Kvantifikacija svakodnevice - primjer dubrovačkih krčmi
Quantification of daily life: The example of Dubrovnik taverns

Summary/Abstract: The author analyzes cases related to taverns in the criminal court records of Dubrovnik’s medieval commune, presently kept in the State Archives of Dubrovnik. A quantitative analysis of these sources has shown that taverns were regularly visited throughout the year, but especially during winter. Such a result may confirm the hypothesis about the connection between the medieval rhythm of life and nature’s rhythm. The analogy between the rhythm of labour and rhythm of nature is also confirmed by the increased visiting frequency of taverns (as a matter of fact, increased number of conflict situations related to taverns in criminal records) during the end of June and the entire month of July. One cannot explain this phenomenon by temperature and climate changes only. Therefore, the author suggests that the answer should lie in the rhythm of labour during year. The majority of population was employed in the agrarian sector and worked in the vineyards. At the end of June, they would finish their work and leave grapes to mature until the harvest in August. Consequently, they had much more free time in the intervening period. Similarly, the visiting frequency was by and large synchronized with the Church calendar, as during the times of Lent and Advent the number of cases significantly fell. By the same token, the visiting frequency, as the frequency of criminal deeds in taverns indicates, partly depended on the day of the week.. The majority of fights and quarrels happened at the end of the week (22 out of 48), so one can assume that the visiting frequency was the highest on these days. This may not be a fully reliable index of visiting frequency but it should nonetheless be taken into account, especially since the analysis has shown that results may depend to a large extent on the distribution of the analyzed sample.

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