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This paper is focused on one of ten extant copies, which, to varying degrees, transmit Anthony of Novgorod’s thirteenth-century travel account, “Kniga palomnik”. This copy was previously thought to have been an otherwise unknown redaction of the work, owing to the copyist’s supposed intention to compile a list of sacred sites devoid of narrative flair. By examining the textual transmission, with reference to three specific examples, this article reveals the abridgement to be mechanical rather than deliberate, rendering a damaged version of the original which cannot be considered an intentional redaction. DOI: 10.31168/2305-6754.2021.10.1.9

The paper seeks to outline the overall framework for the reception of St. Clement’s tradition in Slavic literacy in northern, Serb-populated areas; the paper also analyzes major Serbian literary monuments, both Glagolitic and Cyrillic, which may be brought into a close relationship with the literacy tradition of St. Clement. They are presented individually, also taking into account an earlier linguistic background from which they stemmed. These older linguistic traits which are Old Slavonic as well as some later characteristics are generally possible to arrange in an ideal chronological sequence. This makes it possible to suggest a relative chronology of the formation of some Serbian literary monuments. There are also some local linguistic traits and other parameters that allow one to date Serbian literary monuments more precisely and, sometimes, even to delimit their territory of origin. This series begins with the Codex Marianus and continues with Miroslav’s Gospel, the Mihanović Fragment, the Gršković Fragment, Bratko’s Menaion, the Jerusalem Palimpsest, and the Belgrade Prophetologion, ending with the Serbian Prophetologion from St. Petersburg and Kiev. One must keep in mind that the Serbian language, which underlies the spoken background of the Serbian redaction of the Church Slavonic language, was, shortly after its formation (up to the end of the 11th century), still dialectically undiversified (regardless of the potentially heterogeneous situation before the 9th century); thus, based on the current body of knowledge, it is not possible to identify dialectical traits that would provide more specific information about individual writings. However, traces of the general logic of the developmental dynamics of the folk language can be identified in the language of the only 11th-century source presented in this paper: the Codex Marianus. This literary monument is temporally and spatially located in the third quarter of the 11th century and the southeastern boundary of Raška (roughly in Poibarje), near the fortress of Zvečan and the early medieval settlement of Čečan. Miroslav’s Gospel is dated to the period between 1161 and 1170 (ca. 1165) and is linguistically associated with the territory of the Bishopric of Raška because its scribes were the bearers of a dialect typical of this region: the manuscript either originates from Raška or it was written by Rascian scribes in some other area. Based on a rather large number of literary monuments, it is possible to get insight into the third stage in the life of this form of literacy in Polimlje, where the hereditary estates of the Nemanjićs and their relatives were located. From the early Middle Ages this area witnessed lively ecclesiastical activities, though they were based on the Roman Rite. One of the cultural centers must have been located around the trefoil church of St. John at Zaton (9th–11th centuries). In this wider area, a more conservative Serbian literary tradition, which can be traced in the Mihanović Fragment, could have persisted slightly longer. The Mihanović Fragment was the purest representative of the Serbian redaction, without secondary shadings typical of the innovative southern Slavic areas in the 11th century (with the mildest divergence from the vernacular variety when pronouncing the literary language), and it was still based on the linguistic background shaped by St. Clement. The linguistic picture of this literary monument indicates that it could have originated from an area where an ancient linguistic redaction dating back to the early 10th century, or perhaps an even older variety of a literary language from the 9th century (associated with the Roman Rite) combined with a later South Slavic layer of undetermined age (10th–11th centuries), persisted.

