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More than seven centuries have passed since Serbian King Uroš I decided to clad the entire Ibar valley, from Kraljevo to Raška, in the fragrant lilac panicles. Then, as now, the source of the Ibar was in Zeta (now Montenegro), which after its 272-kilometer flow, joins the Western Morava. Thousands of blossoming flower clusters, from dove gray to pink, adorned the wild beauty of the bare cliff s of the Ibar Gorge through which the future Serbian queen, a catholic, had to pass in order to arrive to Serbia from her remote country. Legend has it that the Lilac Valley, the ode to love and tenderness by which Serbian king Uroš I Nemanjić greeted his French bride, was suppose to remind her of her native Provence.
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Once upon a time, more than seven centuries ago, between 1245 and 1259, the future queen crossed who knows how many mountains and seas to get to the land of Rascia (Raška). This is the beginning of our story about a queen who was the most beloved and praised ruler of the Orthodox people. Her life, covered in centuries, is woven from scarce records and legends in order to understand something that– we don’t even dare to say – has perhaps been wiped-out forever. This is how we keep records about ourselves. |
From where Helen actually arrived and who her ancestors were are questions still tormenting biographers, writers and researchers. Surely she came from a distinguished, perhaps a ruling family, as that was a precondition to marry the Serbian king. Uroš I, a descendent of the holy Nemanjić line, "held the throne of the kingdom" of Serbia for 33 years. He was the son of King Stefan the First Crowned and Anna Dandolo, a grandson of Stefan Nemanja, the founder of the Nemanjić dynasty, and a grand-grandson of Dodge Enrico Dandolo, a member of the Venetian aristocracy from the family that gave four dodges. All medieval Serbian rulers were married to foreign princesses, mostly from Byzantium. Helen of Anjou, according to her biographer Danilo the Second or Danilo of Peć or Danilo the Elder (1270-1337) "the holy archbishop of Serbia" and the author of that pearl of Serbian medieval literature, "The Lives of Kings and Archbishops of Serbia", she was of a "fruško" i.e. of French origin. We don’t know, however, whether her family was from the heart of France or southern Italy, neither if her French origin was from the Greek or Hungarian side. One thing is, we may say, indisputable. Helen was a French woman married to Uroš I who was king when he married her, and she gave him two sons, later rulers of the Serbian lands, Dragutin and Milutin. The name Helen, or Jelena, was probably not the Serbian queen’s christened name because she kept it after she entered the monastic order. Perhaps she got it when she came to the Serbian court as a titular? This entails the question who, when and why the name 'of Anjou' was added? In those far away times, it was not so uncommon that true royal names were not known! The Nemanjić certainly befits Jelena.
How old the bride was when, after routinely long and detailed negotiations about royal marriage, she set out to the land of Rascia we don’t know. We do know that her future spouse clad the cliff s bordering the Ibar River in thousands of flowering clusters of various fragrant lilacs so the wild beauty of the cliff s would be less frightening to the bride.
The greatest part of her long life Jelena spent in the Serbian Kingdom – more than 60 years. She was by her husband the entire time during his rule, and eventually outlived him.
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She bore witness to the deep political turbulence when her elder son Dragutin challenged his father and won the throne on the battlefield. As spouse and queen Jelena disapproved, as mother she forgave.
Dragutin pleaded with her and received her blessing "assigning her a part of his state". This included the regions in the Littoral – from Shkoder to Ulcinj and Dubrovnik and, in the interior, Konavli and the Mountainous Nahija (regional unit), Plav on the Lim River, Gusinje and Brnjaci on the Ibar River. All these became "Lands of the queen mother".
Another important political event happened in 1282, when Jelena’s elder son Stefan Dragutin, in Dezhevo, abdicated in favour of his younger brother Milutin. It seems that the brothers managed to maintain a correct relationship according to their mother’s advice.
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Gradac Monastery |
Though Danilo the Second, the writer of precious "Lives", doesn’t always give us the evidence we wish, he contributes enough to deserve our gratitude. In order to comprehend history, the latter centuries always need more details. The writer says that Queen Jelena received the highest monastic order – the great schema – in the church of St. Nicholas near Shkoder, on the right riverbank of Bojana, today’s Albania, but says nothing about when this occurred (probably in 1280). Ruins provide no other evidence.
