History of the Eastern Adriatic

The Statute of Split from 1312 and its later revisions bear witness to the changes in the political makeup of the city. As a legal monument, and also as an important document of Split’s political and social state in the pivotal 14th century, the statute notes changes to the communal makeup of the local government and the closely related development of the Split’s nobility. The development of the city’s governing bodies and its nobility required an established legal order. Communal bodies and services operated ad hoc, and their jurisdictions were regulated by communal laws, however, with the development of the city and the growth of its administration, the need for clear legal regulation arose. The former commune, i.e. a community of citizens represented in a assembly in which they would make decisions together, during the time in which the statute was put together and its revisions were implemented, was narrowed down to only its noble core, the makeup of which came down to familial ties and politics. What were at first informal and counseling bodies that would prepare topics for the citizens’ assembly, grew over time into permanent councils and services tightly connected to the inner circle of citizens that would slowly define itself as the city’s nobility, and whose political primacy was statutorily established. This change was followed by the differentiation of the rest of the citizens. The statute reflects the balance between church and worldly authorities characteristic of the communal period. This was particularly present and notable in Split due to the exceptional influence of its metropoly. Church authorities had a vast degree of influence on communal institutions, which partially slowed down their development. The process of secularization in the government of Split was also slower than in other Dalmatian cities. Through a processes of political, institutional and class changes, the very concept of a commune was slowly redefined, until it no longer referred to a community of all citizens and instead came to mean the authority of the nobility that represented that community. All of these changes were observed and noted in statutory legislature. Therefore, Split’s statute and its revisions, along with the preserved records of the General and Secret councils of Split, reveal a great deal about civil law, civility, communal and aristocratic bodies and government services, as well as the definitions of the commune and the city (civitas), its citizenry and its nobility. The statute served as the anchor of autonomy and the backbone of resistance for the city’s management against Croatian and Hungarian noblemen and their attempts to reform the city’s legal system and push their interests forward. Split’s citizens, and later its noblemen, attempted to preserve the city’s autonomy and self-governing through their work in its communal institutions all through the Middle Ages. The preserved records from the General council in 1357-58 end symbolically; with a rejection of the Hungarian demands that countermand the liberties of Split and its citizens, in which many centuries of Split’s council striving for independence are reflected. The backbone of this struggle was the statute, the fundamental legal monument of Split’s commune, with its vast actual and symbolic significance; the most important sign of the autonomy and self-government of the city.

La memoria che vive
Società di Studi Fiumani – Archivio Museo Storico, Roma, 2008, pp. 380.
The living memory
Società di Studi Fiumane vivei – Archivio Museo Storico, Roma, 2008, pp. 380.
The volume is a collection of interviews and testimonies that document the life of important and Fiumans and Julians. After a long historical introduction, the interviews and testimonies are thematically grouped into six chapters: 1) The Peace Treaty of 1947, 2) Repression, Opposition and Processes 1945-1948, 3) The Autonomists, 4) The Jews: From Persecution to exodus, 5) From refugee camps to integration, 6) The "return" to Fiume-Rijeka.

This paper traces the emergence, appearance, and function of governmental palaces in Eastern Adriatic cities during the medieval period. The primary focus is on the chosen cities in present-day Croatia (from Pula in Istria to Dubrovnik in southern Dalmatia, including the cities of Rab, Zadar, Šibenik, Trogir, and Split), but also some other examples (from today’s Croatia and Slovenia). The paper follows the specific political constellations in which palaces were built – particularly the relationship between the communal and central authorities, which differed from one period and region to another. In the period that this paper focuses upon (13th – 15th c.), the Eastern Adriatic was an area of interest for various political entities: Venice, the Patriarch of Aquileia, the Hungarian kings who had inherited the Croatian throne, and the Croatian magnates. Palaces were seats of (more or less) autonomous communal governments or of those who represented the central authorities. They were also seats of the local city councils – with the representatives of urban nobility.

This paper explores the mobility and networking of Venetian Counts in Eastern Adriatic cities during the High Middle Ages, especially from the late 13th century to the Peace of Zadar. Individual persons, their service in specific cities, their families and other connections are followed chronologically in order to emphasize the importance of the Count’s office with regard to the political centre as well as the local communities. The paper emphasizes the “supra-local” significance of the Count’s office in the context of comparative research on the urban history of the Eastern Adriatic.

