engleski

Churches as stages for asserting power? Frequent changes of church furniture and the display of identity in Early Medieval Croatia

Stone church furniture ranks among the most numerous and most important archaeological finds from the territory of Early Medieval Croatia. It is sometimes called "the state archive in stone" since quite a few installations bear inscriptions along with the elaborate decoration. Some of these inscriptions record the names of rulers and other members of the elite, as well as ethnonims, especially at sites which have been confirmed (archaeologically or by written sources) as places of great local or regional importance. Sometimes there has been only one installation of the furniture, carried out with the building of the church, while at some places one or more renovations have occured. This is especially the case during the 9th century. At the same time the custom of elaborate burials gradually vanishes. In the late 8th and early 9th century such burials played a significant role in the formation of the new elite and their identity and they are often found at the same sites as the most important later churches. Because of that it could be argued that a part of the practice of identity has transformed and has moved to a new stage of display, inside churches. In this paper the main focus will be on this new practice of elite identity, through church building and furnishing. Its connection with the previous burials shall also be analyzed, thus shedding new light on the role of material culture in the somewhat turbulent period of the newly formed Croatian polity.

Early Middle Ages; Elite Identity; Archaeology; Church Furniture; Material Culture

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