Представе о празнику и празнично понашање у средњовековној Србији
The Concepts of the Holiday and the Festive Behaviour in Medieval Serbia

Summary/Abstract: Disregarding his social position and education, medieval man was aware of discontinuity and diversity of the time, in center of which there was a holiday. In the Serbian medieval sources ordinary days were called common days, while holy days were marked as holy, honorable, bright, etc. Behaviour which an individual expressed during the holidays and the regulations of the educated elite how to celebrate testify about existance of different conceptions of how to spend holidays. Thus, the relation between written culture, primarily Church's one, and the traditional, folk culture was viewed. Intending to mark opposite ways of celebrating, the written culture defined its attitudes through the relation spiritual - physical: dually celebrating, both spiritualy and physicaly (Domentian, mid-XIII century) or spiritualy and physicaly comforting all those who came to this celebration (archbishop Danilo II, first half of XIV century). Regarding the space, church was the place were sacral events of the holiday took place (liturgies and prayers), while secular ways, such as feasts, dance, games, competitions etc. belonged to the house, square, street, theatre or a playground. However, since the church could not divide the physical from the festive time, it had to limit a principle of physical in the sense of spirit and space, to the secular field. Apart from that, the only acceptable form of physical was the feast. It was also insisted on the limits and control of satisfaction of the physical on the account of devoting to the spiritual forms of joy and gayety.

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