Scripta in honorem Igor Fiskovic. Zbornik povodom sedamdesetog rođendana. Festschrift in the occasion of his 70th birthday, ed. Miljenko Jurković, Predrag Marković. Zagreb-Motovun: University of Zagreb, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, International Research Center for Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages, 2015: 319-326.

The archives of the Dubrovnik Republic file a codex containing data on the connection of the Knežica spring with the main aqueduct in 1518-1520 which has not been used in the studies of Dubrovnik’s water supply to date. The data from this small volume reveal the community’s efforts to improve the water supply of the city. The construction and maintenance of the water supply system involved many citizens and inhabitants, from noble overseers, engineers, master builders and craftsmen to workers and peasants. The Ragusan government played an essential role in this collective project by ensuring the people’s right to natural resources, that is, to the common good – happiness and welfare of the citizens. This meant the achievement of the medieval ideal of good government and well-governed community, a theme introduced to Croatian historiography by Igor Fisković. Good government makes the city an ideal society whose main purpose is liberty, happiness and well-being of its citizens. The office-holders’, citizens and inhabitants duty to the public welfare was at the basis of the Ragusan social consensus, civil self-consciousness and patriotism which strengthened the power of the community and stood as the basis of the Republic’s continuity.

In order to grasp the notion of nobility and its development, it is important to understand how this group shaped and transformed into a ruling elite, and also built its identity and self-image. In Dubrovnik that process may be traced since the twelfth century when noble lineages became recognisable, and notably in the thirteenth and fourteenth century with the final definition of the noble rank, which took place at the same time as in Venice and other Italian and eastern Adriatic cities.
Since the early centuries of the commune, noble lineages have sought grounds for their privileged social positions in descent, family heritage, honour and marriage ties. Their need for a more transparent legitimation and assumption of administrative functions in the city led to a firmer criterion of the elite status, which linked the nobility with participation in the communal bodies and offices, that is, with political power. This article highlights the mentioned process from the earliest list of the members of the Major Council preserved in Asen’s charter from 1253, along with five lists from the period 1301-1319, up to the decision of 1332, which marked the final closing of the Major Council, legally regulating the already existing state. The article also touches upon a historiographic debate concerning the nobility–citizenry relationship in the commune of Dubrovnik and those of Dalmatia, from the perspective that they were not strictly stratified and hierarchized societies but live societies interlaced with webs of relationships, solidarity, social criteria, beyond the political domain. In this respect, the article emphasises the role of noble women in defining and closing of the noble circle. Special attention is drawn to the interpretations of the Venetian Serrata, also
understood as a long-run process which reflected in the cities of the eastern Adriatic, Dubrovnik being no exception. A comparison of the effects of the closure of councils in other cities of the eastern Adriatic has helped accentuate the similarities and differences in relation to the development of this process in Dubrovnik. The article also provides interpretations of Ragusan chroniclers on the closing and exclusivism of the Ragusan nobility, as well as the significance of the Major Council.
With the final closing of the Ragusan noble circle in 1332, the Major Council, main constituent body vested with sovereignty, became the most important sign of noble status. With the closing of Council and clear demarcation of the circle of city officials there emerged a defined, unique group of equals in legal terms, whose duty was to represent and promote communal interests. As a result, the citizens – cives were deprived of the legal and political authority, and gradually formed a separate, politically excluded elite. The closing also consolidated the noble rank in relation to certain l ineages and casate, Venetian government, as well as lords and magnates in the Ragusan hinterland. Although bearing a seed of the nobility’s decay due to its demographic depletion, one might say that the closure remained a factor of continuity, stability and efficiency of the administrative apparatus until the end of the Republic.

The paper contains four overlooked documents about
Stefanica Crnojević, the Duke (vojvoda) of Zeta; the documents are published
according to the copies in the collection of documents from Kotor
made by Antonio Bisanti and dating from the 18th century. Three documents
are directly concerned with Stefanica’s entry into Venetian service 1451–
1452, while the fourth concerns his plea for military help in 1460, in expectation
of an attack from the Turkish commander of the Medun Fortress.

