Where the Middle Ages Begin
In the 14th century, a time of civil wars, religious and dynastic strifes, epidemics, natural disasters and miserable living conditions for the wider strata in the cities and the countryside that increased migratory movements, banditry, an indigenous phenomenon in the Balkan mountainous regions, intermingled with the intensified political struggles.
This paper proposes a new line of analysis of the rich body of medieval Serbian royal hagiography.
Serbo-Byzantine marriages had occurred many times in the past years, when the Empire was still vast and powerful.
Although the dominating position of primogeniture at the end of the period might seem natural given primogeniture’s many advantages for the monarch and the ruling elite it was first rather late in history that the principle came to dominate Europe.
While looking for the origins of the state of Lithuania, it is the study of old maps that helps solve a number of riddles, so far weighing on the history of our nation. Historical data, traced in maps and their images, unrestricted by any political, religious or pseudo- scientific taboos, allow us to cast a broad view on the dim and distant past of our state.
An economist is indeed tempted to think of Ragusa as the “Adriatic Tiger “ of yesteryear, an early example of a small open economy with strong fundamentals, and to hypothesize further that, in analogy to the current consensus about what it takes to minimize the impact of external crises, these strengths also allowed Ragusa to mitigate the effects of the many external shocks and financial crises in Medieval Europe.
The problem of the legal aspects is consisting mainly of the measure of influence of contemporary concepts of what was legitimate and legal towards the sequence of events during the civil war which started a few months after the death of the Emperor Andronikos III (died 15 June 1341) and lasted with certain periods of a relative peace until his son John V finally succeeded to take the sole rule of an Emperor (after 10 December 1354).
Although stećci have been investigated for more than a century and thousands of them have been found many questions still arise. Many monuments have been only been registered as existing, with no excavation; most of them have not been excavated archaeologically.
It is often said of a nation that it is as rich as its history. All the efforts and desire to get to the roots of our past lead us inevitably to the Middle Ages and connect us to the spirit of the rule of the House of Nemanjić. A profound influence this dynasty exerted on the history of the people of Serbia points out their greatness and significance. Serbian army from the period of the Nemanjić reign was famed for its bravery, agility, endurance, persistence, wisdom and skillfulness varying by the type of warfare. Brave voivode and warriors were the apple of Serbia’s eye, which in turn caused heroism to become a lifestyle.
Confrontation with Ottoman expansion began for Braşov at the end of the 14th century with the treaty with Mircea the Elder in the year 1395 which was part of King Sigismund of Luxembourg’s anti-Ottoman policy and was signed in Braşov.
On the one hand, stories (particularly fables) have been de- rived from already existing proverbs, from antiquity up to early modern times. On the other hand, a story in its summarised form can live on in a proverb or an idiom, even if the knowledge of this story has been forgotten for a long time.
The earliest traces of the Kosovo legend can be found in texts dating from the end of the fourteenth century. The legend evolved gradually so that by the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century it had already taken shape, and in texts of the eighteenth century it can be found in its complete form.
Serbian and French researchers have reported that the Belgrade Fortress, which was first built in the early Middle Ages is under threat – not only by the effects of coal burning, as was assumed until now, but also by flower beds!
For a number of years the Croats of Dalmatia were subject to the Franks, as they had formerly been in their own country, but the Franks treated them with such brutality that they used to murder Croat infants at the breast and cast them to the dogs.
Serbian Medieval Urban Settlements Rastislava, Stojsavljević Branislava, Đurđev Bojana, Đerčan Geographica Pannonica, Volume 15, Issue 3 (2011) Abstract This research paper should point out general characteristics of Serbian medieval towns with special review of their formation, development and disappearance and short comparison with general characteristics of medieval towns in other parts of Europe. The fairly poor literature dealing […]
Slovenian and Polish Religio-National Mythologies: A Comparative Analysis Velikonja, Mitja Religion, State & Society, Vol. 31, No. 3, (2003) Abstract Religio-National Mythology: Some Theoretical Considerations Nation-building processes in Central and Eastern Europe differed considerably from those in the West: cultural, linguistic and religious elements were of vital importance. This text is intended to analyse, in […]
The role of Christianity in the development of European and Serbian medieval medicine By Radiša Antić Archive of Oncology, Vol.18:4 (2010) Abstract: Being conceived in the name of Christianity, the Church quickly mastered all of Western Europe, including medicine, which was developed in monasteries at first and at universities later on. The first hospitals were […]
Iconography of Imperial coinage of Medieval Serbia Radic, Vesna XIII Congreso Internacional de Numismática, Bd. 2 (2005) Abstract After great conquests of King Dušan in 1334 and 1335 many Byzantine towns and large territories of Thessaly and Epirus came under Serbian rule. In the end of 1335 in Serres Dušan was proclaimed an emperor of […]
The joint cult of St. Simeon and St. Sava under Milutin : the monastic aspect Adashinskaya, Anna MA Thesis in Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, May (2009) Abstract Joint cult of St. Simeon and St. Sava originated in Serbian state under king Milutin in the end of thirteenth-beginning of fourteenth century. The present work focuses on […]
The Battle of Kosovo: Early Reports of Victory and Defeat By Thomas A. Emmert Kosovo: Legacy of a Medieval Battle, eds. Wayne S. Vucinich and Thomas A. Emmert (Minnesota, 1991) Abstract In popular interpretation it was defeat at the Battle of Kosovo which brought about the disintegration of the medieval Serbian empire. Careful analysis of […]
The History of Literature in the Context of New Theoretical Proposals Lipatow, Aleksander PORÓWNANIA 5 (2008) Abstract In the beginning of the Middle Ages with the growth of the Christian ecumene and a related ecclesiastical, and institutional differentiation and a following cultural and political differentiation localized around the two centres – Byzantium and Rome – […]
The Dyadic Goddess and Duotheism in Nodilo’s the Ancient Faith of the Serbs and the Croats Marjanic, Suzana STUDIA MYTHOLOGICA SLAVICA VI – 2003 Abstract Depending on the primary source that is used in the reconstruction of the Southern Slavic Pantheon, the text considers two possibilities for re/construction of the Southern Slavic goddess. Namely, Helmold’s Chronica Slavorum […]
A contribution to the study of lamellar armors By Ivan Bugarski Starinar, Vol.55 (2005) Abstract: The work is based on the finds of lamellar armours from the Early Byzantine site Svetinja at Viminacium. In addition to the analysis of the finds we presented also the analogies from Early Byzantine, Germanic and Avar contexts and we […]
Classical elements in the Serbian painting of the fourteenth century By Mirjana Gligorijević-Maksimović Zbornik radova Vizantoloskog instituta, Issue 44 (2007) Abstract: In the early 14th century influences of a new style emanating from Constantinople contained reminiscences of classical ideas and forms (contents of compositions, the painted landscape, the human figures, genre scenes based on everyday life, classical […]
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