Inicijal. Časopis za srednjovekovne studije
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Initial is a multidisciplinary review of medieval studies intended for publishing contributions from all academic fields pertaining to the area of Southeastern Europe and the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. This includes not only papers discussing new theoretical approaches in medieval studies or interpreting so-called „major issues“, but also those focusing on narrower, more specialized fields of research. However, with regard to the character of the review authors should craft their material to appeal to a wider audience of medievalists, providing the necessary context to readers who may not be so well-versed in the particular subject. Editions and translations of medieval sources may also be submitted for publication, especially if they are an essential component of a wider study.
Initial is open for publication of academic critiques and reviews of all medievalist monographs, periodical publications, and individual articles, as well as editions of medieval sources. Keeping track of academic life through reports on various gatherings, meetings, lectures, and field research is also an important segment of this journal’s profile.
Publisher: The Centre for Advanced Medieval Studies
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CEEOL
ISSN: 2334-8003
Pages
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- Osanna da Cattaro and Franceschina da Zara
- According to the hagiographical tradition recorded in Vita di beata Osanna by Florentine Dominican Serafino Razzi (1592), the Kotor santa viva is credited with a prominent role in the town’s spiritual protection during the attacks of Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa (1539). A somewhat different representation was depicted in the personal correspondence between town guardian, Captain Gian Matteo Bembo, and his cousin, the famous cardinal Pietro Bembo, during the Ottoman siege of Kotor. Their letters focused on spiritual protection with no mention of Osanna, but rather, a general debate about the prayers of holy nuns from Kotor and Zadar. One name stood out – santa monaca Franceschina from Zadar, whose prayers, advice and prophecies cardinal Pietro Bembo particularly revered. This paper explores the issue of the role of santa viva as a protector of Venetian Kotor by addressing the hagiographical tradition and written testimonies of participants in historical events.
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- Peace Negotiations between Serbia and Dubrovnik in 301–1302
- A brief but fierce conflict waged in 1301 between king Stefan Uroš II Milutin of Serbia and the maritime city of Dubrovnik ended in peace ne-gotiations that lasted over one year (August 1301–September 1302), involving also the Venetian Republic as Dubrovnik’s overlord. Well-covered by source ma-terial, this long and dynamic diplomatic process enables the study of various as-pects of diplomatic activity within the framework of both basic types of medieval political organization – the feudal monarchy and the republican city-state. Topics treated here include foreign policy decision-making, choice of envoys and organization of embassies, diplomatic gifts, negotiation procedures, use of mediation, trade embargoes and hostages, treaty documents, and diplomatic skill.
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- Peter Petrović and Protestantism. Aspects Concerning the Patronage of the Reformation during Its Early Period
- The personality of Peter Petrović left an important mark in the political and religious history of the regions of the Hungarian kingdom lying east of the Tisza River during the first half of the 16th century, in the period before the area was to become the autonomous Principality of Transylvania. While his political importance is rather well known and presented in various historical works, Petrović’s activity in the religious sphere has been granted lesser attention in historiography. Through his religious policy, directed at dismantling the Roman Catholic Church and promoting increasingly more radical Reformist ideas, Peter Petrović distinguished himself as one of the most representative initiators and supporters of the early Reformation in Hungary.
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- Pismo firentinske vlade kralju Tvrtku Kotromaniću iz aprila 1390. godine. Prilog pitanju bosanske vlasti u Dalmaciji
- The collection Missive della prima Cancelleria in the State Archives of Florence keeps a copy of a letter sent by the Florentine government to Bosnian king Tvrtko in April of 1390. Even though some documents from this collection have previously been published, the mentioned letter has escaped the attention of researchers. The source claims that the Bosnian King named Florentine citizen Luke, son of John de Gallis, as count of the islands of Korčula, Hvar and Brač, and the government praises and recommends their fellow citizen, placing itself at the King’s disposal. This paper presents a critical edition and translation of the letter along with a commentary which particularly focuses on the person and activities of the mentioned Luke and his connections with the Bosnian and Croatian supporters ofKing Ladislas of Naples. On the basis of the available and analysed evidence it seems that the connections that Luca de Gallis had with the Angevin court in Naples, or with the Horvati and Vukčić brothers, were crucial for his entrance into the orbit of the Bosnian King and potential acceptance of comital authority on the islands of Brač, Hvar and Korčula. As a very mobile merchant with outstanding personal abilities, Luca had a remarkable political career in Florence where he performed numerous diplomatic missions for his homeland, but also for the Angevins of Naples. His basic political and commercial affairs were connected to the area of the Kingdom of Hungary where he managed to accumulate great personal wealth by trading various luxury items between the coasts of the