Original scientific paper
A Genealogy of the Berislavići of Vrhrika and of Mala Mlaka (from the 15th till the 18th Century)
Pavao Maček
Ivan Jurković
Abstract
The members of the Berislavići family used their noble predicate only that of Vrhrika, a district in the County of Knin in medieval Croatia, and were the members of the Čubranić kindred, the only noble kindred of that district. After the fall of the Kingdom of Bosnia (1463) under Ottoman rule, they were gradually forced to leave their ancestral land. At the end of the fifteenth century one of them, Stjepan (Stephen), settled in Mala Mlaka, a place situated in the area of the Noble Community of Turopolje (Nobilis communitas Campi Zagrabiensis) in medieval Slavonia. However, because of the large amount of incorrect data in historiographical works, particularly those regarding the early modern period of the Berislavići history, it is necessary to be cautious when making recourse to these data. In order to supplement and correct the data provided by the Croatian historians, in this work the noble Berislavići of Vrhrika and of Mala Mlaka are reconstituted, and their genealogy is presented, with a short biographical data (explanations) of particular members of the family. On the basis of these data it is possible, for instance, to recognize that regarding the choice of strategies for the survival and preservation of the social standing of the family, the Berislavići, as an example of the displaced noblemen, were limited by the fact that the number of males among them remained low through several generations. Thus, the choice of an ecclesiastical career was immediately abandoned as impossible, while military engagement on the frontier was too risky. Because of that, it does not seem strange that mentioned Stjepan and his successors until the third generation chose only a combination of administrative and military careers in the relatively secure zone, which proved to be successful in Stjepan’s case. When also this failed, Stjepan’s grandsons turned to a new strategy based on achieving education and higher positions in local and central administration – and succeeded.
Keywords
genealogy; the Berislavići family; displaced nobility; 15th–18th C
Hrčak ID:
11889
URI
Publication date:
5.9.2006.
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