Srednjovekovne povelje u arhivu manastira Savine

Abstract

Idea and the basis for this article (and the lecture held under the same title in the Institute of History in Belgrade, on November 7th, 2002) came from the research of the Archive of the Savina monastery during August 2002, with financial support of the project The Society in Serbian Diplomatic Sources by the Ministry of Science and Technologies of the Republic of Serbia. The Archive of the Savina monastery is the one of the rare monasteries which preserved relatively large quantity of the documents, within the great time span. In foundation and character of the Savina Monastery crucial role was played by the two facts: when the monks moved from Tvrdoš to Savina in XVII century, they brought with them significant parts of the deposits of the Tvrdoš and Mileševo monasteries, and the second one is the development of the monastery during XVIII century, which created rich archives. The medieval part of the Savina archive is comprised of three charters: 1. charter of king Uroš I on the occasion of foundation of St. Nikola church in Hvosno as an estate of Mileševa (1. September 1276 – 1. May 1277); the original has not been preserved, there are two transcripts, one written at the earliest in XVI century and the other, transcript of this transcript, made in 1938 by Mstislav Šahmatov, Russian law historian from Prague; 2. a transcription from XVIII century of the falsified charter of emperor Uroš about the tribute of Ston (12. July 1358); four copies of this false charter have been preserved. It was made by the end of XV century with the aim to transfer the tribute of Ston from the Monastery of Saint Archangels in Jerusalem to the Serbian monasteries at the Mount Athos- Hilandar and St. Paul; the sources give us no proof for logically coherent answers to questions of the motives of writing or the circumstances and time of arriving at Savina; 3. the charter of despot Stefan Lazarević by which he donated five villages in the region of today's Požega to the monastery of Mileševa (after 1413); in the archive of Savina there is an original with preserved wax seal and the transcript of the original made in 1938 by Mstislav Šahmatov. The charters of king Uroš and despot Stefan represent the only relics of the medieval archives of the monastery of Mileševa. After being brought to Savina, at the latest in 1694, they were taken out of the monastery several times for a longer period. By the end of 1856 Ivan Kukuljević found them in the hands of the priest Luka Radonić in Kotor. It is not known when and for what reason they arrived there. It was Luka Radonić himself who brought them back to the Savina monastery at the latest in 1890. The charters were taken from the monastery again in 1985 to be conserved by the Institute of preservation of the cultural monuments in Cetinje. After seventeen years they were brought back to Savina – not preserved!.