One of the three monasteries of Tertiaries on the island of Cres, St. Jerome
in Martinšćica, was founded in the testament of the local noblewoman Ursa de
Colombis, née de Bocchina (1474), and her husband Blaž (1479). Bishop Antun
Palčić and a Franciscan Tertiary Matej Mastilić Bošnjak played an important
role in the foundation of the monastery. In 1482, monks moved into the still
unfinished monastery in the bay of Tiha. The building activities were completed
around 1520, and the church of St. Jerome was consecrated in 1525. Preserved
ledgers of datja and prijatja (tributes and revenues) from 1578 to 1920, when the
monastery came under Italian administration, provide an insight into the everyday
life in this monastery. This paper uses ledgers from the period between 1578 and
1618, as published by A. Badurina. The seemingly bleak notes about revenues
and expenses prove to be rather revealing with regard to the monastic community
in the monastery of St. Jerome, other monasteries of Tertiaries and the people of
Cres who lived together with the Franciscans of the Third Order. In addition to
the information pertaining to the Franciscans of the Third Order and the economic
history of the island of Cres and adjacent areas, the ledgers provide many other
interesting details. They contain information about diet, production, medicine,
clothes, furniture and kitchenware, tools, animals, ships, fishing, about neighbours,
servants, friends and superiors, about encounters and travels, vintage and harvest,
about shortage and holiday feasts, about church, rituals, furnishings and robes, as
well as about extending and improving the estate. These sources are particularly
valuable since, given the nature of their content, they provide information about
ordinary people who left a testimony of a humble life of Tertiary Franciscans,
which changed so little throughout centuries. The ledgers paint a picture of the
everyday monastic life, of the common life of the Tertiaries with the inhabitants
of Martinšćica, the island’s peasants and townspeople, aristocrats and authorities
and other brethren of the Order. The ledgers of datja and prijatja mention approximately
100 tertiaries and žakans (deacons) from the monastery in Martinšćica and
other monasteries, as well as around 300 lay persons, mostly peasants from Cres,
hired labourers working on monastic estates, servants, neighbours, but also nobles
from Cres. The brethren of St. Jerome lived in communion with the inhabitants
of Martinšćica, providing mutual everyday assistance and religious care for the
faithful. They led a modest life, almost ascetic, and clung to the ideal of poverty,
manual labour and prayer. Apart from the monastic dimension of their lives, they
spent their everyday lives in the same rhythm and with the same problems as
the people in the surrounding community. The Glagolitic Franciscan Tertiaries
101
Zdenka Janeković Römer - Zajedništvo života franjevaca trećoredaca iz samostana Sv. Jeronima...
lived and worked with these people, helped and received help from them, and
supported them spiritually with their priestly office. Due to their specific form
of evangelisation based on the values of poverty, penitence and life among the
people, the Tertiaries implanted themselves among the common people, grew with
them, educated them and became a part of the popular culture. They did this in
the context of the Glagolitic culture which was familiar to the people and which,
as a specific feature of Croatian identity, enriches the European culture with its
exceptional value.

