Srednjovjekovno Brečevo i Polje Kanjane – još jedan pokušaj ubikacije
Another attempt at locating Medieval Brečevo and Polje Kanjane

Summary/Abstract: This essay, based on both newly found and previously known sources, presents the results of research concerning new possibilities for identification of the location of medieval toponyms Brečevo and Polje Kanjane (Kanjane Field), held by the Croatian magnates, the Nelipčić family. On the basis of source material from the medieval period, it is concluded that Polje, also known as Polje Kanjane, which is mentioned together with castrum Brečevo, is most probably a fourteenth-century name for what later came to be known as Petrovo polje, or, at least, its largest part. The connection between the today’s settlement Kanjane and the mentioned Polje is pointed out. Also, data collected from a series of documents concerning the person of Ivan Dminojević, one of the familiares of the Nelipčić family, led to the conclusion that Polje Kanjane encompassed a larger area and also included the village Siverić. Petrovo polje is probably a somewhat later name (from the early fifteenth century) for an even larger territory, which included most of the former districts of Oprominje, Kosovo and Polje Kanjane. Through the discovery of a document from 1487, it is now known that Brečevo still existed in the late fifteenth century and was located in the vicinity of the villages Suhovari, Brečevice and Poljane (all in the County of Knin). At the same time, through the analysis of Ottoman sources, primarily defters (tāpū tahrῑr defterleri), from the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, it was possible to conclude that the notion of Polje Kanjane (mer‘ā Kanani) survived into the early years of Turkish rule, but was reduced to the area around the villages Kanjane and Kadina Glavica. The villages Suhovare (on the river Čikola) and Brečević (on the river Brečević), which correspond to Suhovari and Brečevice mentioned in 1487, were recorded in all Turkish defters from 1530 to 1604. These villages do not exist anymore (at least not under those names), but were most probably located somewhere in the region between the modern villages Gradac and Bračević. However, the exact location of these settlements is not known and, therefore, neither is that of castrum Brečevo. It was also concluded that the nahiyes Zmina polje and Petrovo polje bordered each other somewhere along the river Vrba, between today’s settlements Ramljane, Radunić and Milešina (which are confirmed in the censuses of Zmina polje) and Crivac, Čavoglave and Kljake (which are presumed to have been the part of Petrovo polje). Taking everything afore-mentioned into consideration, the claim made by Stjepan Gunjača, the author of the article from 1957 dedicated to the localization of Brečevo, that this particular fortress was located in the village of Bračević, above the section of Vrba field called Kanjevača, may or may not be accurate. This paper suggests that medieval Brečevice (Brečević) may correspond to a part of the today’s village Bračević, but that castrum Brečevo itself was

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