Original scientific paper
The Noble Kindred of Deževići from Cernik in the Late Middle Ages
Borislav Grgin
Abstract
In this paper, the author analyzed the social role and position of the noble kindred of Deževići (Dessefy) from Cernik in the Late Middle Ages, on the territory of the Požega (Pozsega) County in the Hungarian-Croatian Kingdom. This analysis is based on the documents from the Hungarian State Archives in Budapest and on the relevant literature. The sources are later transcripts of 111 charters, dating from 1363 to 1536. The analysis showed that they were to a large extent documents about their possessions and landed estates. Therefore, one might conclude that the continuity of their social and economic roles as landlords was the key issue in securing their overall social status. Deževići were one of the most important noble kindreds in the region between the Drava and the Sava rivers at the time. The most distinguished individuals among them managed, at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries, to gradually rise on the social scale from the ranks of the middling nobility to becoming true magnates. The duties they performed in the local and central administration and in the church, as well as their income and huge capital frequently mentioned in the sources, confirm the above-mentioned assumption. Deževići completed their rise even on the judicial and on the symbolical level, rounding up the process of becoming a new and important factor of power in the late medieval Hungarian- Croatian Kingdom.
Keywords
Deževići; Cernik; nobility; Požega; upward social mobility; Late Middle Ages
Hrčak ID:
97362
URI
Publication date:
15.11.2012.
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