Pisani izvori o šumama u savsko-dravskom međuriječju u kasnoj antici i srednjem vijeku
Writt en Sources on Forests in the Region Between the Sava and Drava Rivers in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages

Author(s): Hrvoje Gračanin, Silvija Pisk
Subject(s): Archaeology, Regional Geography, Historical Geography, Environmental Geography, Ancient World, Middle Ages
Published by: Hrvatski institut za povijest
Keywords: forests; southern Pannonia (region between the Sava and Drava rivers); Late Antiquity; Middle Ages; narative sources; diplomatic evidence;
Summary/Abstract: The paper focuses on analysis and comparison of two types of sources (selected late antique and medieval narrative sources as well as late medieval charters on purchase, sale, exchange, pawning, donation and perambulation of estates) referring to forests in the region between the Sava and Drava rivers. The aim is to detect and present which types of data on forests can be found in late antique and medieval narrative sources (of western/Latin and eastern/Greek provenance) and in late medieval documents, particularly in perambulation records. Through the analysis of narrative sources, the paper also endeavours to detect how much and what the writers knew about the forests, whether their knowledge was based on their personal experience, on acquired information or on the knowledge of literature; consequently what they have to say could simply be construed as a direct transfer of identical data and formulations from earlier literature references. Late medieval documents should for instance show the importance of the forests and trees in the determination of boundaries, which sorts of trees could be found in forests of the region between the Sava and Drava rivers, as well as what forests meant to the population of that time. The analyzed narrative sources offer too few information that is directly related to forests in the region between the Sava and Drava rivers. The exception is Claudian who makes the only explicit mention of forests in the region, and apparently in its eastern part, the former Roman province of Second Pannonia (Pannonia Secunda). However, given the panegyric character of his poem, his description has primarily symbolic power and is also quite general. On the contrary, Sextus Aurelius Victor was for a while governor of the Second Pannonia, and his remark about immense forests of Pannonias carries a greater weight as an eyewitness account.

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