The Balkan Legal Culture Between 14th to 18th Century

Recent studies argue that the Byzantine, respectively the Slavonic, legal system should be considered as a unit of texts (hagiography, parabiblical and legal, translated and original) and customs. An interesting example in this respect are two canon law collections, which have numerous Bulgarian, Serbian, Moldavian, Wallachian, East Slavic and Ruthenian copies emerging in a vast timeframe – from the 14^th to the 18^th century: the Pseudo-Zonaras Nomocanon (the most probable Byzantine prototype of which was the so-called Nomocanon Cotelerii) and Nomocanon pri Velikiya Trebnik (Nomocanon to the Great Euchologion). The texts included in these collections present various aspects of the interaction between the legal regime such as ideas about justice, canon law, folk religiosity. This phenomenon fits into the political and literary trends of the Balkans during the 14th century and became especially relevant under the Ottoman rule when the Church organization was destroyed and subjected to changes.

Desislava Naydenova is associate professor at the Cyrillo-Methodian Research Centre of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. She holds an MA in history from Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohrisdki” and a PhD (2007). She was a postdoctoral fellow (2011) at Institute of Slavic Studies at Vienna University (with a scholarship from OeAD, the Austria's Agency for Education and Internationalisation). Her research focuses on mediaeval history, Slavonic manuscripts, canon law and cultural anthropology. Desislava Naydenova has authored numerous publications on translated byzantine legal text in mediaeval Bulgaria and various phenomena related to legal culture, everyday life and marginal groups.