Comparative Diplomatics

Pre-requisites: passed exams in one old language (Greek/Latin/Old Slavonic) and in Auxiliary Sciences of History

Course objectives: A detailed introduction to the discipline of medieval diplomatics, along with practical work on medieval diplomatic sources. Raising the students consciousness on the importance of placing Serbian diplomatic material within the context of comparative analysis with Latin and Greek material.

Course description: After a recapitulation of the beginning and development of diplomatics and of its basic methodological assumptions and terminology, lectures will focus on current trends in the discipline. Next, the course examines medieval chanceries - their definition as "scribal" institutions (as opposed to scriptoriums) and their characteristics with regard to the types of documents produced and their authors. Major models of European chanceries (imperial, papal, royal, communal) are described in detail, and comparisons are drawn between them and Serbian chancery practice. In practical classes, theoretical knowledge on chancery and document types and their authors is consolidated and developed through analysis of surviving chancery products, simultaneously providing insight into the procedure of diplomatic analysis.

Learning Outcomes: Achieving a comparative insight into the functioning of medieval chanceries - Western, Byzantine, Serbian - as well as a high degree of training in techniques and methods of working with diplomatic material and medieval sources in general.

Literature/Reading:

• S. Stanojević, Studije iz srpske diploatike, Beograd 1935.
• S. Marjanović-Dušanić, Vladarska ideologija Nemanjića. Diplomatička studija, Beograd 1997.
• časopis Stari srpski arhiv, br. 1- , Beograd 2002- .