THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA

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THE REPUBLIC
OF
RAGUSA

AN EPISODE OF THE
TURKISH CONQUEST
By LUIGI VILLARI

BYZANTINE DOOR-KNOCKER, RECTOR’S PALACE

WITH MANY ILLUSTRATIONS
By WILLIAM HULTON
LONDON: J. M. DENT & CO.
29 & 30 BEDFORD STREET, W.C.
MCMIV

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press

PREFATORY NOTE

VARIOUS accounts of Dalmatia have been written in English, many of which include a historical survey of Ragusa; but the only special histories of the town itself are in German or Italian, and even those are not by any means complete. The best is undoubtedly Professor Gelcich’s little book, Dello Sviluppo Civile di Ragusa, a perfect mine of valuable information, of which I have availed myself largely in the present volume. But it deals principally with the internal development, the archeology, and the architecture of the town, and does not dwell on its international position, which for foreign readers is its most important aspect. Engel’s Geschichte des Freystaates Ragusa is useful and fairly accurate, but it is somewhat dry, and more in the nature of a chronicle of events than a real history. The works of the local historians and chroniclers, such as Resti, Ragnina, Luccari, Gondola, and others, although they contain some interesting details and picturesque descriptions, traditions, &c., are written without a notion of historical accuracy, and are inspired by a strong bias which admits no facts unfavourable to Ragusa. That of the Tuscan, Razzi, is more reliable, but by no means wholly to be depended on, and it only brings us down to the end of the sixteenth century. The safest guide to the subject is to be found in the original records of the town, a large portion of which have been published by the South-Slavonic Academy of Agram, by the Hungarian Academy, and various other collections of documents on the history of the Southern Slaves, such as Miklosich’s Monumenta Serbica, Marin Sanudo, the works of Theiner, Počić, Farlati, &c. The modern works on the history of Ragusa of which I have made the most use, besides the above-mentioned work of Professor Gelcich, are the same author’s pamphlets, La Zedda and I Conti di Tuhelj; T. Graham Jackson’s Dalmatia for the chapters on Ragusan architecture; Paul Pisani’s Num Ragusini, &c., for the Venetian period, and his large work La Dalmatie de 1797 à 1815 for the end of the Republic; Klaić’s Geschichte Bosniens for the relations between Ragusa and Bosnia; Heyd’s Histoire du Commerce du Lévant and Professor Jireček’s Handelsstrassen und Bergwerke for Ragusa’s commercial development; Horatio Brown’s Venice for Venetian history; and Puipin and Spasowicz’ history of Slavonic literature. A fuller list of authorities consulted is appended.

I must express my especial indebtedness to Professor Gelcich for the assistance and encouragement which he afforded me in preparing this volume. I also received valuable aid from Signor V. Adamović, who kindly placed his library at my service during my stay at Ragusa; to Signor A. de Serragli, who gave much information on the topography and archeology of the town; to the Padre Bibliotecario of the Franciscan Monastery, who assisted me in my researches; and to Signor Giovanni Saraca. I may say that during my visits to Dalmatia I always found the natives courteous and kindly, and willing to assist me in every way, especially at Ragusa. Of the many features which Dalmatia has in common with Italy, the one which I must call attention to is the fact that in every Dalmatian town there is always at least one local antiquary who has made a life-study of the history and archeology, working with no other thought than the love of the subject, and always willing to assist other students.

I am also indebted to Mr. Herbert P. Horne, who kindly assisted me in the chapters dealing with architecture and painting.

In the spelling of the Slavonic names I have adopted the Croatian orthography, as being the most convenient and the most accurate. The following letters have a peculiar pronunciation:—

C = ts in bits. Thus Cavtat is pronounced Tsavtat.

Č = ch in which. Thus Miljačka is pronounced Miljachka.

Ć is almost identical to the above, but is used only at the end of a word when preceded by an i. Thus Gundulić is pronounced Gundulich.

G is always pronounced hard, as in gig.

H is like the German ch in Buch.

J = y in yet. Thus Jajce is pronounced Yaytse. When at the end of a word and preceded by the letters l or n it softens them into something like the French l in mouillé and the French gne in signe. Thus Sandalj and Sinj.

The letter r is sometimes a semi-vowel, and is pronounced like eurre in French, but less definitely. Many syllables have no other vowel. Thus the name Hrvoje.

S = s in since (never like s in nose).

Š = sh in shave. Thus Dušan is pronounced Dushan.

U = oo in boot.

Z = z in blaze.

Ž is like the French j in jour.

In the case of well-known names and words which are usually spelt in another way, I have adhered to the common orthography. Thus I have written Miklosich instead of Miklosić, and Tsar instead of Car. Dalmatians of Italian sympathies, but having Slavonic names, invariably use the ch in the place of č or ć.

For the spelling “Slave,” instead of the more common “Slav,” my authority is Professor Freeman, who in a note on p. 386 of the Third Series of his Essays gives the following reasons for it: “First, no English word ends in v. Secondly, we form the names of other nations in another way; we say a Swede, a Dane, and a Pole, not a Swed, a Dan, or a Pol. Thirdly, it is important to bear in mind the history of the word—the fact that slave in the sense of δοῦλος is simply the same word with the national name.”

CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ENTRANCE TO THE HARBOUR OF RAGUSA

THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA

CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION

THE eastern shore of the Adriatic from the Quarnero to the Bocche di Cattaro is a series of deep inlets and bays, with rocky mountains rising up behind, while countless islands, forming a veritable archipelago, follow the coastline. The country is for the most part bare and stony. The cypress, the olive, the vine grow on it, but never in great quantities. Patches of juniper and other bushes are often the only relief to the long stretches of sterile coast. Here and there more favoured spots appear. At Spalato and in the Canale dei Sette Castelli, on the island of Curzola, in the environs of Ragusa, the vegetation is luxuriant, almost tropical. But Dalmatia is always a narrow strip, and as one proceeds southwards it becomes ever narrower, the mountain ranges at various points coming right down to the water’s edge. The land is subject to intense heat in summer, and is free from great cold, even in the middle of winter. But it suffers from fierce winds, from the bora, which, whirling down from the treeless wastes of the Karst mountains in the north-east, sweeps along the coastline with terrific force. Another curse from which it suffers is the frequency and severity of the earthquakes, which from time to time have wrought fearful havoc among the Dalmatian towns.

But in spite of these disadvantages, along this shore a Latin civilisation arose and flourished which, if inferior to that of Italy, nevertheless played an important and valuable part in European development. Many wars were fought for the possession of Dalmatia. Roman, Byzantine Greek, Norman, Venetian, Hungarian, Slave, and Austrian struggled for it, and each left his impress on its civilisation, although the influence of two among these peoples far surpassed that of all the others—the Roman and the Venetian.

Dalmatia has at all times been essentially a borderland. Geographically it belongs to the eastern peninsula of the Mediterranean, to the Balkan lands. But this narrow strip of coast, as Professor Freeman said,[1] “has not a little the air of a thread, a finger, a branch cast forth from the western peninsula.” In its history its character as a march land is still more noticeable, and this feature has always been manifested in a series of civilised communities in the towns, with a hinterland of barbarous or semi-civilised races. Here were the farthest Greek settlements in the Adriatic, settlements placed in the midst of a native uncivilised Illyrian population. Here the Romans came and conquered, but did not wholly absorb, the native races. Then the land was disputed between the Eastern and the Western Empires, later between Christianity and Paganism, later still between the Eastern and Western Churches. The Slavonic invasion, while almost obliterating the native Illyrian race, could not sweep away the Roman-Greek civilisation of the coast. Again Dalmatia became the debating ground between Venetian and Hungarian, the former triumphing in the end. When Christianity found itself menaced by the Muhamedan invasion, Dalmatia was the borderland between the two faiths. A hundred years ago it was involved in one phase of the great struggle between England and France. To-day, under the rule of a Power which may be said to be all borderland, it is the scene of another nationalist conflict between two races. As before we still have a civilised fringe, a series of towns, with a vast hinterland inhabited by Slaves, by a race less civilised, yet wishing to become civilised on lines different from those of the Latin race. It is still the borderland between the Catholic and the Orthodox religions, and also between the two branches of the South-Slavonic people—the Croatians and the Serbs.

The Dalmatian townships had many features in their development similar to those of the towns of Italy, especially of the maritime republics. But, unlike their Italian sisters, they were always on the threshold of barbarism, and this fact imparts to their history its peculiar character. They were essentially border fortresses, keeping watch and ward to save their civilisation from being swept into the sea by the advancing tide of Slave and Turk.

Of all these towns, that in which this feature is most marked is Ragusa. Ragusa’s development shows in every way a stronger individuality than that of any other. For three characteristics above all is this city remarkable, characteristics which enabled it to attain and preserve such a peculiar position in the Adriatic. The first is its geographical situation. Ragusa was, as it were, the gate of the East, the meeting point of Latin and Slave, of the Eastern and Western Churches, of Christian and Muhamedan. One of the chief commercial highways from the coast to the interior had its terminus at Ragusa, while the sheltered position of its harbour, and of that of the neighbouring Gravosa, indicated it as meant by nature for a great commercial centre. Here the Slaves from the interior found their nearest market, and the nearest spot where civilisation and culture flourished. Ragusa was the means of spreading the beginnings of progress among the benighted Servian lands, for with the caravans of Western goods which made their way into the Herzegovina, Bosnia, and Servia, Western ideas penetrated as well, and to Ragusa came the sons of Slavonic princelings and nobles to be educated. Here there were schools where learned professors and famous men of letters from Italy taught. Italy came to impart Italian culture to the Ragusans and the Slaves.

Even to-day, when trade follows other routes, and Ragusa, no longer a great commercial centre, is reduced to a humble position, it is still the meeting point of many races. Italians, Bosnians, Herzegovinians, Montenegrins, Albanians, Turks, and Greeks throng its streets and piazzas on market days, filling them with brilliant costumes. Now that the railway from Mostar and Sarajevo has reached Gravosa, there is reason to hope that the ancient city of St. Blaize may once more become a trading centre of some importance. The prosperity of the hinterland which Austria-Hungary has reclaimed to civilisation cannot fail to have a favourable effect on Ragusa. Had not the Turkish invasion swept over the Balkans in the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, Ragusa’s position as a civilising influence would have been still more considerable. Later its rôle changed to that of intermediary between the Christian Powers and the Sultan, and in its history we see reflected on a small scale the vast struggle which convulsed Europe for four hundred years.

The second characteristic of Ragusa is its natural position. It is one of nature’s fortresses, being surrounded by the sea on three sides, and the rocks on which it is built drop sheer down to the water’s edge. It seemed indeed a suitable spot on which to erect a city, in days when security was the first, almost the only, consideration. As we approach Ragusa from the south, it stands out a mass of rocks rising up from the sea, crowned with towers, bastions, and walls, which have defied ages of storm and stress, still imposing, still beautiful.

A third feature intimately connected with the last is Ragusa’s character as a haven of refuge. While all around there was chaos and strife, at Ragusa there was peace. The original inhabitants had fled from the ruins of Epidaurum and Salona, and fortified themselves here; subsequently other refugees from all parts of the country helped to increase the population, for the hospitality of its walls was denied to none. The Ragusans were ever ready, as they proved many a time, to undergo any risk rather than give up those who had placed themselves under the protection of the rock-built city. Even in recent times Ragusa remained true to its past; when in 1876-77 there was revolution in the Herzegovina, and the savage Turkish soldiery were at their accustomed work of massacre and torture, the luckless Christian rayahs found shelter and protection at Ragusa, as their ancestors had done before them.

