HISTORICAL ISSUES
ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL BASIS OF THE OLD SERBIAN STATEHOOD
Abstract
Economic histоry, created in recent times, has provided a completetely different angle of view of medieval history, which shows that the Middle Ages is not, as it is often called, a dark interlude between magnificent antiquity and brilliant Renaissance, but one of the most inventive societies in history; at least when it comes to technology. From the angle of economic history, we look at the Serbian Middle Ages – the economic base and the social structure. When we talk about the Serbian Middle Ages, the thought goes to the state of the Nemanjic dynasty. For the Serbian people, the state of Nemanjic remained a symbol of statehood and military power, but also the embodiment of Serbian medieval culture. Serbian medievel culture developed within the Byzantine culture, the highest culture of the Middle Ages. The Byzantine cultural pattern is visible in the organization of the state, social structure, political ideology, literature and it’s legal monuments. The main shortcoming of the medieval Serbian state is related to the lack of a domestic trade layer that could match foreign traders. In addition to being financially more powerful, foreign traders also had greater privileges than domestic traders. The equating of domestic with foreign traders followed only in the time of Tsar Dusan. In that way, the trade profit did not stay in the country, but went to the home places from where the merchants came, most often to Dubrovnik and Venice. This is the main reason why there has been no development of cities and the emergence of urban population, and there are no structural economic shifts based on production and technological innovations. That was the great weakness of the medieval Serbian state, which greatly reduced it’s resistance to the Turkish invasion.
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