Bribir,
A settlement in the Šibenik and Knin County, 12 km north
west of Skradin. According to the 2001 census, it had a
population of 79.
History
The oldest traces of
life were discovered in a field not far from the
Bribirčica stream, the lower course of the Krka River,
where the remains of an Old Stone Age settlement were
found. The most important archaeological monuments
(ran-ging from prehistory through antiquity and the
medieval period) are to be found on Glavica, above the
village, which was settled at the latest at the beginning
of the 1st
millennium BC. Until the
coming of the Romans, the settlement had the form of a
Liburnian, i.e., Celtic, hill fort, and as early as the
1st
century AD was surrounded
with powerful masonry ramparts, and obtained the status
of municipium, called Municipium Varvariae. After
achieving prosperity in the first few centuries of the
Christian era, at the time of the great migrations,
Varvaria knew difficult times, like other settlements in
the area of the far-flung Roman Empire. After the
Avar-Slavic incursions, the ruins of the ancient city
were settled by the Croats, who turned the name Varvaria
into Bribir, founding a medieval castle there. Some
investigators identify today’s Bribir with the ancient
settlement of Arauzona, but we can find the first written
testimony about the place in the writings of Constantine
Porphyrogenitus in the 10th century, listing Brebara among the
Croatian counties, while the name Brebir was also
recorded. There, the remains of numerous buildings have
been discovered and preserved. Of particular interest are
the imposing Roman city walls built of great stone
blocks, residential buildings equipped with water
cisterns, and systems of public cisterns for the city’s
water supply. The finding of a Roman mausoleum with
sarcophagi tells of the high level of artistic
creativity. From the Early Croat period comes a hexafoil
church, above which a cemetery was later developed.
Bribir flourished in particular when the Šubić family had
its seat there; they were the most powerful Croatian
family at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. Medieval documents mention
certain public buildings such as a curia and a
hospitalium, as well as churches (St Mary’s, here the
largest building, a Franciscan basilica with three naves
and fragments of church furniture of Romanesque and
Gothic forms;
St Saviour’s and St
John’s). The richness of these churches is told of by the
will of Pavel II Šubić, who took the coastal province
(consisting of Croatia and Dalmatia) from King Andrew
III, 1293, as a heritable fief for his family, and in
1346 gave St Mary’s a great gilt cross, a gilt reliquary,
a gilt censer, a pearled amice and richly decorated
vestments and books. The castle was demolished and
occupied by the Turks, and when they went, there was no
longer any permanent population on the Glavica plateau,
rather at the foot of it.
References:
Klaić, Vjekoslav: “Povijest Hrvata“,
vol. 1, p. 318
Enciklopedija likovnih umjetnosti, vol.
1, p. 499