REFLECTION OF DAILY LIFE IN MEDIEVAL INSCRIPTIONS AND NOTES FROM SERBIA AND BOSNIA (12TH–16TH CENTURIES)
Jan. 22, 2024
Keywords:
inscriptions
daily life
marginalia
Medieval Bosnia
Medieval Serbia
View PDF
Abstract
Inscriptions on buildings, wall paintings and tombstones, as well as marginal notes of copyists and readers of books
are important sources for the study of daily life in Serbia and Bosnia in the Middle Ages. They contain information
about the erection and painting of churches and monasteries, their founders, builders and painters, and
sometimes about the reasons and circumstances in which these buildings were created. The tombstone inscriptions
can offer basic information about deceased persons and their lives and often depict the beliefs, ethics and culture
of the nobility. Records of copyists, translators and manuscript illuminators reveal both religious motives that led
them to accept this endeavor, as well as various difficulties they faced in their work (from inadequate sources, poor
quality writing material, to the difficult conditions in which they copied, translated and decorated books – cold,
hunger, lack of sleep, sight problems, social disturbances and wars). Similar marginalia about the difficulties they
encountered in everyday life, about illness, death or fear of the Turks were often left by the readers of these books,
and empty pages or margins in the books were sometimes used to list someone’s income and expenses, draft private
contracts or record global and local news.
