engleski

Orders of Society in Ragusan Narrative Sources: The Case of Cittadini Ragusei

The notion of the cittadini Ragusei as a separate order evolved in the narrative sources gradually, as the estate itself was developing. From the late 16th and especially in the 17th and 18th centuries, the sources speak of the cittadini or the ordo civium, referring to an estate that on the social ladder came “first after the nobility”. It is this very expression that reflects the development of Dubrovnik’s citizenry and its completion, from the ambiguity and fluidity in the overlapping of the terms popolo and cittadini to a perfectly defined social estate. It was closely linked to two elite confraternities, primarily the Antunini and then the Lazarini, since with time only their members came to be considered as cittadini. And whereas in the 15th and 16th centuries, be it in normative or in narrative sources, it is still difficult to find a precise definition of the cittadini as a distinct social group (although this terminological deficiency did not stand in the way of very clear distinctions between the estates as something that every citizen of Dubrovnik was well aware of, regardless whether it was about the processions or about punishments), with time these “fluidities” in definition vanished.

society, narrative sources, Dubrovnik (Ragusa), cittadini, citizenry

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