Ragusa was a small city, and its history is all on a small scale. At best she can only be regarded as a second-class city of the first rank. In size, wealth, and intellectual and artistic development she was far inferior to the city republics of Italy; but her close proximity to a world of barbarism, and the vastly important events in which she played a part, however small, make it loom large. Moreover, while the other republics of Dalmatia, with the exception of the tiny Poljica, were all absorbed by Venice, while those of Italy were a constant prey to civil wars, and lost their freedom and even their independence after a few centuries of chequered existence, Ragusa, after two hundred and fifty years of Venetian tutelage with internal autonomy, remained free, now under the nominal protection of this Power, now of that, for 450 years, actually surviving her mighty rival of the Lagoons.

The beginnings of Dalmatian history are purely legendary, and very little is known of the ethnographical character of its original inhabitants. Wanderers from pre-Homeric Greece are said to have settled along its shores, followed later by the Liburnii, who had been driven from Asia, whence part of the country was called Liburnia by the Romans. In the seventh century B.C. a Celtic invasion took place.[2] In the fifth and fourth centuries B.C. a number of Greek colonies were planted among the islands at Issa (Lissa), Pharos (Lesina), and Kerkyra Melaina (Curzola), and others along the coast at Epidamnos (Durazzo), Epidauron (Ragusavecchia), and Tragyrion (Traù). In the third century Illyria[3] was welded by a native ruler into a powerful kingdom, which ere long came into contact with the Romans. The latter made several attempts to conquer the country, but met with a most stubborn resistance before they finally subdued it. In the year 180 B.C. the Dalmatians, a people inhabiting the middle part of modern Dalmatia,[4] revolted from the Illyrian kingdom and became independent. Their territory was comprised between the rivers Naro (Narenta) and Titius (Kerka); beyond the latter Liburnia began. During the second and first centuries B.C. the Romans waged no less than ten wars in Illyria, which was not completely reduced until the year A.D. 9.

In the meanwhile a number of Latin colonies had been settled along the coast, supplanting those of the Greeks. Their splendour and importance may be gauged from the magnificent Roman remains, especially those of the great palace built by Diocletian, himself an Illyrian, at Spalato, and of Salona,[5] the ancient capital of the province.

Roman Dalmatia included besides the modern region of that name the whole of Bosnia, the Herzegovina, Montenegro, and parts of Croatia and Albania. Diocletian divided it into two provinces, Dalmatia proper to the north, and Prævalis or Prævalitana to the south. At the time of the partition of the Roman Empire Dalmatia was apportioned to the Western division, the neighbouring provinces of Dardania, Mœsia Superior, and Prævalis to the Eastern. When the barbarian hordes began to pour down into Southern Europe the latter province remained under Roman rule until early in the sixth century, but Dalmatia was conquered in 481 by Odovakar, and added to the Gothic kingdom of Italy. Both these facts emphasise Dalmatia’s character as an outpost of the West in the Eastern world. But the Slaves, the last of the barbarians to march westwards and southwards, soon began to press ever more closely against the Roman settlements, and the colonists were driven from the interior to the coast towns. From the letters of Pope Gregory I. we see that at his time (590-603) Epidaurum, Salona, Doclea, and a few other Roman cities still survived. But in 600, in a letter to the Bishop of Salona, he expressed great sorrow that Dalmatia was hard pressed by the barbarians. “De Sclavorum gente, quae vobis imminet, affligor vehementer et conturbor.”[6] The whole province was becoming desolate. In 535 the Byzantine Greeks reconquered it from the Goths together with Pannonia. In 539 it was overrun by Huns, Bulgarians, and Slaves, liberated by Narses in 552, and added to the Exarchate of Ravenna. Later it was made into a separate Exarchate; but after the death of the Emperor Maurice the Slaves became masters of the greater part of the country.

When the Eastern Empire was divided into themes, the remaining fragments of the Roman colonies on the Illyrian shore were erected into the Themes of Dalmatia and Dyrrhachium. The former is described at length by Constantine Porphyrogenitus in his De Administrando Imperio,[7] written in 949; it consisted of little more than a few cities and islands, all the rest of the land being peopled by barbarians.

The capital of the Dalmatian theme was no longer Salona, which together with Epidaurum had been destroyed by the Avars in the seventh century, but Jadera or Zara. The other towns of the theme were: Veglia, Arbe, and Opsara (comprising Cherso and Lussino) in the Quarnero; Tragurium, Spalatum or Aspalathum, and Rhagusium, founded by refugees from Salona and Epidaurum; Decatera (Cattaro), Rosa (Porto Rose), and Butova (Budua). The theme was governed by a Greek Strategos residing at Zara (Jadertinus Prior), and by inferior officials (dukes) in the smaller centres. But their authority hardly extended beyond the town walls.

The inhabitants of these cities in the themes of Dalmatia and Dyrrhachium were the remains of the Roman provincials from all parts of Illyria. Porphyrogenitus calls them Romans, as distinguished from the Ῥωμαῖοι or Byzantine Greeks. In spite of all subsequent Slavonic incursions Latin, and later Italian, always remained the official language; it was also the common language of the people all down the coast, save at Ragusa, where Slavonic was also spoken at an early date.[8] Other fragments of the Roman population were to be found perhaps among the shepherds of the mountains, who were either Latins or Latinised descendants of the native Illyrians. The Slaves speak of them as together with the town-dwellers as Vlachs, which word signifies Italians or Rumanians to this day. The townsmen described these shepherds as Maurovlachs, i.e. “Sea Vlachs” or “Black Vlachs.”[9]

The other Dalmatian towns and all the country outside the towns were occupied, as we have said, by the Southern Slaves. Of these the two principal tribes were the Serblii or Serbs and the Chrobatians or Croatians. The latter settled in the northern part of the country; their frontiers were the Save, the Kulpa, the Arsia, and the Četina. Their settlement seems to have preceded that of the Serbs. They came from the land beyond the Carpathians, with the name of which theirs may have been connected. Croatia was divided into fourteen Župe or counties, each governed by a Župan. The various Župans owed a somewhat shadowy allegiance to a Grand Župan, whose title was afterwards changed to that of king. The Serbs, who issued forth from what is now Galicia, settled in the land to the south and east of that of the Croatians, i.e. the modern kingdom of Servia, Old Servia, Montenegro, Northern Albania, and Dalmatia south of the Četina. For many centuries they recognised no central authority, but were divided into tribes, of which the most important were the Diocletiani or Docletiani, who occupied what is now Montenegro and part of Albania; the Terbuniotae, whose country, called Terbunia or Tribunia or Travunia, centres round the modern Trebinje, with the semi-independent southern district of Canale or Canali;[10] the coast north of Ragusa up to the Narenta was occupied by the Zachloumoi of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, and was called Zachlumje, Zachulmia, Hlum, or Chelmo. It corresponds to the Herzegovina.[11] About the Narenta was the land of the Narentani (the Ἀρεντάνοι or Παγάνοι of Porphyrogenitus), notorious for their piratical exploits. This tribe was converted to Christianity much later than the other Serbs, whence their name of Pagani. Inland was Bosnia, inhabited by various tribes. Still deeper in the interior was the territory of the Serbs proper.[12]

Thus by the eighth century we have a series of coast towns and a few islands peopled by Latins still under the rule of the Eastern Roman Empire set in the midst of a country whose inhabitants, if we except the Latin or Latinised shepherds, were all Slaves. Imperial influence over these townships gradually declined, and at an early date they constituted themselves into city-states of the Italian type.[13] As they grew rich and powerful they acquired territory, developed their trade, both sea-borne and with the interior, until they were finally absorbed by the Venetian Republic. Their conditions are, therefore, in many respects similar to those prevailing in the maritime republics of Italy during this period. In Italy there was a Latin civilisation, overwhelmed by hordes of pagan or partly pagan barbarians. Italy, like Dalmatia, is reclaimed to Latin culture by Greek arms, and the Greeks rule over it, although constantly fighting the armies of the invaders with varying success. There, too, city-communities arise on or near the sites of Roman cities, modelling their institutions and their laws on those of Rome, with certain modifications due to barbarian influences. But here the parallel ends. In Italy the barbarian hordes never settled in such large numbers as wholly to absorb the Latins, whereas the Slaves in Dalmatia far outnumbered the colonists, and, save for the Latin fringe, the land soon became a Slavonic land. Whereas in Italy, Latins and barbarians soon amalgamated—in fact, one may say that the former absorbed the latter—in Dalmatia, Latins and Slaves have remained distinct and separate to this day, in language, character, and ideals. The Latin cities were like islands in a Slavonic sea. The relations between the Latins and the barbarians in Italy, even before they amalgamated, were different from what they were in Dalmatia. In Italy the feudal system arose among the Germanic peoples, and Germanic lords had Latin subjects and serfs, whereas the Slavonic chieftains of Dalmatia had no Latin dependents to speak of. The causes of this division of race and language, which exercised so deep an influence on the history and development of the Dalmatian municipia, are not very apparent. They are probably to be sought in the different proportions of barbarians to Latins in the two countries. In Italy the number of invaders who settled permanently in the country was never very great compared with that of the Latin inhabitants. The conquered were, therefore, soon able to absorb the conquerors, having civilisation as well as numbers on their side. But in Dalmatia the Slaves were, as we have said, far more numerous than the Latin burghers; and while the former could not absorb the communities of the coast, because they were more civilised, the latter, being so few in numbers, failed to absorb the Slaves. It should, moreover, be remembered that even the Latins were originally colonists from another land, and that the native Illyrians, of whom no trace now remains in Dalmatia, may perhaps have been merged in the Slaves, and helped to swell their numbers.

View of Ragusa
(From P. G. Coronelli’s “Views of Dalmatia”, 1680)

CHAPTER II
THE FOUNDATION AND EARLY HISTORY
OF THE CITY (656-1204)

WE have alluded to the destruction by the Avars of Salona and Epidaurum,[14] and the flight of their inhabitants to the new settlements. Of Salona extensive ruins remain, but with regard to the site of Epidaurum there is a division of opinion among archæologists. It is generally held that the remains at or near the village of Ragusavecchia, a few miles to the south-east of Ragusa, are those of the ancient Epidaurum. In the neighbouring valley of Canali (Slavonic, Konavli) there are the ruins of a Roman aqueduct. The name Ragusavecchia corroborates the tradition that it was the original home of the Ragusans; while its Slavonic name, Cavtat, is undoubtedly derived from the Latin civitas. Some archæologists, however, have doubts as to this point, and Professor Giuseppe Gelcich, than whom no greater authority on Dalmatian history exists, is of opinion that Epidaurum must be sought for somewhere on the Sutorina promontory in the Bocche di Cattaro. Fragments of Roman brickwork and mosaic pavement have been found there too; and according to Professor Gelcich, the Canali aqueduct is so built that it must have served a city farther south than Ragusavecchia. On the other hand, the statements of the classical writers, especially of Pliny, seem to bear out the general opinion, which is, in fact, based on them.