Drawing on the structure and contents of the extant manuscripts of Dušan’s Code, this paper attempts roughly to outline the history of its application and changes from the time of its promulgation in 1349 and revision in 1353–1354, a process that continued to the end of the 18th century. The scarce evidence about the application of the Code has been preserved in some charters issued by the emperors Dušan and Uroš, but since the 15th century the only evidence about its application is found in new copies or in the changes in its structure and in the phrasing of certain stipulations. The production of copies similar to the original version continued simultaneously with the revisions, with all sharing a single trait: the coalescence of Dušan’s Code with its codicological environment, whose first and fixed layer included the abbreviated Syntagma of Matthew Blastares and the so-called Code of Justinian. Along with these, other ecclesiastical-legal compositions were also copied, which suggests that the extant copies of Dušan’s Code were used in ecclesiastical courts or for the clergy’s everyday service needs. The signs suggesting that the Code was gradually adapted to suit different legal and social conditions are as follows: the exclusion of stipulations which were no longer up to date; a new systematization of stipulations according to subject matter; changes in penalties and sanctions; amendments and clarifications of some stipulations; and the modernization of the document’s language and legal terms. At a point no earlier than the second half of the 17th century, a separate recension of Dušan’s Code was created in order to facilitate the adaptation and use of its legal material for the regulation of those legal relations that the Serbian ecclesiastical hierarchy or the local self-governing authorities had kept within their own jurisdictions under foreign rule. The majority of the copies of this new, younger recension was created and enacted in the circle of the Serbian ecclesiastical hierarchy and the subjects of the Habsburg monarchy after the Great Exodus. Not only did the Code provide positive legal material, but its mere existence and authority also helped the efforts of the Serbian hierarchy in the Habsburg monarchy to emphasize the tradition of Serbian statehood, as well as its tendencies toward a renewal of state independence.

Serbian law from the early 13th century developed under the direct influence of Byzantine law. Serbian jurists adopted Byzantine law through translations of Byzantine legal compilations. The first such translation was the Nomokanon of St. Sabba of 1219. St. Sabba’s Nomokanon contained ecclesiastical rules together with the canonist’s glosses, a translation of part of Justinian’s Novels , and the whole of the Procheiron of Basil I. Between 1349 and 1354, Serbian lawyers created a special Codex Tripartitus , codifying both Serbian and Byzantine law. The Russian scholar T. Florinsky noticed this as long ago as 1888, pointing out that in the oldest manuscripts, Dusan’s Code is always accompanied by two other compilations of Byzantine law: the abbreviated Syntagma of Matthew Blastares and the so-called Code of Justinian. In addition to translations of Byzantine legal miscellanies, Serbian lawyers also adopted a great number of the institutions of Roman law. However, Serbian jurists were not educated in Bologna so, as a consequence, Roman law was adopted in an indirect way, i.e., through Greek (Byzantine) translations and not from original Latin texts. Dusan’s Code , as the most important legal source of medieval Serbian law, took about sixty articles directly from the Basilica: the most important are articles 171 and 172.

This paper deals with Slavic oath formulas containing the phrases ‘stand firm’ and ‘hold firm’, found mostly in peace treaties. The analysis carried out on the rich corpus of Old Serbian charters written in the vernacular and followed by a comparison with the data from Old Russian. The research is an attempt to reconstruct their possible Proto-Slavic structure, both linguistic and conceptual. After presenting the relevant data, the author reconstructs the following Proto-Slavic formulas: * stojati tvrьdo / krěpьko vь / na klętvě ( kъ) komu ‘stand firm in / on the oath toward someone’, * drьžati tvrьdo / krěpьko klętvǫ ( kъ) komu ‘hold firm the oath toward someone’. Both Serbian and Russian charters show lexical variations in the prepositional phrase and in the adverbial modifier of the formulas, which testify to their semantic compositionality. The etymology of their basic lexical constituents (* stojati, * drьžati, * tvrъdo, * krěpьko) indicates that ‘immobility, firmness’ is their core meaning, * drьžati ‘make immobile > hold’ being just a transitive version of * stojati ‘be immobile > stand’. The concrete, physical concepts ‘stand’ and ‘hold’ were mapped into the target domain of the abstract ones (> ‘exist’ and ‘keep, have’). They represent the embodied experience and speak in favor of Embodied Realism. Indo-European parallels show that ‘stand’ and ‘hold’ belong to some of the basic Indo-European (although not just Indo-European) conceptual metaphors, having a deep cultural motivation. These notions were so deeply rooted into the conceptual apparatus that they survived the change of cultural codes, becoming an integral part of the oath in Christian times. As time went by, they were secularized and reduced to phraseological units. They still exist today, even with the same lexical constituents as in the medieval charters, e.g. Serb. držati X ( reč, obećanje, veru), Russ. sderžat’ X ( dannoe slovo, kljatvu), stojat’ na X = tverdo deržat’sja X ( ubeždenija, mnenija).