Original scientific paper
The parish church ... sancti Stephanis regis circa Drauam – a contribution to the interpretation of the spread of Hungarian political influence south of the Drava
Tajana Sekelj Ivančan
orcid.org/0000-0001-5992-8434
; Institute of Archaeology, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
In this paper we tried to determine with more precision in which period the church ... sancti Stephanis regis circa Drauam was assigned its patron saint – St. Stephen the King. Based on written and archaeological material sources on the examples of two highly important mediaeval centres south of the Drava, Zagreb and Knin, both with churches whose patron saint is St. Stephen the King, the time and the spatial preconditions that rendered a location eligible to have a sacral object dedicated to the most glorious ruler of the Hungarian throne, Stephen I was determined with more precision. The Hungarian dynasty pursued its aspirations for the lands south of the Drava, among other things, by a cultural policy reflected in the spread of Christianity through the church organization, and one of the methods was the assignment of a patron saint to chosen sacral buildings. Only five other are known, which were situated next to important communications as an essential factor in connecting the Hungarian Pannonian territory and its centres with the territory south of the Drava. The conclusion was reached that the consecrations took place after Andrew II first consecrated the Zagreb church, after issuing the document in 1217/1227, and at the latest until the rule of Bela IV (-1270) in the second half of the 13th century. That act, as well as the wide distribution of those churches in the area of the Zagreb diocese, was probably motivated also by intense activity of bishop Stephen II.
At the moment of the consecration to St. Stephen the King, the church in Torčec had already been constructed, in favour of which speaks the number of neighbouring settlements, whose existence is documented by systematic archaeological excavations of that area, as well as by the find of a deformed S-ring. The considerable number of neighbouring settlements first of the Early and later also of High Middle Ages, at a given moment resulted in the need to form a parish centre and to continue with the burials around it. A testimony to its continuity is provided by archaeological excavations carried out at the site of Cirkvišče, as well as by the situation in the first half of the 14th century, documented in historical written sources.
Keywords
church of St. Stephen the King; Torčec; Zagreb; Knin; Early and High Middle Ages
Hrčak ID:
40283
URI
Publication date:
31.8.2009.
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