The exact date of the incursion of the Avars and of the destruction of Epidaurum has also been the subject of controversy. According to some writers, among whom are the native historians of Ragusa, the city was destroyed by the Goths in the third century A.D. But documents written between the third and the seventh centuries mention it as still existing. Constantine Porphyrogenitus speaks of Ragusa as having been founded by refugees from Salona five hundred years before his own time, i.e. about 449.[15] But Pope Gregory I. is the last writer who alludes to Epidaurum, so that it was evidently not destroyed before 603. The geographer of Ravenna, who flourished in the eighth century, is the first to mention Ragusa. The Avars made their first appearance in Dalmatia in the year 597-598.[16] They belonged to the same Tartar group as the Huns, and their path was marked with the same ruin and destruction. At one time they were in the service of Justinian, but under his successors they became so powerful and insolent that the Greek emperors might almost be regarded as the vassals to the Chagan of the Avars. In 597 they raided Dalmatia and destroyed over forty towns; and during the next thirty years they conquered the whole country, with the exception of some of the coast settlements, unimpeded by the Greeks, who were then occupied with the Saracens. In 619 they destroyed Salona, whose inhabitants, or at least such of them as escaped from the fury of the barbarians, for the most part took refuge in the walls of Diocletian’s palace at Spalato. But a few wandered southwards and established themselves on an island rock, where Ragusa now stands. About the year 656 the Avars swept down on Epidaurum and razed it to the ground, the surviving inhabitants flying to Ragusa. This year is generally accepted as the date of the city’s, birth. In all probability, however, it was not founded at any definite period, but arose gradually through the influx of refugees from all parts of Southern Dalmatia, from a fishing village into a town. The original settlers were nearly all Latins, and it was not until later that a certain number of Slaves were admitted.[17]

The traditional origin of the name Ragusa is connected with the situation of the town on a precipitous ridge. According to Porphyrogenitus, it is derived from λαῦ, a precipice, and was originally Lausa. The L changed to R, and it became Rausa or Rhausion. According to Professor Jireček,[18] this derivation is quite inaccurate. The rocky seaward ridge, even in the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, were called Labe or Laue, from the Latin word labes, a downfall or precipice. The form Ragusa is found in William of Tyre, and in the Arabic writer Edrisi (1153). Later we find the form Rausa, and in the fifteenth century Raugia, and occasionally Ragusium. The Slavonic name Dubrovnik is said to be derived from dubrava, a wood. This etymology does not sound unlikely, as there is a wood in close proximity to the town, a rarity in this part of the world. But Professor Jireček says that from Dubrava the original form should have been Dubravnik, and this appears nowhere. The Presbyter Diocleas writes: “Dubrounich, id est silvester sive silvestris, quoniam quando eam aedificaverunt, de silva venerunt.” Whatever may be the philological value of these traditions, they indicate the double character (i.e. Latin and Slavonic) of Ragusa in the early, if not in the earliest times.

Ragusa is situated on the coast of Southern Dalmatia, about forty kilometres to the north-west of the Bocche di Cattaro.[19] It is built partly on a precipitous rocky ridge jutting out into the Adriatic, and partly on the mainland, ascending the steep slopes of the Monte Sergio. The original town was limited to the seaward ridge, which was formerly an island divided from the mainland by a marshy channel where the Stradone now runs. There was also a settlement of Bosnians or Vlachs on the Monte Sergio opposite. The ridge slopes gradually up from the channel, but drops sheer down on the side towards the sea. In an old drawing preserved in the library of the Franciscan monastery at Ragusa we see the town as it was when it only occupied the ridge. It is surrounded by a wall, and divided into two parts by another wall. Three extensions of the walls are recorded previous to the beginning of the twelfth century, rendered necessary by the number of fugitives who took refuge within its walls in ever-increasing numbers. “The original city,” writes Professor Gelcich, “was limited to the centre of the northern slope of the ridge now called Santa Maria, which, separating from the Monte Sergio, stretches forth in an opposite direction to that of the neighbouring peninsula of Lapad; it comprised the quarter of the town between the diocesan seminary and the street leading from the Chiesa del Domino to the summit of the ridge.”[20] The earliest extensions were the suburbs of Garište and Pustijerna, the former on the western side, the latter to the east, reaching as far as the harbour. Thus the whole rock was occupied and surrounded by a wall. The channel which divided it from the mainland soon became a marshy field, and finally dried up. As a protection against the Slavonic settlement on the Monte Sergio a castle was built by the sea, on the site of the present rector’s palace, guarding the bridge to the mainland.[21] Later the Bosnian colony was also absorbed, and the town walls were extended to the circuit which they now occupy.

Of the various groups of refugees who settled within the hospitable walls of Ragusa we have fairly reliable accounts. Porphyrogenitus mentions the earliest of these immigrations, and also gives us the names of the most prominent among the newcomers: Arsaphios, Gregorios, Victorinos, Vitalios, Valentinos the archdeacon, and Valentinos the father of the Protospathar Stephen. All these have unquestionably a Latin sound; they were probably Roman provincials from the minor Dalmatian townships destroyed by the barbarians. Besides the Latin refugees, at an early date a certain number of Slaves, who preferred the quiet life and safety of Ragusa to the constant turmoils and disorders among their own people, added to the population. The Anonymous Chronicle of Ragusa[22] describes several of these immigrations:—

“690. Many people came to Ragusa with all their goods from Albania and the parts of Bosna, because many in Bosna were partisans of Duchagini,[23] and wished to save themselves from being accused (punished).”

This evidently refers to a civil war, but the date given is much too early: it is not likely that the Ragusans would have admitted barbarians within their walls so soon after the destruction of Epidaurum:—

“691. There came to Ragusa the men of two castles on the mainland, from Chastel Spilan and Chastel Gradaz,[24] and they all made their dwellings on the coast, for they were of the race of Epidaurum destroyed by the Saracens.”[25]

This obviously refers to the Latin colonists mentioned by the Imperial historian:—

“743. Many people came from Bosna with much wealth, for the king, Radosav, was a tyrant, and lived according to his pleasure: Murlacchi from the Narenta also came, and Catunari,[26] among whom there was a chief above all the others; they came with a great multitude of cattle of all sorts: to them was assigned the mountain of Saint Serge as a pasture, for it was so covered with trees that one could not see the sky, and so much timber was there that they made beams for their houses.”

Of the first two centuries of Ragusan history little is known. The town, like the other Latin communities of Dalmatia, at first formed part of the Eastern Empire. Heraclius had abandoned all the rest of the country to the Slaves, and even in the coast towns Imperial authority was becoming ever more shadowy. Under Michael II Balbus they were granted what practically amounted to autonomy, and they constituted themselves, as we have said, into municipia of the Italian type, while inland Dalmatia became part of Charlemagne’s Empire (803), to whom also some of the coast towns, including Zara, owed allegiance.[27] Ragusa, although still small, was increasing. At that time, with a world of barbarism all round, with everlasting wars between the various Slavonic tribes of the interior, there was indeed an opening for such a haven of refuge as this city offered.

We can picture it to ourselves as a small settlement where all that was civilised in Southern Dalmatia congregated—the scattered Latins from ruined townships and the more progressive Slaves. It was a beacon in the darkness, a spot where the peaceful and the industrious might pursue their avocations in safety. Of the internal constitution of the community in these early days, of its laws and customs, we have the meagrest information. The only account of them which we possess is that given in the Anonymous Chronicle, a not very reliable document of a much later date than the events recorded. The chief passage on the subject is as follows:—

“In Ragusa a division of all the people was made.... Those who were the richest were (appointed) chiefs and governors.... Each family had its own saint, some San Sergio, some this saint, some that.... And when men had come from Lower Vulasi (Wallachia),[28] a division of the citizens was made, each class for itself. Many Wallachians were rich in possessions—gold, silver, cattle, and other things: among them were many Chatunari, each of whom considered himself a count, and had his own Naredbenizi (stewards). One was master of the horse, another looked after the cattle, another after the sheep and goats, another managed the household, another commanded the servants. But there was one chief above all the others, called the Grand Chatunar.... These Chatunari formed the Sboro (Council or Parliament), and for their convenience divided the population into three parts: the first was of gentlemen, the second of burghers, the third of serfs. Many serfs had come from Wallachia with cattle, and it seemed to them a mean thing to be called even as the shepherds.[29] Some attended to the house, some to the horses, some to the person of their master, but the latter were few in number. The third part was of gentlemen; for at the beginning there were many who had fled from Bosna and Albania, and who were not men of low condition, but of much account, having been captains or counts or Naredbenizi, and these were of noble origin.... Those who were gentlemen were made governors of the land or were given other offices, and they alone entered the Sboro or General Council. The other part was of the people, populani, from pol vilani, or half villeins,[30] for although those villeins were of low condition, some were in the houses of gentlemen as guardians, and therefore enjoyed benefits.”

This account is somewhat confused and difficult to understand. As far as we can make out, the people were divided into three classes; i.e. the nobles, who alone formed the Grand Council, and were either the descendants of the original Latin refugees from Epidaurum and Salona, or those among the newcomers who were of noble birth; the middle class, consisting of non-noble burghers, the stewards, and chief retainers of the nobles, and the men of small property; the third class, which was composed of serfs and of the poorest citizens. Over the general assembly presided the head of the State, the Byzantine Duke, Prior, or Præses. After Ragusa had made submission to Venice in 998 we find Venetian counts instead.[31] During the intervals when the city was independent, and no foreign rulers were appointed, the head of the Government was chosen by the Council, as it was in after times. But even when sent from Venice or Constantinople he does not seem to have exercised much direct influence on the internal affairs of the Republic.

Besides the Count and the General Council, there was the assembly of the people, or laudo populi, to whom the decisions of the Council in all the more important cases had to be submitted. Lampredius, præses of Ragusa in 1023, sanctioned a decree “una cum omnibus ejusdem civitatis nobilibus,” “temporibus Sanctorum Imperatorum Basilii et Constantini.” Petrus Slabba, prior in 1044, issued another decree, “temporibus piissimi Augusti Constantini scilicet Monomacho ... cum parited nobiles atque ignobiles.”[32] Thus we have the aristocratic principle represented by the council of nobles, and the democratic principle by the assembly of the people, who were summoned “cum sonitu campane.”[33] As the constitution evolved, the laudo populi gradually dropped into disuse, and Ragusa finally developed into a purely aristocratic community on Venetian lines.

Next in authority to the head of the State was the bishop,[34] by whom the acts of the Government had to be countersigned. The question as to who should appoint this dignitary was frequently a subject of dispute between the Ragusans and the Venetians, on account of his political influence.

The Ragusans provided for the defence of their city by surrounding it with walls, “un muro di masiera e travi,”[35] as Ragnina says, and these fortifications stood them in good stead by enabling them to hold out against the Saracens, who in 847-848 besieged Ragusa for fifteen months. The citizens implored help from the Emperor Basil the Macedonian, and he at once sent a fleet, under Nicephorus, which relieved the beleaguered city from the raiders.[36]

The Greek Emperors wished to pursue the Saracens into Apulia, where they had established themselves, and the rendezvous for one part of the expedition was Ragusa. A large force of Serbs and Croatians in the pay of the Empire congregated there, and were transported to the Italian shore on Ragusan ships. The expedition was successful, Bari being recaptured, and the Saracen power in Southern Italy broken.[37] This is the first mention we have of Ragusan shipping, which was afterwards to play so large a part in the history of the Levant trade.