Adriatic Sea. In that way he came into contact with numerous influential individuals and circles who then opened for him other business opportunities. Luca obviously skilfully used his reputation, great personal fortune, as well as connections with political potentates to further his business interests. He probably used his own money to support the ambitions of certain nobles or rulers and he financed their great political projects or enterprises. Wishing to repay and reward him for his loyalty, they recompensed him by giving him offices, estates or titles, and his case is a typical example of the connection between trade and politics, money and power, and an indicator of what kinds of possibilities for advancement stood at the disposal of capable businessmen during the late Middle Ages. Thus the appearance of Luca de Gallis in potential combinations and intentions of the Bosnian King towards Dalmatia allows us, at least partially, to gain an insight into the way that King Tvrtko’s Dalmatian policy functioned. Namely, it is well known that for the acquisition of great territories in Croatia and Dalmatia, the Bosnian King had to employ the maximum of his resources and that in this process he engaged the maximum of his potential. Therefore, he had to approach the extending and consolidating of his authority in Dalmatia rationally and rely, wherever possible, on locals or foreigners who knew the situation in the seaside better, were better aware of the political circumstances, and had at their disposal money and an established network of contacts. Consequently, there must have been a strong reason why Luca de Gallis was named as the count of the islands and this was probably a classic business transaction whose outcome was conditioned by the basic principle of supply and demand. King Tvrtko needed able men with important financial and political capital, as well as connections, and along with all of that, Luka also enjoyed the confidence of the court in Naples. So it can be said that apart from the expressed and proven skills in trade and diplomacy, King Tvrtko also employed him due to his political orientation which legitimated him in the time of sharp polarisation of opposing sides in the Hungarian Kingdom. The gathered and presented facts introduce a new character in the story about the period of Bosnian administration in Dalmatia, and his appearance in this context sheds some more light on the complex political relations during the Hungarian succession crisis which the Bosnian ruler attempted to use for his own gain, expanding the borders of the Bosnian Kingdom and gaining control of the rich revenues of the coastal trade. This also clarifies the position of Luca de Gallis, whose impressive biography is supplemented with connections to the Bosnian court, the title of comes and claims of authority over the islands of Brač, Hvar and Korčula. Even though this famous Florentine merchant is not an unknown historiographical quantity anymore, there are still chances that his role in the “Adriatic project” of King Tvrtko could be additionally enlightened by the discovery of new information in some of the archival institutions in Italy, Croatia or Hungary.
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- The Byzantine Emperor Addressing his Addressee. Variants of Closeness and Distance in Diplomatic Communication
- The imperial chancellery of Constantinople had different possibilities of self-designations of the emperor (as addresser) and designations of the addressee: generally, imperial documents accentuated the distance to the addressee and preferred an abstract noun with a third person singular verb. However, drafters could vary – even in the same document – between more emotional forms from the first person plural to the very familiar first person singular depending on the degree of distance and closeness (this aspect may be additionally emphasized by the range of respective forms for the addressee, i.e. abstract noun, second person plural, as well as singular). Nevertheless a first person singular in an imperial letter is extraordinary and needs explanation. This very diplomatic use of such forms is analysed on the basis of four letters of emperor Alexius I Comnenus to the abbots of Monte Cassino, once even switching to the first person singular.
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- The Chancellary and the Diplomatics of the Hungarian Dukes in the 14th Century
- The article deals with the diplomatics and the chancellery of the 14th century Hungarian princely dukes: duke Stephen (1349–1354), duchess Margaret (1354–1356) and duke Charles (1371–1372). Altogether, there are 77 known charters issued by these dukes. The paper analyses their external and internal characteristics and describes the seals of the dukes. In the last section, the author discusses the functioning and the staff of the dukes’ chancelleries.
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- The Dubrovnik Corpus of Serbian Imperial Documents as a Source for Chancery Research
- The Dubrovnik corpus of documents issued by Serbian medieval rulers of the Nemanjić dynasty provides the best available avenue of approach to the still inadequately treated issue of the Nemanjić chancery. This analysis focuses on documents issued in the final period of Nemanjić rule, after King Stefan Dušan assumed the imperial title (1346–1371). It confirms that documents were produced in accordance with a clearly defined typology by a regular, organized staff. Very proficient in supplying the various types of documents with appropriate external and internal features, these individuals also proved capable of adapting earlier document-making tradition to the demands presented by the rise of the Serbian rulers to imperial status. However, certain aspects of the production process seem to have remained underdeveloped (apparent lack of proper formularies and registers of outgoing items). This opened the way for greater involvement of addressees, a factor that should be taken into account in further research.
