Prince Lazar and his son Despot Stefan Lazarević, a great number of hesychasts found their last safe havens in Serbia. It is not widely known that many monasteries and anchoretic cells were founded in the northeastern region of Serbia, in the mountainous area of the Crnica River Gorge and further north in the Gornjak Ravine. The followers of Gregory of Sinai founded these cells; they came from both Bulgaria and Mount Athos and were known from written sources as Sinaites, albeit most had never visited Sinai. My paper will focus on hesychasts in these regions. I must inform the readers that in early 80s the monastery of Lešje was still awaiting archaeological excavations. Since then, the complex has been thoroughly rebuilt by the monks who unfortunately devastated the existing medieval remnants. Therefore today the monastery’s architecture is not authentic.
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- The letter to Anna Palaiologina of Gregory Palamas (with the edition of the Serbian Church Slavonic translation from codex 41 of the Monastery of the holy trinity of Pljevlja)
- The hesychast controversy was closely entwined with the political circumstances in the Eastern Roman Empire. This especially holds true for the so-called second phase of the controversy, which took place at the times of Civil War (1341-1347). A complex conflict between Gregory Palamas and Gregory Akindynos, in which Empress Anna of Savoy was personally involved, was finally resolved by the condemnation of the latter. At one point, in order to get better acquainted with theological issues that were at stake, the Empress asked for the opinion of the main protagonists of the dispute. Gregory Palamas expressed his views in the form of a short letter, in which he seeks to defend himself from the accusation of “ditheism” and to show that his distinction between essence and energies in God is actually in accordance with patristic tradition. This paper includes historical, theological and philological analysis of Palamas’s Letter to Anna Palaiologina, with a special reference to the until now unknown Serbian Church Slavonic transcript found in Codex 41 of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity of Pljevlja. This text, accompanied by the Greek original and its translation into Modern Serbian, is given at the end of the paper. A comparative analysis shows that there are certain differences between Serbian Church Slavonic translation and the Greek original, which are probably the consequence of the fact that Serbian medieval translator might have had a slightly different source text than the one we use today.
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- The loop and the spike
- Autor pristupa sagledavanju ograničenog broja prepletnih motiva, polazeći od radnog modela nazvanog omča i siona. Tako je opisao jednu vinjetu koja se likovnim rešenjem ističe u mnoštvu sličnih namenjenih označvanju važnijih naslova na marginama kodeksa. Osnovna ideja teoretske postavke jeste da spone učvršćuju strukturu prepleta zasnovanu na omčama. Model se kod složenijih prepleta zamenjuje, u celosti ili delimično, terminima tkačke veštine osnovica i potka. U članku se ukazuje na osnovne geometrijske sheme i pomoćne rastere na kojima je zasnovana geometrija mreža niti ili strukova prepleta. U pojavi biljnih motiva autor vidi poreklo prepleta u fantastičnoj botanici, ne upuštajući se dublje u razjašnjavanje. To poreklo posebno jasno se vidi kod kvadratnih zastavica koje na očigledniji način pokazuju ono što pravougaone tek nagoveštavaju. Zaključuje se da, kad je reč o složenijim prepletima, osnovica je, redovno, prostija od potke, što pokazuje i lik radnog modela. Drugi član, potka ili spona, u većini slučajeva jeste likotvorni elemenat prepleta, uslovljen rit-mom i ograničenjima sadržanim u osnovici.