Of all the Slavonic tribes settled in Dalmatia, the most lawless and uncivilised were the Narentans, the Arentani or Porphyrogenitus. This hardy race of mariners occupied the land about the mouth of the Narenta[38] and the coast,[39] between that river and the Četina, besides the islands of Brazza, Lesina, Curzola, Lissa, Meleda, and Lagosta. Connected by racial ties with the Serbs and the Croatians, they obeyed the laws of neither. The ancient Illyrians were famous for their piracy, which first called the attention of the Romans to the country, and the Narentans proved worthy successors of the aborigines. The conformation of the coast with its numerous inlets, well-sheltered harbours, safe refuges, and countless islands lends itself to this species of occupation. The Narentans ravaged the coast towns of Dalmatia with their swift galleys, plundered peaceful merchantmen, and so harried Venetian trade that the Republic was forced to pay them blackmail for a hundred and fifty years. On more than one occasion it sent its fleets to attempt their subjugation, at first with but little success. At the beginning of these wars Ragusa was a friendly harbour for the Venetian galleys, their most southern port of call in the Adriatic, where they could revictual and their crews rest from the fatigues of the voyage.[40] But the Ragusans very soon began to look askance at the Venetians as a possible danger to their own independence, and adopted the practice of secretly, or even openly, supporting the pirates against the Venetians. This naturally caused trouble later when the Venetians were strong enough to act energetically against the Narentans: it affords a curious insight into the policy of the Ragusans, who, while anxious to preserve their own civilisation and culture, were never averse to siding with barbarians, whether they were Narentans or Turks, against Christian Powers, especially against Venice.

As early as the reign of the Doge Giovanni Particiaco I. (829-836) the pirates of the Narenta had begun to seize Venetian galleys, and his successor, Pietro Tradonico (836-864), sent two punitive expeditions against them without definite result. After the Venetian fleet had been defeated by the Saracens, the Dalmatian corsairs were audacious enough to make a raid on the Lagoons. In 887 the Doge Pietro Candiano I. sent a first unsuccessful expedition against them, and a few months later led a second himself. This too was defeated, and the Doge killed. Probably there was another in 948 under Pietro Candiano III., and this time operations were directed against Ragusa itself, if we are to believe the native historians, the town being saved only through the special intercession of San Biagio,[41] who henceforth became the patron of Ragusa in the place of San Bacco.[42]

In the course of the tenth century Ragusa was again besieged by barbarians—they were Bulgarians this time, under the Tsar Simeon (not Samuel, as had been stated), who invaded the western provinces of the Eastern Empire. According to Cedren, his attack on Ragusa failed,[43] whereas the Presbyter of Doclea writes that the town was burnt.

It was during this same century that Ragusa first began to acquire territorial possessions. The account of the manner of these acquisitions is in part legendary; but, according to Prof. Gelcich, it has some substratum of fact. Paulimir Belo or Belus, King of Rascia,[44] having been deposed and exiled, took refuge in Rome, and married a Roman lady. In 950 he returned to Illyria, and landed at Gravosa, near Ragusa, with a large suite of Roman nobles. The Ragusans received him with great honours, and he in return helped them to enlarge their city, and sent a number of his followers, including some Romans, to increase the population. After this he returned to Rascia and regained his throne. As Prof. Gelcich observes, Rome is evidently a mistake for Rama, a country which forms part of the Herzegovina, and takes its name from a small river tributary to the Narenta. A few years later Stephen, Banus of Bosnia, and his wife, Margaret, came to Ragusa in order to fulfil a vow which the former had made to St. Stephen when his wife was ill, that he would visit the saint’s church in the city if she recovered. As a reward for the welcome accorded to him by the citizens he gave them the districts of Breno, Bergato (Brgat), Ombla, Gravosa, Malfi, and part of Gionchetto.

Nearly fifty years had passed since the last Venetian expedition to Dalmatia; but when the great Doge Pietro Orseolo came to the throne in 991, he determined to put an end to the depredations of the Narentans once for all. The annual tribute which the Venetians had been forced to pay to the freebooters only secured a very imperfect immunity, and the Adriatic trade was never really safe. Orseolo suspended the tribute, and as the Narentans at once recommenced their molestations, an expedition under Badoer was sent out which destroyed the town of Lissa. The Venetian admiral took a great many prisoners, but failed to attack the pirates’ chief stronghold at Lagosta and the Narenta’s mouth. They retaliated on the Latin towns of the coast, and the latter, unable to obtain help from their natural protector, the Greek Emperor, placed themselves under the suzerainty of the Venetians, whom they implored to intervene once more. The Croatians, to whom the towns in the northern and central parts of the country had paid tribute, now declared war on all who obeyed the Venetians, ravaged the territory of Zara, and attacked the islands of the Quarnero. The Ragusans were then tributary to the Serbs, by whom they were surrounded, and fearing the Narentans, who were so close at hand, separated their cause from that of the rest of Latin Dalmatia, and maintained an ambiguous attitude.[45] The Croatians, not content with terrorising the towns, sent ambassadors to Venice to demand the tribute; but the Doge replied: “Non per quemlibet nuntiorum tributum remittere curo; sed ad hanc persolvendam dationem venire ipso non denegabo.” He at once fitted out another expedition on a large scale, which set forth under his command on May 9, 1000.[46] It reached Ossero on June 5, and the Doge claimed the homage of the Dalmatians as their protector; this was paid both by the Latins and by a number of the Slaves. He then proceeded to Zara, which recognised his authority, and the bishops of Arbe and Veglia came to swear fealty to him, promising that his praises should be sung in the churches after those of the Emperor. Negotiations with the Narentans were now opened; the pirates agreed to forego all tributes, and swore to infest the Adriatic no longer; but the moment the Doge’s back was turned they recommenced their depredations. Orseolo then sailed with the fleet for Beograd[47] (Zaravecchia), the residence of the Croatian king. The terrified inhabitants paid him homage, and he prepared to strike a decisive blow at the Narentans. He sailed down the coast and received the submission of Traù and Spalato, and on hearing that forty Narentan “nobles” (pirate captains) were returning from Apulia, some of his galleys lay in wait for them, and captured them off the island of Cazza. The Narentans then sued for peace, which was granted them on a promise of future good behaviour, and all the prisoners were liberated save six, who were retained as hostages. The pirates on the islands of Curzola, Lesina, and Lagosta still held out. The first two were easily captured, but the Lagostans, hearing that the Doge meant to raze their stronghold to the ground, made a desperate resistance. The Venetians and their Dalmatian allies attacked the town, poured in through a breach in the walls, and put all the inhabitants to the sword. After the capture of this important fortress the power of the Narentans was broken, and the whole of Dalmatia lay at Orseolo’s feet.

With regard to the subsequent proceedings and the dedition of Ragusa there is considerable divergence of opinion between Venetian and Ragusan writers. The latter wish to prove that their city remained independent, at all events until the beginning of the thirteenth century, whereas the Venetians affirm that in 998 (1000) Ragusa made full submission to Venice.

The first account of this dedition is that of Johannes Diaconus, who writes: “This (the capture of Lesina, Curzola, and Lagosta) having been accomplished, the victorious prince repaired to the church of St. Maximus; there the Archbishop of Ragusa and his suite came and did great homage to the said prince, all partaking of the sacrament.” Dandolo uses almost identical language, and Sabellico adds that the Archbishop and the Ragusan envoys made formal submission to the Doge and the Venetians,[48] and that counts were appointed to govern the Dalmatian towns, Ottone Orseolo being chosen for Ragusa. To this a Ragusan writer, calling himself “Albinus Esadastes de Vargas” (whom Pisani declares to be Sebastiano Dolci,[49] a Ragusan monk of the seventeenth century), in a work entitled Libertas perpetua reip. Ragusine ab omni jure Venete reipub,[50] replies that the church of St. Maximus must mean that of Masline at Lesina, and that this island is so far that the Ragusan envoys would hardly have come there to tender their submission. Jadesta, which is also alluded to, does not exist. The Ragusans, who had resisted other attacks, both by the Venetians and the Saracens, so valiantly, would not have surrendered now without striking a blow; and, moreover, the Greek Emperors, Basil and Constantine, would not have authorised the submission. With regard to the first and third objections, it is most probable that when the fate of Lagosta had become known to the Ragusans they would have gone to tender their submission to Orseolo wherever he happened to be. Jadesta is simply an old name for Lagosta. As for the Greek Emperors, they were far too much occupied in holding their own against the Bulgarians to be able to make any objections. The former attacks on Ragusa had all been on a small scale, whereas this expedition was a large and well-equipped force, against which it would have been madness for the tiny Ragusa to resist. Then “Esadastes” shifts his ground, and asserts that the envoys went to the Doge merely to reclaim a ship captured by the Venetians, and that they actually threatened reprisals on the part of the Emperors if satisfaction were refused. But it is most unlikely that for so trifling a cause the Archbishop and chief citizens would have been sent to the Doge. This version, however, is accepted by Mauro Orbini.[51] Ragnina does not even mention the expedition. Resti[52] says that Ottone Orseolo was sent to Ragusa merely to make a commercial treaty; but as Pisani observes, if the magistrates appointed to the other Dalmatian towns were sent to govern them, there is no reason to suppose that an exception was made for Ragusa. There is, on the whole, the strongest evidence that Ragusa did actually submit to Venetian supremacy, together with the other coast towns, in 1000, and received a Venetian governor. Local usages and laws, however, were respected, according to the Venetian practice of the time; nor was Imperial authority wholly disregarded, and prayers for the Emperor continued to be sung in the churches of Ragusa.

Venetian rule was not of long duration. On the death of Pietro Orseolo in 1008, his son Ottone became Doge; and during this reign a strong opposition to the house of Orseolo was aroused, which ended with Ottone’s expulsion in 1026. During the reign of his successor, Pietro Centranico, faction feuds broke out, greatly weakening the Republic, and the Dalmatian towns revolted, as Venetian suzerainty was of use to them only so long as Venice was powerful. Some of them went over to Dobroslav, prince of the Tribunian Serbs, and elsewhere Byzantine authority revived. Thus in 1036, instead of a Venetian count at Zara, we find Gregory, Jadertinus Prior, Pro-consul and Imperial Strategos for all Dalmatia.[53] But his authority was disputed by the Croatians, whose sovereign now proclaimed himself King of Dalmatia.[54] Against this act the Venetians issued a protest, and the Doge Domenico Contarini (1043-1071) reasserted the authority of the Republic.

In the year 1071 the Normans from Apulia made their first appearance in Dalmatia; they crossed the Adriatic, and threatened the Eastern Empire. The Emperor Alexius Comnenus having implored the help of the Venetians, the Doge Selvo set sail for Dyrrhachium in command of a fleet. Alexius had also asked help of the Ragusans, who were now practically independent; but they feared the Normans more, and cast in their lot with them. The Græco-Venetian fleet encountered the Normans off Dyrrhachium; but in spite of the valour displayed by the allies they were defeated, and the town fell into the enemies’ hands. It is said that the Ragusan contingent distinguished itself by hurling clouds of arrows, which wrought much havoc among the Venetians.[55] As a reward they obtained important commercial privileges in Southern Italy. In 1085 the Venetians again attacked the Normans, and partially defeated them at Corfu, for which action Alexius granted the Doge Vitale Falier the Golden Bull, conferring upon him the title of Protosebastus, and created him Duke of Dalmatia and Croatia. Thus the Republic regained all its lost influence on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.

