Fourteenth-century Serbian elites at a turning point: a historical approach to Mrnjavčevići’s purse and life
Fourteenth-century Serbian elites at a turning point: a historical approach to Mrnjavčevići’s purse and life

Summary/Abstract: Emerged both as contenders and immediate successors of the relatively centralized Serbian power, the late-14th-c. short-lived family of Mrnjavčevići serves as an eloquent example of the translocations and the internal adjustments of the Serbian ruling elite during the Ottoman conquest. Providing an opportunity for a multidimensional historical approach, their case facilitates the comprehension of the emergence of decentralized powers and their particular characteristics, acknowledged in connection to the local administrative structures of župas. In particular, Mrnjavčevići, having a prior claim on the leadership of a larger administrative region and being fully embedded in the political and ecclesiastical structures introduced or preserved by Nemanjići seem to have taken advantage of the mobility observed along the constantly redefined trade side-routes: Due to their mediating economic activity, they gradually managed to consolidate themselves as middlemen in the administrative hierarchy of the Nemanjid court and by being in good terms with Mt. Athos monasteries as neighbors and contributors, they succeeded to emerge as strategic and military actors both on the western coasts of the gradually fragmented Serbian lands and in the campaigns against the Ottomans. Exploring the service provided by Mrnjavčevići as a financial and fiscal aspect of the late medieval decentralization and fragmentation, we are provided with a better comprehension of the conditions of the new era, which the Balkan population(s) will live through.

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