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- The Endowment License of Pope Sixtus IV to Leonardo III Tocco (10 September 1476)
- The paper focuses on a license which Pope Sixtus IV granted to Leonardo III Tocco on 10 September 1476. This license allowed the Tocco lord to found a Catholic church dedicated to St. Demetrios on the Ionian island of Lefkada. The research shows that the immediate motives for this endowment reflected wider political interests of the pontifical Curia which regarded Leonardo as one of its allies in the Crusade planned against the Ottomans. The stability of Leonardo’s power was reinforced by the Curia’s ambitions to strengthen Catholicism in his domain. The licensing of Leonardo’s ipso iure patronage over the newly founded church, as well as the permission to dedicate the endowment to the popular Orthodox warrior-saint Demetrios, both appear in this document as distinctive methods of this papal policy. The paper also discusses the size of the church of St. Demetrios, its location, and chronology, as well as the paleo-diplomatic features of this pontifical license, providing also a transcription in which the document’s significant vocabulary follows diplomatic standards of reading.
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- Typology and Semantics of Cryptograms and Acrolexa in the Orthodox East in the Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Period
- As a matter of academic convention, combinations of Greek, Old Bulgarian and Latin letters found on various, mostly religious objects are called cryptograms. Lying somewhere between philology, art and medieval para-ecclesiastic culture, cryptograms have remained outside clearly defined fields of research. As a result, no attempt has been made to systematically decipher, analyze and publish them. This article is composed of three main sections. The first discusses where and when cryptograms and acrolexa occur (personal use objects, iconography, monumental decoration, manuscripts and old-print books, fortifications, sepulchral and on-throne crosses, coffins, etc). The second is dedicated to the typology of cryptograms and acronyms based on semantic principles, classify-ing them by functions, such as apotropaic, soteriological, eschatological, eucharistic, invocational, mediative, therapeutic, etc. The third section explores whether cryptograms have the role of apotropaic iconographic symbols and proposes mechanisms for reading them.
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- Was Richard of the Principate Regent of Edessa in 1104–1108?
- This article reconsiders a commonly held view in Crusades historiography, namely the identification of Richard, regent of Edessa in 1104–1108 and prefectus of Marash after 1108, with Richard of the Principate (of Salerno), participant of the First Crusade and close retainer of Bohemond of Taranto. The author shows that there are no facts that would justify such a conclusion, as Richard of the Principate was in Europe since 1103 and could not be a regent of Edessa. Although our sources do not allow us to accurately identify the person of Richard, regent of Edessa, the latter seems to be a man of lower rank than Richard of the Principate and one of retainers of Tancred, not of Bohemond.
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- Über den Status Einiger Urkunden des serbischen Kaisers Stefan Uroš (1355–71)
- The paper discusses the issue of the diplomatic status of several charters of emperor Stefan Uroš (1355–71) which have either been categorised as copies or their status as originals remains disputed on account of the absence of seals and any traces of sealing, as well as the “year of production” of their watermarks. The documents under study are six charters from the archive of the monastery of Hilandar: for the metropolitan Cyril (1356); on the donation of the abandoned village of Patrikijevo (1360/61, two copies); on a donation by župan Vukoslav (15 October 1360); for čelnik Musa (15 July 1363); on a donation by the Branković brothers (11 March 1365); and on a donation by vojvoda Nikola (1366). The analysis of the documents, whose colour photographs are appended, involves a comparative examination of three documents from the Dubrovnik archives issued in 1357. It is argued that the watermark and seal cannot be taken as firm criteria for establishing originality in this material because: 1) dating by watermarks can only provide rough estimates, and it is therefore hardly possible to speak of their “year of production”; 2) it is not clear whether seals were at all a mandatory instrument of validation of the charters issued by emperor Uroš (as well as of other Serbian authors). Consequently, the Hilandar documents of 1356, 1363, 1365 and 1366, incontestable in their other diplomatic features, should be considered as originals, while the presumption of originality of one of the two copies of the 1360/61 charter and the document of 15 October 1360 can be confirmed only after further examination of their content and the circumstances in which they were created. Finally, it is proposed that the writing medium (paper) and the signature (as a rule in the auctor’s own hand) are more reliable originality criteria for the charters of emperor Uroš. The contribution also argues for a reconsideration of the hypercritical approach to medieval Serbian documents which is based on the presumed existence of an organised royal chancery with well-established and faithfully implemented practices in composing documents, so that diplomatic analysis may be placed in a more realistic historical and legal context.
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- Јелена - супруга кнеза Павла Петровића
- Historical sources mention Jelena, wife of prince Pavle Petrović and mother of duke Petar Pavlović, in the period from 1393 to 1419. Her husband was a member of a notable medieval aristocratic family from Hum, known under the surnames Bogavčić, Radivojević, Jurjević (Đurđević), and Vlatković. Sources preserved in the Dubrovnik Archives mention Jelena only in relation to financial transactions concerning the leasing of houses which she and her family owned in Dubrovnik.