The fact remains that Jelena of Anjou was intensively building and reconstructing, especially along the seacoast. The building of a monastery for Orthodox monks in Ston, in about 1260, on the site of the ruined Church of Virgin Mary, is attributed to her. She was especially generous to the Franciscan Catholic Order founded at the beginning of the 13th century. In Bar, where she had her palace, in about 1288 she built the Franciscan Abbey with a church and provided it with everything necessary for functioning. She also built the church of St, Francis in Kotor – whose foundations are unearthed. She built the church and monastery of St. Mary in Shkoder, also for the Franciscan friars. The year of 1288 and Queen Jelena are also mentioned in connection to construction of the Franciscan Abbey in Ulcinj. According to an inscription on the plate by the gate of the Church of St. Srdj and Vakh on the Bojana River, Queen Jelena renovated this church with her sons. A preserved charter to the Monastery of the Holy Virgin in Ratak testifies that Jelena granted it many lands.
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The Queen Jelena
of Anjou's, fresco,
Sopoćani Monastery |
Jelena presented an icon known as the "Vatican Icon of Apostles Peter and Paul" to the Vatican, which included the names of Ss. Peter and Paul written in Cyrillic. The icon depicts the queen with her sons receiving the blessing by a high catholic prelate. This, again, shows that she knew and could, equally win "the love of Serbs and of Latin people". The icon from the treasury of the church of St. Nicholas in Bari is a gift by the queen and her sons. The famed wooden cross with the crucified Christ decorated with gold, precious stones and pearls is a gift to the memorial church in which her husband rests – the Church of the Holy Trinity in Sopoćani. It is unknown when and how this cross appeared in Vienna, at the Habsburg court, but it is known that Austrian princes carried fragments of this holy cross, wrapped in silk, as relics.
Embraced by the mountains of Rascia, near where the Gradačka River joins the Brvenica, Jelena of Anjou built her own memorial Orthodox endowment at the end of 13th century, which was "the beautiful church of Gradac."
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A considerably damaged composition depicts Uroš and Jelena as they present a model of the Gradac Church to Christ, and under the composition is a double crypt.
Whether it was planned for the king and his queen, united in life, to rest together in this place is unknown but likely. The crypt is richly decorated, covered with polished marble plates, but there are visible traces of opening and under the sarcophagus there are no relics of "our gentle and Christ loving lady, the holy Queen Jelena". Uroš I is buried in his church in Sopoćani.
The Archbishop Danilo the Second ensured that the Church of Virgin Mary in Gradac had the carved inscription "Jelena, the Queen of Entire Serbian lands and the Littoral". Jelena herself invested great energy into this church and hence it bears all the characteristics of her personality. A fresco portrays a young woman, with a long, delicate and bare neck, with dark hair divided across her temples to the back of the neck. Her face is washed out by rain and winds, because the church was repeatedly pillaged through the centuries.
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In her palace in Brnjak, probably at the foot of the Rogozno Mountain, where the Brnjačka River enters the Ibar, and perhaps in her convent, the queen founded the first "school for girls". She gathered poor girls, educated them and then married them off with rich gifts.
Outstanding in many ways, the Serbian queen of French origin is also unique by the number of her portraits in the Serbian medieval churches.
One of her portraits can be seen in the chapel by the Church of St. George in Ras.
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Queen Jelena of Anjou's
sarcophagus – Gradac Monastery |
In Sopoćani, whose superb fresco compositions are the world’s heritage, the queen’s portrait is painted in three places – on the outside wall of the church she wears the habit. In Gračanica, whose completion she hadn’t lived to see but whose shape, they say, she saw seen in a dream, she is portrayed in a habit standing by her son Milutin. In Arilje, she is also portrayed in a habit – a brilliant portrait and the only one showing the then still living Serbian Queen as a nun. Perhaps that is why her figure in Arilje is oversized.
The queen of the "entire Serbian lands" closed her eyes on the eighth day of the month of February, in the year 1314. The solemn and sad funeral procession was, during three days and nights, moved through the white clad canyon of the Ibar River, from Brnjak to Gradac. Serbian King Stefan Uroš II Milutin was the first to light the candle in the Gradac Church and pay homage to his mother over her tomb.
The Serbian Queen of French origin was canonized three years later (1317). Danilo had taken care that the name of the holy queen, mother of two kings of the holiest line, should be inserted into the lives of holy Serbian kings and archbishops and so created and preserved her Orthodox cult in the country to which she gave sixty years of her life.
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Serbian Tourist Sight
The Ibar Valley, one of the most beautiful in Serbia, stretches from Kosovska Mitrovica to Kraljevo, and parallel to it meanders the asphalt road and railway. This was is where the first Serbian medieval state emerged, its spirituality and culture: the old town of Ras – the first Serbian capital, St. Peter’s Church, the Pillars of St. George Church, the Žiča Monastery – the first Serbian archbishopric at the beginning of 13th century, as well as other pearls of Serbian medieval architecture and fresco painting whose accomplishments rank high in the world’s heritage: the monasteries – Studenica, Sopoćani, Gradac, Old and New Pavlica and many other holy objects. | |