Yet another Power now begins to interfere in the affairs of Dalmatia, a Power which was to play a most important part in its subsequent history. In 1091 Ladislas, King of Hungary, was summoned by the Slaves of inland Croatia, who as usual when quarrelling among themselves called in foreign aid, and they willingly recognised him as their king. He did not wait to be asked a second time, but at once entered the province and appointed his nephew, Almus, Count of Cismontane Croatia. On his death in 1094 he was succeeded by another nephew, Koloman, who in the following year crossed the Velebit mountains and invaded Maritime Croatia. He defeated and killed the Croatian king, Krešimir, at Petrovogora, became master of the littoral from Istria to the Narenta, and prepared to conquer the Serb states of Rascia and Tribunia. By marrying Busita, daughter of King Roger, he allied himself with the Normans, and enlisted their help for his schemes. At Beograd he crowned himself King of Dalmatia and Croatia. These conquests were not at all to the taste of the Ragusans, who had every interest in the maintenance of a number of weak but independent Slavonic buffer States at their back, whereas they dreaded the advance of a powerful military monarchy like Hungary. At first they tried to conciliate Koloman with gifts,[56] but as this availed them little they applied to their old enemies, the Venetians; the latter made a treaty with the Hungarian king, by which the Latin municipalities of Dalmatia were recognised as outside the Hungarian sphere. But it was not respected for long. The Emperor Alexius, annoyed with the Venetians for their action in the First Crusade and in the Levant generally, intrigued with Koloman, and induced him to violate his pledges. The Magyar king needed but little pressure, as the conquest of the Dalmatian seaboard was one of his chief ambitions. When the Venetians sent their fleet to Palestine in 1105 he occupied Zara, Traù, and Spalato, and forced the citizens to swear fealty to him. The Ragusans were not disturbed, but they sent him another deputation. The Venetians, exhausted with their last efforts in the Holy Land, were unable to do anything for the moment.[57]

In 1116 hostilities recommenced, and ended in 1118 with the defeat of the Venetians, who agreed to a five years’ truce with Hungary. War broke out again in 1124, and lasted for several years, with varying success. Bela II., who succeeded to Koloman, while the Venetians were occupied elsewhere, crossed the Narenta and conquered the Serb principalities of Tribunia, Zachulmia, and Rama, and tried to induce the coast towns to rebel against Venice. The Ragusans once more applied for Venetian help, and even requested that Venetian counts should be sent to govern them. Both requests were granted.

Of the next twenty-eight years of Ragusan history there is little to tell. “Esadastes” mentions the names of four Venetian counts—Marco Dandolo, Cristiano Pontestorto, Jacopo Doseduro or Dorsoduro, and Pietro Molina. Resti mentions a plague in 1145, which, he says, carried off three-quarters of the inhabitants, evidently an exaggeration. In 1148, according to the same writer, the Servian Prince Dessa, ancestor of the Nemanjas, granted the island of Meleda to three Benedictine monks, with the provision that its civil government should be entrusted to Ragusa. This is the most distant possession which the Republic had as yet acquired.

In 1152 the series of Venetian counts came to an end,[58] the last of them having apparently received notice to quit from the Ragusans themselves, who sent him home in one of their own galleys, with many gifts, as a reward, “Esasdastes” says ironically, for having ruled the city so well for thirty years; but he adds the following extract from an early chronicle:—

“These counts had begun to tyrannise, and, moreover, Ragusa being at war with the Bosnians, five hundred soldiers who had come from Venice to aid us outraged our women and committed countless robberies. To free the city from them the Council ordered them to be so placed in the van of the army that they should all be killed. This stratagem having succeeded, they sent the Venetian rector back to Venice.”

Whether this story be true or not, it is characteristic both of the customs of the time and of the feelings with which the Ragusans ever regarded the Venetians. For the latter and their government no native historian ever has a good word to say.

The reason why the Venetians submitted so tamely to being turned out of Ragusa lies in the general situation of affairs in Dalmatia. In 1148 Venice had formed an alliance with the Emperor Manuel Comnenus against the Normans, whose incursions in the Adriatic constituted a menace for both Powers; but Venetians and Greeks were on the worst of terms, and at the siege of Corfu the Emperor’s name had been grossly insulted. Manuel vowed vengeance on his allies, and sent emissaries to stir up the Dalmatians against Venice. The latter was at war on the mainland with Hungary and in Syria, and therefore found it expedient to ignore the Dalmatian question for the time being. Venetian authority, however, did not cease altogether even at Ragusa, where Venetians continued to be appointed as archbishops. Thus in 1150 or 1151 the dignity was conferred on a certain Domenico of Venice, and in 1153 on another Venetian named Tribuno; the latter in 1155 made formal submission to the Patriarch of Grado, with the consent of the clergy and people of Ragusa.[59] The town continued, in fact, to be regarded as one of those under Venetian protection, or, at least, as friendly to the Republic of the lagoons.

In 1169 Manuel Comnenus determined to conquer Dalmatia, and even Italy. He sent a squadron up the Adriatic to molest Venetian shipping, and encouraged corsairs to do the same. The Imperial fleet occupied the towns protected by Venice, treating them as conquered territory. Ragusa too was occupied, and was doubtless not unwilling to get rid of all Venetian authority; the Imperial standard was raised on a tower expressly built for the purpose. On March 7, 1171, the Emperor had all the Venetians at Constantinople arrested and their property seized. Venice immediately declared war, and, in spite of the scarcity of men and money, a fleet of one hundred and twenty ships, to which ten Dalmatian galleys were added, was fitted out in a hundred days.[60] It set sail in September under the command of the Doge Vitale Michiel, and most of the Dalmatian towns willingly returned to Venetian suzerainty.[61] Ragusa too surrendered, though not without resistance, and the event is thus described in the Cronaca Altinate:[62]—

“The Ragusans, who, like the others (Dalmatians), were under oath of fealty to the lord Doge, would not go forth to do him homage, but they came out in arms as though to insult the host. Wherefore the Venetians, in high dudgeon, marched against them, and pursued them even to the gates of the city. The same day, at the ninth hour, they began the attack with so much vigour that many of the citizens were killed, and, having stormed the battlements, they captured some of the towers, on which they raised the ducal standards. The assault was kept up with great energy until evening. At dawn on the following morning, while men and machines were being prepared for the battle, Tribuno Michiel, the Archbishop of Ragusa, issued forth from the city with the clergy and the nobles bearing crosses, and they cast themselves at the feet of the Doge, imploring mercy for themselves and all the citizens, and declaring that they and their city made full submission. The Doge, calm and prudent, was moved by pity, and on the advice of his followers received them. And all the citizens sang the praises of the Doge, and all who were above twelve years of age swore the oath of fealty to him and his successors. In addition, they provided money and wine for each galley, and in obedience to the Doge’s orders demolished part of their walls, that tower which had been expressly built for the Emperor. They consented that their archbishopric should be subject to the Patriarchate of Grado, provided that the Pope permitted it.[63] When these things had been accomplished the Doge appointed the noble youth Raynerius Joannes (Renier Zane or Zen) as Viscount, and set sail with his fleet for Romania.”[64]

ONOFRIO’S FOUNTAIN IN THE PIAZZA

Dandolo’s account is almost identical, and so is that of Sabellico, save that the latter does not mention the actual storming of the town. He merely says that the Ragusans sued for peace through their archbishop, and that they themselves demolished the tower on which the Imperial standard had been raised. Whichever version we accept, it is clear that Ragusa again made full submission to the ducal authority, and came once more under Venetian supremacy. We must not forget that Tribuno Michiel, the archbishop, was a Venetian, and probably there was a Venetian party in the city as well as a Byzantine party. When it became evident that the Venetians were in earnest, the faction which favoured them at once prevailed. “Esadastes,” as usual, casts doubts on the whole story, because Dandolo and Sabellico do not agree as to the attack, but he does not even mention the account of the Cronaca Altinate. Resti denies the submission altogether. It should be remembered that whereas Dandolo and the author of the Altinate Chronicle wrote barely a century after the events related, the Ragusan historians flourished in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, and wrote with the express purpose of combating all Venice’s claims over Ragusa.

But, as before, the surrender did not greatly affect the internal affairs of the city, which continued to be managed by the citizens themselves. Nor did Venetian suzerainty last long. The campaign against the Eastern Empire ended most disastrously; the fleet was decimated by disease, and returned to Venice in 1172 a complete wreck. Venetian influence in Dalmatia was greatly reduced in consequence, while that of the Empire revived proportionately, and lasted until Manuel’s death in 1180. The country was, however, regarded as still in a measure connected with Venice, and in the treaty of peace which the latter made with William of Sicily in 1175 he promised not to invade “the lands which are under the rule of the Doge of Venice and of the Venetians,”[65] and Dalmatia was included among these.

In the meanwhile Ragusa was developing international relations of a different character, i.e. with the Slavonic principalities of the interior. In the earliest times Ragusan territory was limited to a small part of the actual city, and for a long time did not extend beyond the walls. Constantine Porphyrogenitus informs us that it bordered on the two states of Zachulmia and Tribunia. The vineyards of the Ragusans were on the territory of these tribes, and the citizens paid a yearly tribute of thirty-six numismata (gold pieces) to the Prince of Zachulmia, and as much to the Prince of Tribunia.[66] As the population increased they gradually extended their cultivation to the whole of these districts. The Tribunian vineyards were in the Župa of Žrnovica (Breno); those of Zachulmia in the Župa of Rijeka (Ombla), as far as Malfi, and in that of Poljice.[67] The tribute which the Ragusans paid for this privilege was called margarisium or magarisium;[68] its value varied considerably. In 1363 that due to the Zachulmians was of sixty ipperperi, paid by the owners of the vineyards in proportion to the extent of their holdings. The Zachulmians, on their side, sent a cow, called the vacca di margarisio, which was divided between the Count of Ragusa and some of the boni homines (optimates) of the city. Later, instead of one animal, several were sent.[69] Besides the tribute, the Ragusans paid a tithe in kind to the Slave princelings. From time to time they made special treaties with their neighbours, usually of a commercial character. By one of these, which Resti dates 831,[70] Svetimir, King of Bosnia, agreed to send 50 oxen, 500 sheep and goats, and 200 loads of oats to Ragusa, and to treat the Ragusans in his territory as though they were his own subjects, while they were to send him fourteen braccia[71] of red cloth. This indicates the city’s economic position, which enabled it to send manufactured articles from the west into the Balkan lands, while it bought from the latter the cattle and foodstuffs which its own limited territory could not provide. Even in later times most of the grain consumed by the Ragusans was imported from abroad.

Relations with the Slaves, however, were not always of so peaceable a character, and the Ragusans were often engaged in little wars with their turbulent neighbours. The gradual extension of the Ragusan vineyards was a fertile source of dispute (lis de vineis),[72] as the Republic claimed and finally obtained by prescription the right to govern the territory in question. Another cause of dispute was the arrest and ill-treatment to which Ragusan merchants were often subjected when travelling in the interior. At other times the Ragusans aroused the ire of the neighbouring princes by giving shelter to their rebellious subjects. The story of Bodino, in spite of its legendary character, illustrates this very clearly. This Slavonic prince, having deposed his uncle, Radoslav,[73] and made himself King of Dalmatia and Croatia, conquered Bosnia and Servia. But he wished to get rid of Radoslav’s sons, who still ruled over a small territory on the river Drina. In this he succeeded by treachery, but their children managed to escape to Ragusa, and placed themselves under the protection of the Republic. Bodino demanded that they should be given up to him, and on the refusal of the Ragusans he besieged their city for seven years. At the end of this time, finding that his efforts were useless, he put his cousins to death, and retired with the bulk of his army. But in order to molest Ragusa he built a castle at the head of the bridge connecting the town with the mainland, and left a small containing force behind. The Ragusans obtained possession of this stronghold by the following stratagem. After having bribed the commanders of the garrison by promising them land and honours in the city, they allowed a large consignment of wine to fall into the hands of the enemy; while the latter were making merry on it the burghers issued forth and put them all to the sword. The castle was destroyed, and the church of San Niccolò in Prijeki[74] erected on its site. These events are recorded as having occurred some time during the eleventh or twelfth century, but the accounts are by writers who lived several hundreds of years later. Probably there were wars with the Slaves in which incidents of a similar character occurred, but the seven years’ siege is pure fiction, and the name of Bodino is not found in any history of the Serbs or Croatians.

