Termini za feudalna davanja u starosrpskom jeziku

Abstract

We use the term feudal levies to denote both financial and in-kind obligations which were imposed on the serfs in the Serbian medieval states. The lexicon has been excerpted from the Serbian medieval charters and and older manuscript copies of Dušan’s code. Approximately one third of the entire number of the found terms are complex terms. Most of these terms originated from simple terms by means of attribution – more frequently by postposing the agreeing attribute (e. g. наметâк градни), and, less frequently, by postposing the case attribute in the genitive (e. g. даније господства ми). Only one term (данâк Турком) was formed by means of addition. Among the single-element terms the largest number of terms was formed by means of coinage, followed by the ones formed by means of lexical loaning and transfer of meaning (metonymyzation). A quarter of the total number of the terms represents lexical loanwords from the Greek language, which is expectable, concerning the political and cultural supremacy of the Byzantine Empire during the Middle Ages. Similar to the terminology of the feudal labour obligations, hypernymic and hyponyimic relations are also highly prominent here. The largest number of terms was found in the charters from XIV century, as expected, since the Serbian feudalism reaches the peak of its development in this period. The examination of the sources by the territorial principle reveals a substantial terminological richness in the charters from the territories seized from Byzantine Empire. There is a separate subsystem consisting of the terms found from the end of XIV and the beginning of the XV century in the charters from the period of Despotry (данâк зимњи, нужда, унча, унча зимња, унча летња, унгија, унгија летња, телос, војница, војиштатик, ложнâк).