Hrelja

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The Hrelja Tower in the Rila Monastery

Hrelja ( Serbian - Cyrillic Хреља ; Bulgarian Хрельо ; medium Greek Χρέλης Chrelēs ; full name Stefan Hrelja Dragovol or Stefan Ohmucevic ; as a monk Hariton ; † 27. December 1342 in Rila Monastery ) was a Serbian military leader and quasi-autonomous magnate ( Boljar ) in eastern Macedonia and Rila Mountains.

Life

Almost nothing is known about Hrelja's family background; all you know is that he was married. In the 1320s he served the Serbian King Stefan Uroš III. Dečanski from the Nemanjić dynasty as a military leader . Even then, the feudal lord had extensive possessions in the area around his residence Strumica , Štip and the Rila monastery, which allowed him to pursue a largely independent policy in the no man's land between Serbia , Bulgaria and Byzantium .

The building inscription Hreljas

In 1327/28 Hrelja supported the Byzantine pretender Andronikos III. Palaiologos in the civil war against his grandfather Andronikos II and was raised to Protosebastus for this . This Byzantine court title is attested on an inscription on the well-preserved stone tower in the Rila monastery, which Hrelja had built in 1334/35. The text also confirms that Hrelja at that time still recognized the suzerainty of the Serbian King Stefan Uroš IV Dušan . In the late 1330s, however, he largely broke free of Serbian dependence and established a de facto independent rule. In 1340 Hrelja gave the monastery of Hilandar on Mount Athos the St. Michael monastery in Štip and several lands. At that time he held the rank of mega domestico .

After the death of Andronikos III. In 1341 a civil war broke out in the Byzantine Empire between the court party of the heir to the throne, John V, and the magnate party of the general Johannes Kantakuzenos , who also proclaimed himself emperor in Thrace . Hrelja temporarily joined Kantakuzenos in 1341/42, for which he was rewarded with the high title of Kaisar . In addition, in the spring of 1342 he received governorship over Melnik , which had been occupied shortly before by Johannes Asanes for the magnate party.

When John VI. Kantakuzenos sought support from the Serbs again in the summer of 1342 after several setbacks in the civil war, Hrelja was again forced to recognize Stefan Dušan's sovereignty. In autumn 1342 he handed Melnik over to Dušan and retired as a monk under the name of Hariton to the Rila Monastery, where he died on December 27th - perhaps murdered on behalf of the Serbian king - and was buried. Stefan Dušan and the despot Jovan Oliver divided Hrelja's domains among themselves.

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literature

  • Mark C. Bartusis: Chrelja and Momčilo. Occasional Servants of Byzantium in Fourteenth Century Macedonia. In: Byzantinoslavica. Vol. 41, 1980, ISSN  0007-7712 , pp. 201-221.
  • Сима Ћирковић : Хрељин поклон Хиландару . In: Зборник радова Византолошког института . Vol. 21, 1982, ISSN  0584-9888 , pp. 103-117.
  • Михаило Динић: Реља Охмућевић - историји и предању . In: Зборник радова Византолошког института . Vol. 9, 1966, ISSN  0584-9888 , pp. 95-119.
  • Franz Dölger : Regest of the imperial documents of the Eastern Roman Empire from 565-1453. Part 4: Regesten from 1282-1341 (= corpus of Greek documents from the Middle Ages and more recent times. Row A: Regesten. Dept. 1, Part 4). CH Beck, Munich 1960, No. 2695, 2788.
  • John Van Antwerp Fine: The Late Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Late Twelfth Century to the Ottoman Conquest. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor MI 1994, ISBN 0-472-08260-4 , pp. 291, 297-301, 312.
  • Constantin Jireček : History of the Serbs. Vol. 1: Bis 1371. Perthes, Gotha 1911 (reprinted by Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam 1967), pp. 360-361, 379, 382-383.
  • Patrick Lecaque: The monastery of Rila during the XIVth Century and the Wall Paintings of the Tower of Hreljo. In: Macedonian Studies. Vol. 5, No. 3-4, 1988, ISSN  1011-8756 , pp. 3-49.
  • Raymond-Joseph Loenertz , Peter Schreiner : La chronique brève de 1352. Part 3. In: Orientalia Christiana Periodica. Vol. 31, 1965, ISSN  0030-5375 , pp. 336-373, here: pp. 343-345.
  • Ljubomir Maksimović: The Byzantine provincial administration under the Palaiologoi. Adolf M. Hakkert, Amsterdam 1988, ISBN 90-256-0968-6 , p. 54.
  • Христо Матанов: Югозападните български земи в периода на сръбската власт ( края на XIII първата половина на XIV век ). §Югозападните български земи през XIV век. Наука и изкуство, София§§ 1986, OCLC 64494357 , pp. 33-34.
  • Donald M. Nicol : The Byzantine family of Kantakouzenos (Cantacuzenus) approx. 1100-1460. A genealogical and prosopographical study (= Dumbarton Oaks Studies. Vol. 11). Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, Washington DC 1968, pp. 49-52, 109.
  • George Christos Soulis: The Serbs and Byzantium during the Reign of Tsar Stephen Dušan (1331-1355) and his Successors. Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, Washington DC 1984, ISBN 0-88402-137-8 , pp. 13-21.
  • Ludwig Steindorff: Tsar Stefan Dušan of Serbia. In: Marc Löwener (Ed.): The "bloom" of the states of Eastern Europe in the 14th century (= sources and studies German Historical Institute Warsaw. Vol. 14). Otto Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2004, ISBN 3-447-04797-6 , pp. 183–203, here: pp. 190–191.
  • Erich Trapp , Hans-Veit Beyer, Ioannes G. Leontiades, Sokrates Kaplaneres: Prosopographisches Lexikon der Palaiologenzeit . 12. Fascicle: Τοβλάταν - Ωράνιος (= Publications of the Commission for Byzantine Studies . Vol. 1/12). Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 1994, ISBN 3-7001-2072-9 , p. 235 No. 30989.
  • Eva De Vries-Van der Velden: L'élite byzantine devant l'avance turque à l'époque de la guerre civile de 1341 à 1354. JC Gieben, Amsterdam 1989, ISBN 90-5063-026-X , pp. 69-70 .

Remarks

  1. ↑ See PLP 12, p. 235.
  2. ↑ Cf. Матанов, Югозападните, p. 33 f.
  3. ↑ See PLP 12, p. 235.
  4. ↑ Cf. Матанов, Югозападните, p. 33 f.
  5. ↑ See PLP 12, p. 235.
  6. ↑ Cf. Fine, Late Medieval Balkans , p. 299 f.
  7. ↑ See Fine, Late Medieval Balkans , p. 300.
personal data
SURNAME Hrelja
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Хреља (Serbian); Хрельо (Bulgarian); Χρέλης (Middle Greek); Stefan Hrelja Dragovol (full name); Stefan Ohmućević (full name); Hariton (religious name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Serbian military leader and quasi-independent feudal lord in Eastern Macedonia and Rila
DATE OF BIRTH before 1320
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1342
Place of death Rila Monastery