British Academy: The UK's National Academy for the Humanities and Social Sciences
The Eastern Mediterranean in the Thirteenth century:
identities and allegiances
Abstract
Serbia's view of the Byzantine World (1204-1261)
Ljubomir Maksimovic
When Stefan Nemanjic succeeded to the throne of his father Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the dynasty, they issued separate charters to the newly-founded (Serbian) monastery Chilandar on Mt Athos, in which they defined their independent rule (samodrzhavni) in identical words. It was given to them by God, since God gave emperors to the Greeks, kings to the Hungarians, and Grand Zhupans from one family to the Serbs. The Serbian view of Byzantium on the eve of 1204 was thus expressed by its definition as a foreign power outside the Serbian territory.
It should be pointed out that all the Serbian sources relative to this time, apart from the two charters mentioned above, come from the pen of authors whose works were written after 1204. It is also important to note that the texts in question are biographies of rulers, or, to put it more precisely, hagiographies, in which ideology and factography are sometimes interwoven in odd combinations. Other types of thirteenth century sources - official documents, legal texts or literary works - are very scant and do not contain information which could be of use in the discussion of the present subject.
The biographical works dealing with the members of the Nemanjic dynasty conform in the main to the ideological basis implied in the two charters of its earliest rulers. Firstly, the Byzantines are called Greeks - the name which the Slavs took over from Latin at an early date and which cannot be interpreted as an ethnonym. Secondly, the Emperor and Constantinople (the Slavonic name - Carigrad - is also used) are treated as the most important symbols of the Empire up to 1204. The year 1204 introduced, of course, certain modifications into the way these ideas were expressed, but the earlier context had not disappeared; on the contrary, it had even been imbued with a new significance. The new situation was, however, usually implied rather than commented on. Nevertheless, two tendencies may be noticed after 1204: one was the tendency to attach greater importance to Nicea in comparison with Epirus, and the other was the ideological actualization of the old capital, since the memory of Constantinople as symbol had to be kept alive, although the town itself was in the hands of the conquerors.
The thirteenth century Serbian sources which deal with the time before the restoration of the Byzantine Empire in 1261 generally base their view of its disintegrated political world on a mixture of reality and a political theory which was, in the given circumstances, half-mythic. The powerful image of the former Empire was still dominant and efforts were made to bring the reality of the debilitated and divided Byzantine world into conformity with that image. The political ideals of independent Serbia were associated with the Empire that had disappeared rather than with its remains, which were not considered superior enough. Discernible in all this, as a specific aspect of the influence of the past, is the greater learning of the Serbian authors, now already direct products of Byzantine, primarily ecclesiastical, education. Hence we find in the works of these authors a terminology which tells us more about their learning than about the real state of affairs in their time. These sources nevertheless provide some clues to the actual conditions of the time, for the full decipherment of which it is necessary to get to know the corresponding codes. This particular feature of the sources gave rise to a specific prosopography of the participants in the related events. The only persons mentioned by name in the biographical works, some emperors included, are those with whom the main character had some direct contact.
All the texts referred to were written in the mediaeval Serbian-Slavonic language and in the Cyrillic script. Some are available in recent critical editions, others are to be found in more or less out-of-date editions and are without any scholarly apparatus. We do have, however, translations of all these texts into modern Serbian. Several translations into the German language are also available.