City and citizens between kings, magnates and prelates – Nada Klaić’s view of the medieval commune of Trogir
Summary
In her study of the Croatian Middle Ages Nada Klaić wrote a lot about the cities of Dalmatia. However, Trogir, beside Zadar, was the only commune to receive a monograph of its medieval history from her hand. After a short sur¬vey of the ancient roots of the city, the arrival of the Croats and the early medie¬val affairs, Nada Klaić starts off with the 11th-century Trogir. During the period of weak Byzantine rule the cities were forming a special type govern¬ment – a community of citizens called commune. Pressed by both Hungarian and Venetian encroachments since the end of the 11th century, the Dalmatian communes were struggling to set up and assert a self-administration and pass their own laws. On the issue of the supremacy over the Dalmatian cities Nada Klaić argues for the thesis of self-evidence and naturalness of the rule of the Hungarian king and Croatian noblemen as his viceregents. For this reason, she pays a lot of attention to the division between pro-Hungarian and pro-Venetian citizens beginning with the 12th century. It is Klaić’s oppinion that a duality of offices was introduced into the cities of Dalmatia by king Koloman, opposing a count (comes) to the older title of prior. The count’s office filled by foreigners is explained as a Hungarian system of royal appointees set off against the communal self-administration. Nada Klaić focuses on the office of the city governor interpreting each change in the title of the city head as a change in government, disregarding the continuity of the communal administrative bodies – the as¬sembly and the Great Council which were to remain the basis of the election of officials and shaping the city elite throughout the Middle Ages. She attaches great impor¬tance to the reforms of king Bela IV that put the king’s men on all major positions in the cities. She thinks by then the commune entered its more mature phase, during which the local, „autonomis¬tic“ nobility assumed power. She views the rule of the counts of Bribir in the context of the notion of naturalness of a rule from the hinterland. She maintains that their rule did not reduce the liberties of the city nobility regarding the elec¬tion of administration, which is backed up by the fact that during the rule of the Bribir counts the cities were able to keep their own laws and administration of justice, judges, councillors and popular assemblies. All the actions of the Bribir counts are regarded as indisputable, the opposition of Trogir as an impudence and presumptuousness, while the judgment of Miha, son of  Madije and Ivan Lucić on the Bribir rule in the cities is ascribed to their well-known intolerance against a hinterland rule. Nevertheless, Nada Klaić professes a very positive attitude towards Venetian rule in the Dalmatian cities that, in her oppinion, brought peace, the settlement of disputes and an increasing commercial activities. The author is critical about the atitude of Angevins towards the Dalmatian cities, especially regarding the high financial demands put on them. However, in the end she arrives at the conclusion that the reintegration of Dalmatia with its Croatian hinterland and the recognition of its natural lord ushered in an era of prosperity for the Dalmatian cities. She considers the dynastic confrontations and wars after the death of king Louis to be damaging to the cities, Trogir espe¬cially, where internal discord and pauperisation increased. The new Venetian government at the beginning of the 15th century brought peace to the cities, but also new taxes, commercial restrictions and a social split between aristocrats and commoners. Nada Klaić pays particular attention to the city’s internal rela¬tions – between the aristocratic families, aristocrats and the commoners as well as the commune and the Church, looking for the causes of the confron¬tations in the foreign politics above all. Divisions on that ground were clearly present, but the processes in the commune itself, beginning with the definition of citizenship and nobility, political decision-making in the popular assembly, social stratification, aristocratisation and secularisation of power, can hardly be reduced to only one factor. All these topics were covered by Nada Klaić in her history of Trogir, but with varying attention. It is necessary to stress her con¬tribution to the analysis of the relationship between the Church and secular authorities, a very important point of interest often left out in the reflections on the history of Dalmatian cities. Likewise, her analysis of the relationship between the ruling noble families as well as the interpretation of the role of communal offices, especially judges and consuls, are of great im¬portance. In addition to Nada Klaić’s principal interpretation key of the medi¬eval history of Trogir – the commune’s relationship to external authorities, her interpretation is largely determined by the framework set by Ivan Lucius in his work Memorie istoriche di Tragurio ora detto Traù (1673). Within this framework, Nada Klaić dis¬played the typical features of her historiographical profile: argumentation based on sources, criticism as well as bold setting of theses that may spark new interpretations. Her exceptionally large opus provides an almost inexhaustible source of information and theses that will continue to inspire Croatian historiography in years to come.

On Leo Valiani or on intransigence
in “Fiume. Rivista di studi adriatici”, n. 17, gennaio-giugno 2008.
Inspired by a Andrea Ricciardi’s book about the juvenile years of the Italian politician and historian Leo Valiani, who was born in Fiume in 1909 and died in Milan in 1999, the Author sketches some intellectual and political aspects of Valiani’s life: youthful adhesion to the communist party, the intransigent opposition to fascism, the expulsion from the communist party until the coherent defense of democratic issues. Finally, Stelli remembers the vote expressed by Valiani in the Constituent Assembly against the ratification of the Peace treaty (10 February 1947). Valiani’s firm defense of the Italian cultural components characterizing Istria, Fiume and Zara is also recalled.

»Ser Micouillus Petri, draparius, civis Iadre – life as a sign of the times.«

Using the prosopographical approach, the author explores the origin, operation, family relations, kinship, business relations and friendships of Mihovil, son of Petar († 1385), famous draper from Zadar. The paper presents new data based on the lists of documents regarding Mihovil's property inventory and other sources. Building upon the basis his grandfather and father had set before him, Mihovil achieved exceptional business success and became one of the most distinguished and richest merchants and citizens of Zadar in the Anjou era. He evidently belonged to the Anjou party; two letters written by King Louis the Great to his advantage witness to the fact. Mihovil's life is a paragon of the new position of citizen-merchants in Zadar in the second half of the fourteenth century – the Anjou era. In addition to investing in the profitable cloth trade, he also invented in lad property, salt works and real estate in the city. His exceptional wealth was manifested in the quantity of real estate he owned, luxurious home design, as well as the cultural area – Mihovil owned a valuable library confirming his high level of education and the cultural engagement of the social class he belonged to in the life of the city. The paper further brings new data regarding the attribution of Mihovil's books. The list of documents regarding his inventory, which offer data on his business communication and methods, as well as the circle of his business associates, debtors and servants, has also been studied.
The story of Mihovil, son of Petar remains a testimony of the life and work of an exceptional medieval man, whose success relied on merchant's work ethics and knowledge, complemented with Christian and family values.

