A COMBINED APPROACH TO THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE “SACRED LANDSCAPE” OF DUKLJA AND RAŠKA IN THE TIMES OF STEFAN NEMANJA BASED ON HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY, ART AND CHURCH HISTORY
A COMBINED APPROACH TO THE RECONSTRUCTION OF THE “SACRED LANDSCAPE” OF DUKLJA AND RAŠKA IN THE TIMES OF STEFAN NEMANJA BASED ON HISTORICAL GEOGRAPHY, ART AND CHURCH HISTORY

Summary/Abstract: This article strives for a combined approach consisting of historical geography and art and church history in the research of Duklja and Raška in the times of Stefan Nemanja. The article’s first part addresses the circumstances of the birth of Stefan Nemanja and the question of Nemanja’s two baptisms. Moreover, data on the churches and monasteries, their patrocinia and the stećci (funeral monuments) in the area of research has been gathered and then analysed with digital tools to offer a map-based reconstruction of the “Sacred Landscape”. The second part focuses on the early medieval church of St. Stephen in Sušćepan, located near Herceg Novi in today’s Montenegro. Among its church furnishings and sculptural decorations, a parapet slab, most probably from the 11th century, stands out. Besides highlighting similar solutions on the parapet slabs of churches along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, the paper draws attention to iconographic solutions as well as floral and geometric motifs and their importance within the sacred space of the church. The third and final part of the article introduces an analysis of selected written sources illuminating the relationship of Duklja with the Latin Church, particularly with the Apostolic See in Rome, in the 12th and 13th centuries. It deals with the communication of the Papal Chancellery with the archbishops of Ragusa (Dubrovnik) and Antivari (Bar) from the backdrop of the ongoing disputes over the church hierarchy in Southern Dalmatia.

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