Another Servian war, on which we possess somewhat more reliable information, is that which broke out in 1184 between the Ragusans and Stephen Nemanja, King of the Serbs. An army commanded by the King himself attacked the city from the land side,[75] while a fleet under his brother, Miroslav, attacked it by sea. The citizens, under Michele Bobali, completely defeated the besiegers, who were ignorant of siege operations and quite unprovided with necessaries. On the Feast of the Three Martyrs,[76] September 27, 1186, peace was concluded.[77] Both sides agreed to forget past injuries, and Nemanja granted the Ragusans permission to trade in all parts of his dominions, while his own subjects were to be protected at Ragusa; but it was also stipulated that rebels should be prevented from using the city as a place in which to conspire against their sovereign. There was another stipulation, that should the King or his brother ever need a safe refuge, Ragusa should be open to them—a clause found in many subsequent treaties.

Venice in all that concerned Ragusa’s relations with the Slave states allowed the citizens to do as they pleased, even during the period when Venetian counts presided over its government. It was only in questions concerning maritime affairs that the Queen of the Adriatic asserted her authority over Ragusa from time to time.

This same year the Normans made another raid into Dalmatia, and occupied Ragusa and several other coast towns. Norman rule lasted until 1190, and does not seem to have left any traces beyond a few documents. The treaty of peace, dated September 27, 1186,[78] was drawn up “at the court of the most glorious King William and of the lord archbishop Tribunus, in the presence of Tasilgard, the Royal Chamberlain, of all the nobles, of Gervase the count (of Ragusa), and of all the people.” This shows that Ragusa was under a Norman count. Document xxii. of the Monumenta spectantia Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium is a treaty of peace between Ragusa and the Cazichi (another name for the Narentan, pirates): “And on the side of the Ragusans, Gervase the count swore to preserve this peace, without prejudice to his sovereign lord.... In the year of our Lord (1190), in the month of February, on the day of St. Blaize (the 3rd), the Assembly having been summoned by Gervase the count to the sound of the bell, we decided,” &c. Document xxiii., dated June 13, 1190, is a treaty between this same count of Ragusa and Miroslav, Prince of the Serbs, in which Gervase promises that the latter should receive hospitality at Ragusa if he ever required it, salvo sacramento domini nostri regi Tancredi.

The occupation of Ragusa by the Normans is evidently an episode in the wars which they waged against the Eastern Empire, and the town was probably seized merely as a basis for further operations. Gervase, who ruled the whole time, does not seem to have been an absolute despot, as the consent of the Assembly was required for all the acts of the Government. Norman rule in Dalmatia did not survive the death of Tancred and the consequent collapse of the Sicilian kingdom in 1190. In documents of a date posterior to this, such as the treaty with Fano in 1199,[79] with Ancona[80] of the same year, with Bari of 1201,[81] and with Termoli of 1203,[82] no mention either of Venetian or Norman counts is made, so that we may conclude that for the time being Ragusa enjoyed freedom from foreign rulers.

But Venice was preparing to re-occupy the whole of Dalmatia, and the Fourth Crusade of 1202 provided her with the desired opportunity. The Crusaders began their expedition to the Holy Land by storming and sacking Zara, where they wintered. In 1204 they captured Constantinople, subverted the Greek Empire, and set up the ephemeral Latin Empire of the East in its place, with Baldwin of Flanders as Emperor. The Doge of Venice, Enrico Dandolo, the prime mover and leader of the expedition, became “lord of a quarter and a half of Romania.” In 1205 the Venetians, at the height of their power, demanded the submission of Ragusa, which was at once tendered. Dandolo (the historian) thus describes this fourth surrender:—

“Tommaso Morosini, who had been nominated Patriarch (of Constantinople) by Innocent III., returned to Venice, carrying the Pope’s letters; he set sail with a fleet of four triremes and made war against the city of Ragusa, who, at the suggestion of the Greeks, had rebelled against Venice. The citizens, no longer trusting in the strength of the Greeks, surrendered their city to the Venetians.”

Two other chronicles[83] give similar accounts of the event. The indefatigable “Esadastes” of course tries to prove that Ragusa did not surrender, because the people who had held out so bravely and successfully against the Saracens 340 years previously would not have tamely submitted to a squadron of four ships commanded by a priest. The Ragusan apologist, however, forgets the enormous prestige acquired by the Venetians as a consequence of their exploits in subverting the Eastern Empire, after which event Ragusa could not hope to oppose the greatest Power in the Adriatic with any chance of success.[84]

With this act of submission ends the first period of Ragusan history, during which the possession, or rather suzerainty over the city was a matter of dispute between the Venetians and the Greeks, with intervals of absolute independence, and four years of Norman rule. As, however, Byzantine influence, not necessarily political, predominates even in Venice itself, we may call this the Byzantine period. For the next hundred and fifty years, save for one short interruption, Ragusa remains under Venetian supremacy.

An important question in connection with the growth of Ragusa is its ecclesiastical history. Native historians have attempted to prove that the city was an archiepiscopal see from the earliest times, and that it succeeded to Salona, whence some of its first settlers had come, as the metropolis of all Dalmatia. This latter contention proving quite untenable (the Archbishop of Salona, together with the majority of the surviving inhabitants, took refuge at Spalato, which became an archiepiscopal see in consequence), they declare that the Ragusan archbishops had succeeded to those of Doclea. That city, they assert, had been destroyed by the Bulgarian Tsar Samuel, and its archbishop fled to Ragusa, which became ipso facto an archiepiscopal see. A more accurate account is that contained in the Illyricum Sacrum of Farlati. Doclea was destroyed, not by Samuel, who became Tsar of the Bulgarians in 976, but by Simeon. In fact Porphyrogenitus, who wrote in 949, mentions the event as having occurred during his own lifetime. According to the Illyricum Sacrum the exact date was 926. John (the archbishop) actually did take refuge at Ragusa, where, on the death of the local bishop, he succeeded to the see, retaining his superior title by courtesy. His successors wished to continue in the dignity, and even began to assume metropolitan authority, refusing to obey the archbishop of Spalato. The dispute lasted many years, and the bishops of the newly-created see of Antivari[85] claimed that they were the true successors to the archbishops of Doclea. Pope Gregory VII. apparently refers to these contentions in his Epistle to Michael, King of the Slaves.[86] The Roman Pontiff hereby summons “Peter, bishop of Antivari, the bishop of Ragusa, and other suitable witnesses, by means of whom the contention between the archbishop of Spalato and Ragusa[87] may be judicially examined and canonically defined,” to repair to the Holy See. What Gregory’s decision was we are not informed, but in the end the see of Ragusa was separated from that of Spalato and erected into an archbishopric with metropolitan authority. The same thing was done in the case of Antivari. Thus by the thirteenth century we find that Dalmatia was divided into three ecclesiastical provinces. The reasons why the Ragusans were so anxious to have an archbishopric of their own were political not less than religious. We have seen how important a personage the Ragusan bishop was in the constitution, and if he were to owe obedience to a prelate in a foreign and possibly hostile State, he might be induced to act in a manner prejudicial to the interests of the Republic. The existence of a separate province, which lasted down to our own times, also constituted a further assertion of Ragusan independence.

The importance of the Ragusan Church was further enhanced by the conversion of the neighbouring Slaves, to whom Ragusa was the nearest religious centre. Ragusan missionaries went among them to preach the Gospel, and ecclesiastics from Constantinople made the city their headquarters and starting-point. The part which Ragusa played in these conversions explains the gifts which the Servian princes and nobles made to its churches.[88] In later times religious controversies arose between the citizens and their neighbours, in consequence of the heretical and schismatic sects which were spreading throughout the Balkan lands. Ragusa was nothing if not orthodox, and used all her influence to second the Papacy in trying to suppress these movements, which were often countenanced by the kings and princes of Servia and Bosnia. Bernard, archbishop of Ragusa at the end of the twelfth century, wished to bring the bishops of Bosnia under his authority, and the Banus Čulin, who at that time professed himself a Catholic, consented. But while Bernard was in Rome, Čulin abjured Catholicism for Bogomilism,[89] and set up Bogomil bishops in opposition to those consecrated by Bernard. Vulkan, Grand Župan of Chelmo (Zachulmia), did likewise, and convoked a synod at Antivari.[90]

In 1023 the Benedictine Order came to Ragusa from the Tremiti Islands under one Peter, and established itself on the island of Lacroma. Various Serb princes and Ragusan citizens made gifts of land to the monastery.

The Ragusans were essentially a commercial people, and trade, both inland and sea-borne, formed the chief source of their wealth. In the Byzantine period, however, we only find the germs of their future commercial development. We have already alluded to the part played by Ragusan shipping, first in the Greek expedition to Apulia in 848, and then at the battle of Durazzo. But the vessels were small, and the sea-borne trade of a very limited character. Navigation was of three kinds—coastwise traffic, navigation intra Culfum, and navigation extra Culfum.[91] Coastwise traffic was comprised between the peninsula of Molonta (a little to the north-west of the Bay of Cattaro) and the Canale di Stagno, a distance of about 70 kilometres in all, with ten harbours. Navigation intra Culfum, which extended from the Capo Cumano to Apulia and Durazzo, was of considerable importance even during the Byzantine epoch. Fine Milan cloths, skins, tan, and canvas for sails were brought on Ragusan ships from the ports of the Marche and Apulia, and forwarded to all parts of the Eastern Empire and the Slavonic lands. All trade to places situated beyond these limits came under the heading of navigation extra Culfum, but we shall defer a detailed account of its conditions to a later chapter, as it did not grow to important proportions until the thirteenth century. There was, however, apparently a Ragusan colony at Constantinople.

The Quay and Harbour Gate

The earliest recorded commercial treaty made by the Republic is the one of 1169 with Pisa. In 1168 the Republic of Pisa sent three envoys to Constantinople to settle a contention with Manuel Comnenus. On the way they stopped at Ragusa, and on May 13, 1169, signed a commercial treaty with the city, guaranteeing mutual immunities and other privileges. The Pisan envoys then proceeded on their journey, accompanied by the newly appointed chief of the Ragusan colony in the Imperial capital.[92] There were political as well as commercial reasons for this agreement, in the hostility of both Republics to Venetian supremacy in the Adriatic. About this time the Ragusans obtained the right of citizenship at Constantinople, granted to them by Manuel, and confirmed by his son, Alexius II. The original documents have not been preserved, but the privilege is frequently alluded to by later writers.

Many treaties with the other towns of Dalmatia, Istria, and Italy are published in the Monumenta spectantia Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium. Thus in 1188 a perpetual peace was concluded with Rovigno;[93] in 1190 an agreement with the Cazichi or Narentans[94] (also called Dalmisiani, from the town of Almissa); in 1191 a treaty with Fano, and others to which we have already alluded. These agreements were all similar in character, and their object being to insure mutual and commercial privileges. Some contained special clauses exempting the citizens of the contracting cities from certain taxes and customs dues.

Traffic with the Slavonic states also began early, but the great trade highways from the coast to the interior were not fully developed until the next century.

