Memoria S. Chrysogoni: Between the Legend on the Transfer of Relics and Ownership over Monastic Land
Memoria S. Chrysogoni: Between the Legend on the Transfer of Relics and Ownership over Monastic Land

Author(s): Trpimir Vedriš
Subject(s): History of Church(es), History of Law, Local History / Microhistory, Middle Ages
Published by: Hrvatski institut za povijest
Keywords: ownership; possession; Monastic Land; St Chrysogonus; Zadar;
Summary/Abstract: A series of randomly selected terms from the titles of various papers presented at this conference (property, ownership rights, real-estate ownership, and possession) re-minds us – besides the fact that the speakers have adhered to the given subject – that, when speaking of “property”, we implicitly have in mind the “actual”, that is, material property. However, if one resists the almost spontaneous slip into determining the object of property or ownership as exclusively material, one does not need to be re-minded that, just as the “material capital” is by no means the only imaginable form of capital, thus the ownership over material property is not (necessarily) the only form of ownership. The same is, as it seems, valid for possession or property. When reflecting on the possibility of owning or possessing immaterial goods, I must, however, consciously avoid the basically conceptual and terminological question of whether one can actually possess immaterial goods. Therefore, staring from the presumption that the “ownership” or “possession” of things like memory or knowledge is in a way also possible – and I will try to show, on a selected example from the medieval history of Zadar, an interesting relationship between such “symbolic” and “actual” forms of possession.

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