Introductory study: Towns and Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Authority and Property (original) (raw)
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Povijesni prilozi 56 (Zagreb, Croatian Institute of History), 2019
The papers in this volume present final results of the research project founded by Croatian Science Foundation (2015-2019) and conducted at Croatian Institute of History (Zagreb) titled "Cities of the Croatian Middle Ages: Urban Elite and Urban Space" (URBES). (http://urbes.s2.novenaweb.info/en/) At the centre of that project was the relationship between the space and the society (elites) in a medieval town, a relationship that in recent international historiography has been stressed as key to understanding of the urban history of the Middle Ages. The research was focused on selected medieval cities of two geographical regions of nowdays Croatia: (coastal region and interamnium of sava-Drava rivers), leaving out central so called “mountainous region of medieval Croatia” because of its specific types of non-agrarian settlements that deserve different kind of research attention. The foci of URBES project were selected medieval Slavonian towns that developed from the thirteenth century onwards as free royal cities: Gradec – nowadays Zagreb, and Varaždin (both politically and economically the most significant towns in medieval Slavonia) and selected Eastern Adriatic cities, from Istrian urban communes on the north to Dubrovnik in the south: Istrian urban communities of Labin and Rovinj; northern Adriatic island commune of Rab; Zadar, the civic centre of medieval Dalmatia; Trogir, the city with the longest urban continuity in Croatia; Šibenik, selected as new medieval town that developed from a castrum into a civitas; and finally Split and Dubrovnik, whose urban development began as late as early Middle Ages although their tradition went back to Antiquity. This project examined the period between the High and Late Middle Ages (midthirteenth to mid-sixteenth centuries). The interdisciplinary analysis of this “elite-space” relation conducted by URBES used comparative methods to place cities of the Croatian Middle Ages in a broader European context. Although the cities of the Croatian Middle Ages are in the centre of URBES, we focused on the issues that go beyond the scale of individual towns in order to make comparisons of similar phenomena between cities and towns in a broader geographical and political context, and to trace residential mobility of the urban elites. For instance, URBES (in relation to development of urban space) followed strong liasions of urban elites of nowdas north-eatern Croatian cities with elite of nowdays Slovenian cities (Štajerska region); compared elite-space relation of Dalmatian and Istrian cities in broader context of Stato da mar; or Dubrovnik in comparison with Venice. The novelty of this project layed in the systematic investigation of archival sources with respect to urban development. The URBES project reconstructed and analysed the matrix of chosen urban elite families, households, properties and buildings in chosen cities of nowdays Croatia, and traced their evolution over time, gaining new insights into social and spatial structures and the agents and circumstances of urban change. URBES combined methodological tools of prosopography and social topography in order to reconstruct the most influential element of the urban society (elite), their personal relations, social positions and interactions with urban space.
The study of the Middle Ages has played a crucial role in the study of Croatian history since its establishment as an academic discipline in the second half of the nineteenth century. This special interest in medieval history, however, had little in common with what is nowadays called “ medieval studies". Research in Croatian medieval history, similarly to other countries in nineteenth century Europe, was strongly linked to the process of "nation building". The author summarizes major trends in Medieval studies in Croatia during the second half of the 20th century with the special focus on the changes in the 1990s. Seeing the changes in the "epistemological configurations" in the field as positive ones, the author inquires the role of the alumni of the Department of Medieval studies at CEU in the process. Author concludes that a group of departmental alumni and current students make visible contribution to the modernisation and proliferation of medieval studies (mostly history) in Croatia.
2014
If you want to order this book, please contact PR of the Croatian Institute of History, Mr. Kresimir Krznaric: krznaric@isp.hr, or here: https://www.agm.hr/hr/shop/towns-and-cities-of-the-croatian-middle-ages,631.html There is hardly a topic that has been more inspirational for the medievalists than urban communities. In order to understand the life of cities and towns in the Middle Ages, it is important to define authority and property as related to urban space, and see the interplay between these two notions. These issues are not new in the European historiographies, especially in the recent years, when scholars have been investigating the legal aspects of ownership and the operation of urban real-estate market. Yet there are very few comparative studies on the European cities, and those that exist do not include the Croatian ones. Moreover, not too much research has been done on the relationship between property and the different levels of authority. This book is a result of an international conference that focused on this issue, based on the example of Croatian medieval towns and cities. The conference titled “The Town and the City of the Croatian Middle Ages: Authority and Property” took place in Zagreb (Croatia) in November 2010 at the Croatian Institute of History. Our intention was to stimulate discussion on some of the fundamental questions of urban history: What did it mean to own a town or a segment of urban space in the Middle Ages? What was the role of the owner, or the holder of an urban estate, in the development of a town? What did changes in ownership entail? Which sources should we use and which methods should we apply to investigate the relationship between authority and property? What was the legal nature of property over urban land? This volume focuses on urban estates, as they were the key elements in urban structure. They reflect urban politics and institutional organization, individual interests and their economic and social status, church regulations, and a wider political framework. Croatian medieval towns are barely represented in the international surveys of medieval and early modern urban culture. The aim of this volume was also to addressthis specific imbalance and to emphasise the entangled nature of local, regional, and international urban histories. For all these reasons, it seemed important to bring together prominent scholars who study the history of medieval (in the first place Croatian, but not only) urban development.
HISTORICAL CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE APPEARANCE OF MEDIEVAL CARTULARIES IN CROATIA
The purpose of this work is to demonstrate at what time and under which circumstances medieval cartularies were created in Croatia. That question is of great importance for Croatian medieval studies because the cartularies contain numerous data testifying to medieval Croatian state, church, society, language , and culture. Therefore, by determining the time and circumstances of their creation one can get a reliable basis on which their role as a valuable source for Croatian and medieval history in general could be better evaluated. We will focus on several cartularies which were, and still are, subjects of studies of Croatian and certain foreign historians.