Serbian Medieval Documents in the State Archives of Venice

Contributed by the Institute of Balkan Studies of the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts as part of the Community as Opportunity – The Creative Users’ and Archives’ Network (CO:OP) project.

From the 13th to the 15th century the Serbian Nemanjid dynasty and its successor states (the Serbian Despotate and the Balšić and Crnojević regional lordships) maintained a strong presence on the southeastern Adriatic seaboard, establishing strong political and economic contacts with the leading maritime power of the period – the Republic of Venice. As a result, the vast medieval documentary heritage preserved in the State Archives of Venice also includes 25 documents issued by Serbian authors from the year 1208 to 1460. They are presented in this collection with names consisting of the date of issue and the name of the issuer in the following format: yyyy-mm-dd – Issuer Name. If taq is inserted, the issue date given is the terminus ante quem, while tpq means terminus post quem, and cca is circa. Copies of the same document are marked by adding letters (A, B, etc).

Abbreviations:

• Acta Albaniae : : Acta et diplomata res Albaniae mediae aetatis illustrantia I–II (ed. L. Thallóczy – C. Jireček – E. Sufflay), Vindobonae 1913, 1918.
• Acta Albaniae Veneta I-XXV (ed. J. Valentini), Munchen 1967–1975.
• Acta archivi veneti : : Acta archivi veneti spectantia ad historiam Serborum et reliquarum Slavorum meridionalium I–II (ed. J. Schafárik), Belgradi 1860, 1862. = J. Šafarik, Srbski spomenici mletačkog arhiva, Glasnik Društva srbske slovesnosti 11–15 (1859-1862)
• Glasnik SUD 32 : : V. Makušev, Prilozi k srpskoj istoriji 14. i 15. veka, Glasnik Srpskog učenog društva 32 (1871) 164–208. (cyr)
• Listine : : Listine o odnošajih izmedju južnoga Slavenstva i Mletačke republike I–X (ed. Ѕ. Ljubić), Zagreb 1868–1891.
• Monumenta Serbica : : Monumenta Ѕerbica spectantia historiam Serbiae, Bosnae, Ragusii (ed. F. Miklosich), Viennae 1858.
• Odabrani spomenici : : Odabrani spomenici srpskog prava (ed. A. Solovjev), Beograd 1926. (cyr)
• Rad JAZU 1 : : F. Rački, Prilozi za sbirku srbskih i bosanskih listina, Rad Jugoslavenske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 1 (1867) 124–163.
• SSA 1 : : S. Marjanović-Dušanić, Povelja kralja Milutina opatiji Sv. Marije Ratačke, Stari srpski arhiv 1 (2002) 13–29. (cyr)
• Zakonski spomenici : : Zakonski spomenici srpskih država srednjeg veka (ed. S. Novaković), Beo-grad 1912. (cyr)