Artistic and intellectual development, in which Byzantine influence is conspicuous, was still in its infancy, and of the few buildings of this period with any architectural pretensions only the smallest traces remain. The town was built chiefly of wood, save for the walls and a couple of small churches. The oldest edifice of which anything remains is the Church of San Stefano, mentioned by Constantine Porphyrogenitus as the most important in the town. Four ruined walls in a court near the diocesan seminary are believed to have belonged to this very ancient building. The tradition is that it was erected by Stephen, Banus of Bosnia, or by his widow. Gelcich suggestively describes what the building must have been like: “In the church of St. Stephen at Ragusa we must picture to ourselves not a work of art, but a chapel capable of containing few beyond the ministers at the altar; low-vaulted, decorated internally, and perhaps externally, with frescoes; an apse just large enough for the altar, lit by such few rays of sunlight as could penetrate by an irregular number of holes piercing the stone slab which closed the single-arched window placed over the altar.”[95] On the outside wall there is a fragment of bas-relief of two arches, each containing a cross on a design of foliage. Close by is the area of a larger church, also in ruins, of a later date, to which Santo Stefano afterwards served as a sacristy.

Another church of the Byzantine period is that of San Giacomo in Peline,[96] on the slopes of the Monte Sergio, mentioned by documents of the thirteenth century as already very ancient. Seen from outside, there is nothing to tell one that it is a church at all, but internally it is in good repair, and it is still occasionally used for services. It is quite plain, and has round arches and vaultings. It consists of a nave, three bays, and an apse. The single window, which is a later addition, is to the left of the altar. A small painting of the fourteenth century is the only ornament. Two other churches—San Niccolò in Prijeki, and Santa Maria in Castello—although both of this epoch, were entirely rebuilt in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The best—one is tempted to say the only—piece of Byzantine sculpture in the town is a handsomely carved doorway in a chapel near the Duomo. The design, though simple, is elegant and graceful. On the island of Lacroma an inscription marks the burial-place of Vitalis, archbishop of Ragusa from 1023 to 1047.

This, then, is the sum of Byzantine remnants at Ragusa. The name of Monte Sergio, as Prof. Eitelberger says, is the only relic of the Oriental Church; while the name of the west gate, Porta Pile or Pille, is apparently derived from the Greek Πύλαι.

Of literary production it is as yet too early to speak, for Ragusan literature only begins with the Renaissance.

CHAPTER III
VENETIAN SUPREMACY

I.—THE CONSTITUTION AND THE LAWS, 1204-1276.

During the next hundred and fifty years, save for two or three short interruptions between 1221 and 1233, Ragusa is admittedly a vassal state of the Venetian Republic, ruled by Venetian counts appointed by the Doge. Venice was, however, the protectress rather than the absolute mistress of the Dalmatian townships, which continued to enjoy a considerable measure of self-government. Venetian influence was useful to them as a protection both against the pirates which infested the Adriatic and the turbulence of the Slavonic princes, although as regards her relations with the latter, Ragusa, at all events, was free to manage even her foreign policy to a great extent. It will be well to examine the conditions of the Slavonic hinterland at this period.

Ragusa from the East

During the twelfth century the Slave lands were beginning to assume a semblance of order, and early in the thirteenth century, out of the chaos of barbarous and more or less independent tribes, four principal states had taken shape. They were Servia or Rascia, Bosnia, Hlum or Hum, and Doclea. The most important of these was Servia, welded into a kingdom by the Nemanja dynasty, who had extended their frontiers southwards and eastwards at the expense of the Eastern Roman Empire. It included, besides modern Servia, as far as the Ibar and the Servian Morava, a part of Bosnia to the east of the watershed between the rivers Bosna and Drina, the district of Novibazar and Old Servia, and a part of Albania.[97] It had no regular capital in the modern sense, but the Kings resided usually at Prizren, at Scutari,[98] or at Skopje (Üsküb). It touched the sea-coast at the Bocche di Cattaro and in Albania; and the town of Cattaro was sometimes under Servian protection. The importance of the country does not begin until the reign of Stephen Nemanja (1143 or 1159). He extended his territory so as to include Bosnia in 1169, and reduced all the semi-independent župans (feudal lords) to subjection. He was still under Byzantine suzerainty, but after the death of Manuel Comnenus in 1180 he refused to pay tribute to his successor, conquered Niš, and made Priština[99] his capital. In 1185 he shook off all allegiance to the Greeks, and assumed the title of King of Servia, but was not crowned. In 1195 he abdicated in favour of his son, Stephen Uroš, who was crowned by his younger brother, St. Sava, the first archbishop of Servia. Stephen Uroš’s reign was peaceful, and Servia flourished under him. His brother, Vukan, had inherited the Zeta and part of Hlum from his father, but owed allegiance to Stephen Uroš. When the Latin Empire of Constantinople was established in 1205, Baldwin recognised him as independent King of Servia, Bosnia, and Dalmatia. Uroš died in 1224. His son, Stephen III., captured the town of Vidin or Bdin from the Bulgarians, and the district of Syrmia between the Save and the Danube. His brother, Ladislas, who succeeded him, abandoned Vidin on marrying the Bulgarian Tsar’s daughter. A third brother, Stephen IV. the Great, succeeded in 1237. With Stephen Uroš II. Milutin (succeeded 1275) Servia is almost at the height of her power. He conquered a large part of Macedonia, capturing the town of Serres, besieged Salonica in 1285, and invaded Albania. He added Bosnia, which had been under Hungarian vassalage, once more to Servia, by divorcing his first wife and marrying Elizabeth, the daughter of the King of Hungary, who gave him Bosnia as a dowry. His grandson, Stephen, who was called Dušan or the Strangler, because he had strangled his own father,[100] succeeded in 1331, and extended his power over the greater part of the Balkan peninsula. He conquered the rest of Macedonia and Albania, and reduced Bulgaria to a state of vassalage. In 1346 he had himself crowned “Tsar of the Serbs and Greeks.”[101]

Bosnia, which corresponded to the modern region of that name, minus the eastern districts under Servia and the north-west corner, was ruled by a Banus who owed allegiance to Hungary. The first Banus, whose name is recorded in authentic documents, is Borić, who reigned from 1154 to 1163. During the next twenty years the country was under Byzantine suzerainty, represented at times by Greek governors, at others by native princes with Imperial diplomas. In 1180 the great Banus Kulin or Čulin came to the throne, shook off Byzantine authority, and ruled the country wisely and well for twenty-four years. He cultivated friendly relations with his neighbours, including Ragusa.[102] “The days of Čulin” became proverbial in later and less happy times to indicate a golden age. After Čulin’s death the country’s prosperity declined, but revived to some extent under Matthew Ninoslav (1232). After the death of his successor in 1254 Bosnia fell once more under Hungarian vassalage, and was divided into Bosnia proper (afterwards Bosnia-Mačva) under native vassal Bani, and the district of Usora and Soli ruled by Hungarian magnates. After a short period under the Croatian house of Šubić the native prince, Stephen Kotromanić, became Banus under Hungarian suzerainty, and reigned until 1353, when his nephew, Stephen Trvartko or Tvrtko,[103] succeeded him and crowned himself king.

The land of Hlum or Hum had in early times formed part of the kingdom of Doclea, and included, besides the modern Herzegovina, Tribunia (or Travunia), the peninsula of Sabbioncello, a long stretch of Dalmatian coast, and part of Montenegro. In 1015 it was conquered by the Bulgarian Tsars, whose empire had spread to the Adriatic. The Greek Emperor, Basil II. (Bulgaroktonos), reconquered it in 1019, and in 1050 the native prince Radoslav drove out the Greeks, and made himself ruler of the country. Among his successors was Bodino, who is said to have besieged Ragusa. During the twelfth century the Servians attacked Doclea, and in 1143 King Radoslav II. asked the Greek Emperor for help against them; but in 1150 Hlum was conquered by Dessa (or Stephen Nemanja), brother of the King of Servia, reoccupied by the Greeks a few years later, and in 1168 added once more to the kingdom of Servia. From 1198 to the beginning of the thirteenth century it was connected with Croatia, after which it returned once more to the Servians. The latter were extremely anxious to possess Hlum, because it afforded them their best opening to the sea (to the north they were cut off by Bosnia and Croatia). In all probability it continued to form part of Servia until added to the Bosnian Banate by Stephen Kotromanić about 1320 or 1330, shorn, however, of Stagno by the Ragusans, as we shall see subsequently.[104]

Ragusa was thus surrounded on all her land frontiers by powerful Slavonic states, who at times were friendly, but envied her wealth, and above all her splendid port; of this they tried on more than one occasion to gain possession. Ragusa relied for safety on their own dissensions and on Venetian protection. In the meantime she made the most of her position by exploiting their territory for commercial purposes.

Of the first twenty years of Venetian rule there is little to record. Of the counts, only one name is mentioned between 1204 and 1222—Giovanni Dandolo,[105] who may have ruled during the whole period. But about this time there occurred a curious event in the history of the town, which is described as a Ragusan version of the story of Marin Faliero. It is variously represented as having occurred about 1221-1223 or 1230-1232. The earlier date appears to be more probable, for reasons which we shall explain. Apparently for a few years previously Ragusa had been enjoying what was practically absolute freedom, as no Venetian count had been appointed. In 1221 or thereabouts a certain Damiano Giuda or Juda was elected count by popular assembly. But instead of resigning the dignity after six months, which had been the usual period during the intervals of independence, he continued in office illegally for two years; he tyrannised over the people, subjected his enemies to arbitrary arrest, exile, and confiscation, and kept a bodyguard of mercenaries.[106] The citizens tired of this misgovernment, and were willing to call in the Venetians once more. A conspiracy was set on foot to bring about the tyrant’s downfall, under the leadership of his own son-in-law, Pirro Benessa. What increased the discontent among the Ragusans was the fact that since the rupture with Venice that Republic had ceased to protect them against piracy, and their maritime trade suffered in consequence. Giuda’s arbitrary proceedings had also caused trouble with the other Dalmatian towns. A group of nobles met to discuss the matter, and although some, including Vito and Michele Bobali, opposed any suggestion that Venetian aid should be resorted to, their objections were overruled, and it was decided to send a deputation to Venice, headed by Pirro Benessa himself. On its arrival it was well received, and the Government sent a squadron of six galleys down the Adriatic, ostensibly to escort the Patriarch of Constantinople. It weighed anchor at Ragusa, where Benessa landed and visited the tyrant, advising him to come and pay his respects to the Patriarch and the Venetian admiral. Not suspecting treachery Giuda agreed, and went on board the principal galley. He was instantly seized and loaded with chains, and the fleet sailed away. When he found himself thus outwitted, in a fit of rage and despair he committed suicide by beating his head against the sides of the vessel. In exchange for this deliverance the Ragusans agreed to readmit the Venetian counts.