The social structure of Adriatic urban communities in the pre-comunal and protocomunal periods of their historical development has been a topic of interest for historiography since the early days of the research conducted by F. Rački, J. Hanel and I. Strohal. However, the relatively small amount of preserved historical sources relevant to this problem, as well as the nature of their contents, present a challenge for historians, as they provide a very limited basis from which to draw any conclusions on the social structure of early medieval Dalmatian cities, their administrative structures, and the vertical and horizontal stratification of their citizens. Still, the number of sources and amount of data they offer seems inversely proportional to the large interest of historical science in that topic, an occupation that has put forth a truly impressive number of papers on local and regional historiographic production. Their results are collected and successfully supplemented in the fundamental studies of J. Ferluga, L. Margetić, T. Raukar, and L. Steindorff, as well as the recent monograph by Z. Nikolić. On one hand, this paper attempts to review the current state of scholarship concerning tribunes and tribunates as one of the elite elements of social structure from the pre-communal period in Dalmatia, and on the other, to include thus-far avoided or infrequently utilized historical sources in the discussion, interpreting them in a regional, and also a broader, euro-Mediterranean, context. Analyzing the sources and shaping a new interpretation for the beginnings of tribunate, we can ultimately offer our own vision of the social and spatial circumstances of its establishment in Dalmatian pre-communal societies, primarily in Zadar as a political center for Byzantine estates on the eastern Adriatic. The results of the analysis confirm L. Margetić’s thesis on the manner of the creation of Zadar’s »tribunal aristocracy«, developed from the body of military commanders in charge of Zadar’s city districts. The function of commander for one of Zadar’s city districts, with the matching title of tribune, is a very old one, an its analogies can be traced in the various Byzantine fringe regions of the western Mediterranean. It is closely tied to the process of militarization from a social context, and with territorializing and naming city units in a spatial sense, and was strongly influenced by military terminology. Within this context, the author attempts to show that the title of tribune Maius (mentioned in document from 999) Sclitula is derived from the Latin Scutula, and refers to the military order of the scutarii (scutariorum), which one of Zadar’s districts was named after, which was under the command of the aforementioned tribune as its military commander.

S. Čače, A. Johnston, B. Kirigin, L. Šešelj, A Corpus of Greek Grafitti from Dalmatia.

This volume is a corpus of seven hundred Greek graffiti on ceramic artefacts from sixteen sites in Dalmatia, ranging in date from the late sixth to the first century BC. Most notably, the catalogue contains a substantial number of pieces from recent excavations at the two sanctuaries of Diomedes, on the central Adriatic islet of Palagruža and the windswept Cape Ploča. Appearing here in publication for the first time, other than in preliminary reports, the size of these two corpora puts them on a level with other published sites of significance including Naukratis and Gravisca, providing an important contribution to Greek epigraphy. As texts, the materials covered in this volume offer insights into dialect usage and letter forms, and comparisons are made with material from related sites elsewhere.

Table of contents:
Introduction

The sites

Ljubačka kosa
Nin
Zadar
Murter
Cape Ploča
Marina
Trogir
Resnik
Brač
Hvar
Vis
Palagruža
Nakovana
Korčula
Lastovo

Appendix; Ošanići

Bibliography

Index of names

The key notion for the understanding of the degree of belonging and integration of a person into a medieval urban community is the right to citizenship. The definition of citizenship was not ethnic or state-based, but there were clear boundaries among full citizens, residents of the city, residents of the surrounding area and foreigners. Beside the legal significance, citizenship included the concept of values, identity and taking part in the life of a community. Dubrovnik, the city on the boundary of civilizations, in the Middle Ages became an example of a coherent community that drew up rough outlines of its identity and basic security by stressing its differences from “others”. On the other hand, everyday connections were also important for the survival of the community, and, therefore, these connections were broken only when extreme political or religious differences were in question. Differentiation and separation from the strangers didn’t necessarily include hostility towards them, but, above all, defining and preservation of its uniqueness, that is identity. The possibility of integration existed, but it was graded, and the factors of that gradation were related to religion first of all, then civilization, language, ethnic closeness and political affiliation. The laws and citizens of the city of Dubrovnik made distinctions among newcomers, but the city-gates were open, or left ajar, to all.