How far this story is authentic we cannot decide, but in its main features it is probably true. It may be that Damiano Giuda was a patriot, whose object was to consolidate Ragusa as a free city, independent of all Venetian tutelage, but that he felt that the community was still too weak to stand alone unless ruled by a strong personal government. Or he may have been, as most historians make him out, merely an ambitious citizen, like those who made themselves masters of the various Italian city-republics. Be that as it may, the important point is the subsequent connection between Ragusa and Venice. There is a letter addressed to one Velcinno,[107] Podestà of Spalato, which alludes to “Zellovellus ragusiensis comes,” and to the story of Damiano Giuda. This Velcinno is probably the same as Buysinus, who was podestà from 1221 to 1223. This would indicate that the episode was over not later than 1223, and that Zellovellus had come as Venetian count. We know that Damiano tyrannised for two years, so he must have entered office at least as early as 1221. But as he had been elected by the people and not appointed by the Doge, Ragusa must at that time have been independent of Venice. Now there are documents of 1224 and 1226 in which the Ragusans are reprimanded for having failed to send hostages to Venice and otherwise fulfil their promises. The final treaty of submission regulating Venetian suzerainty over Ragusa is dated 1232. Pisani concludes from this that the Zellovello letter is a forgery; that Ragusa shook off Venetian supremacy between 1224 and 1226, remained free and independent until 1230, when Giuda became tyrant; and that the submission of 1232 was the price which the Ragusans paid for being freed from him.[108] Professor Gelcich, however, holds to the authenticity of the Zellovello letter,[109] but does not allude to the documents of 1224 and 1226 regarding the hostages and the prohibition to the Ragusans against trading with Alexandria.[110] It is, I think, probable that these documents refer to a later rebellion against Venetian authority. Venice had helped the Ragusans to shake off domestic tyranny, say, about 1223, exacting in exchange certain promises of allegiance and a number of hostages. These stipulations were not fulfilled; hence the protests referred to in the documents of 1224 and 1226. Venice, however, did not press her claims, and Ragusa remained more or less independent.[111] Finally, on finding that the city could not yet stand alone, or fearing that Venice was preparing to re-establish her authority by force of arms, the citizens made a voluntary submission in 1232. This view is corroborated by the fact that in the treaty of 1232 no mention is made either of Damiano Giuda or of Pirro Benessa, who headed the conspiracy against him and the deputation to Venice. The negotiations were carried on between the Venetian Government and two Ragusan nobles, Binzola Bodazza[112] and Gervasio Naimerio.

TORRE MENZE

The treaty of 1232 fixes the terms of Ragusa’s dependence. “We, the envoys of Ragusa,” it begins, “seeing that it appears to us of great advantage that our country should be subject to Venetian domination, beg that you should grant us a Venetian count according to our desires.” Ragusa was always to have Venetian counts in future, who were to be chosen by the Doge with the majority of his councillors. “The count shall swear fealty to the Doge and to his successors, and thus will all future counts to all future Doges for ever. Also all the men of the county (of Ragusa) above thirteen years of age shall swear fealty to the lord Doge and his successors, and they shall renew their oath every ten years. They shall also swear fealty to the count and all his successors for ever, ‘salva fidelitate domini ducis ad honorem Venecie et salutem Ragusii.’” Should the Doge ever visit Ragusa he was to be honourably lodged in the Archbishop’s palace.

It was further agreed that the Ragusans should always choose a Venetian for their archbishop, namely, a man born at any place between Grado and Cavarzere, and that he should be subject to the authority of the Patriarch of Grado, if the Pope permitted it.[113] He, too, must swear allegiance to the Doge and his successors, whose praises the clergy must solemnly sing in the cathedral at Christmas, at Easter, and on the feast of San Biagio.

The treaty specifies the mutual obligations of the two cities in naval matters. When the Venetian fleet puts to sea for war beyond Brindisi and Durazzo, for every thirty Venetian galleys Ragusa must provide one, and the Ragusan ships are to remain in commission as long as those of Venice. Ragusa may levy the same tolls on all foreign ships as are levied at Venice, and the proceeds are to be divided in equal parts between the Count, the Archbishop, and the Commune. The friends of the Venetians are to be the friends of the Ragusans, and the enemies of the Venetians their enemies. They must not have any dealings with the Almissans, the Narentans, and other pirates. Whenever Venice sends a fleet against the pirates, Ragusa must provide at least one good ship with fifty men. As regards tribute, “the Ragusans must give 12 ipperperi to the Doge and 100 gold ipperperi of the right weight to the Venetian commonwealth on the feast of San Biagio. At the same time the Commune must give 400 ipperperi to the Count, as well as all the other usual revenues and honours, save the salt revenue. The Ragusans must send twelve hostages, belonging to as many noble families, to Venice; of these, half are to be changed every six months.” The Ragusans must pay 5 per cent. on all goods which they bring to Venice from the Eastern Empire, 20 per cent. on those from Egypt, Tunis, and Barbary; 2½ per cent. on those from Sicily. Merchandise from Slavonia was free of duty. Ragusa could only send four ships of seventy miliari[114] to Venice each year on these terms; all further traffic was subject to higher duties; the Ragusans could not trade with foreigners in Venice, nor with countries where the Venetians could not trade.

The document ends with renewed oaths of allegiance to Venice on behalf of the Ragusans.[115] “Esadastes” admits that Ragusa really did submit to Venice in 1232, but declares this treaty to be a forgery, having only seen it in Nani’s De Duobus Imperatoris Rasciæ Nummis, where it is incomplete. He bases his contention, first, on the fact that the provision as to the archbishops being Venetians was not always complied with. This, however, proves nothing, as there is no reason why Venice should not sometimes have allowed the Ragusans to choose some foreigner if no suitable Venetian were forthcoming. He adds that the Ragusan envoys had no authority to surrender the city without consulting the Grand Council, and as Damiano Giuda was then ruling, it could not be summoned. This is merely an ingenious quibble, and, if we admit that nine years had elapsed since the expulsion of the tyrant, the argument has no value at all. Then he changes his line, and insists that Ragusa merely contracted a fœdus or fidelitas, i.e. a treaty of friendship, with Venice, and not a deditio or true submission, and that in agreeing to have Venetian counts Ragusa did nothing more than what Florence and other Italian cities did when they chose foreigners for the position of podestà, without thereby prejudicing their liberty. It is easy to see that there is a considerable difference between the action of the Italian Republics, who chose their rulers now from one town and now from another, and that of Ragusa, who was obliged to accept Venetian counts appointed by the Doge.[116]

Venetian rule was now heavier than it had been previously; the Count made his influence felt more strongly, no important State business being transacted without his authority, and Ragusa was obliged to pay a tribute both in money and ships to the Dominante. The ceremonial observed on the arrival of the new Count was very elaborate; it is described in all its details in the statute-book of Marco Giustiniani (1272):—

“We decide that the lord Count who will come to Ragusa for a period, shall swear in the public assembly summoned by the sound of the bell to govern the city well, to maintain and guard its ancient constitutions and statutes, and to give judgment according to their provisions. After swearing this oath the standard of San Biagio, Pontiff and Martyr, shall be delivered into the hand of the said lord Count by the Commune of Ragusa, and thus will he be invested in the piazza with the countship and governorship. Afterwards he will immediately repair with the standard to the principal church, where he will receive holy water, incense, and a Bible, on which he shall renew his oath, from the cathedral chapter. Then one of the canons preaches a sermon praising the Doge and the Count. The latter returns to the piazza with the standard, to receive the homage of the people, who, after the standard of St. Mark has been raised, swear to maintain the pact made with the Venetian Republic. One citizen shouts, another shouts, all shout together: ‘Long live our Lord N.N., the magnificent Doge of Venice!’ and all and sundry in Ragusa and its territory vow to be loyal to the said Doge and the Commune of Venice for ever, gladly accepting the standard of the blessed St. Mark the Evangelist presented unto them by the lord Doge himself.”[117]

This account gives us a vivid picture of mediæval municipal life with all its picturesque splendour and its characteristic admixture of religion and politics. The piazza of Ragusa, with what was then the castle, the imposing church, the frowning walls, and the small wooden houses—for it was still mostly of timber—formed a suitable setting for the ceremony.

The Count was assisted by two lieutenants or viscounts, usually, but not invariably, Venetians, each of whom received a salary of fifty Venetian pounds, paid by the Ragusans, and two new suits of State robes every year. The Count remained in office on an average two years, and during his tenure he might not leave the city even for a single day. He could, however, obtain special permission from Venice to leave Ragusa for not more than eight days, but only on public business, such as arranging treaties with neighbouring princes.

Apparently there was another break in Venetian rule about 1235, as in a treaty of that year with Koloman, Count of Almissa,[118] and in another with Rimini,[119] no mention is made of the Venetian count. In January 1236 Ragusan envoys went to Venice to renew the treaty of 1232, but with modified conditions in favour of greater independence. The Signory, however, would not give way, and the treaty was reconfirmed in June on almost identical terms.[120] From this date Venetian overlordship continued without interruption and without modification until 1358.

As soon as the internal affairs of the Republic were settled the citizens proceeded to regulate their relations with their Slavonic neighbours. At this time the Banus of Bosnia, Ninoslav, was animated by friendly feelings towards Ragusa. In 1234 he had signed a treaty with the count confirming the privileges granted by Čulin in 1189. On March 22, 1240, he paid a solemn visit to the city with a splendid retinue of nobles, and renewed the old treaties with the following proclamation: “It was the will of our Lord Jesus Christ, and I, Matthew Ninoslav, the Grand Banus of Bosnia, had the good thought of coming to Ragusa to my old friends the nobles and commons; I came with my magnates, and we found Niccolò Tonisto, the Count of Ragusa. I, with my magnates, made oath to him of eternal peace and friendship.” He adds: “My subjects and my people and my officers shall love you, and with true faith protect you from the wicked.” He granted them full commercial freedom throughout his Banate. He alludes to a dispute between Stephen Vladislav, King of Servia, and promises not to abandon them should they actually have to make war. This treaty was renewed in 1249.[121]

The next few years were peaceful, save for a small religious dispute, and Ragusa continued to develop her resources quietly. The new Count, Niccolò Tonisto, however, complained to the Pope that the Archbishop Arrengerius was a Roman and not a Venetian,[122] and even accused him of heresy because he had consecrated a priest of Patarene tendencies as Bishop of Bosnia. Arrengerius was thereupon translated elsewhere, and succeeded by a Venetian named John, to whom the diocese of Antivari was assigned as well,[123] much to the gratification of the Ragusans. The clergy and congregation of this second diocese, however, were not so pleased, and refused to recognise his authority. John’s attempts to compel obedience only resulted in inducing Stephen Uroš, surnamed the Great, King of Servia, to take up the quarrel of Antivari and make a raid on Ragusan territory (1252). Uroš complained that the Ragusans were strengthening their fortifications—a very natural precaution—and on this pretext attacked the city. The new count Marsilio (or Marino) Giorgi[124] was sent as Venetian ambassador to expostulate with him, but on reaching Ragusa he refused to proceed further, and two citizens were sent in his stead.[125] The latter proceeded to stir up and doubtless bribe Uroš’s vassals, so that he thought it best for the present to renew their privileges, but hostilities soon broke out again. The Ragusans made an alliance with Michael, the Bulgarian Tsar, and with Radoslav, Count of Hlum, against the Serbs which brought Uroš to reason, and in 1254 the differences were settled by stanico.[126]

Radoslav had visited Ragusa in person that same year, and the treaty of friendship which was thus concluded is embodied in two documents. In the first the Ragusan commonwealth swears to the Župan Radoslav and his magnates that the city will be at peace with them according to ancient custom, and that they shall always have free access to its market. “And all this we wish to do and maintain to you and your people, without prejudice to our oaths to the Lord Doge and the commonwealth of Venice, and to the Lord Michael, Tsar of the Bulgarians.”[127] In the second document Radoslav promises to make war with all his strength against King Uroš, and to defend Ragusa by sea and land; he also added that he would remain at peace with Michael for so long as the latter’s treaty with Ragusa lasted.[128]

The archbishop, who had been the original cause of all the trouble, had naturally become extremely unpopular, and when in his zeal for Venetian supremacy he proposed to carry out the provision of the treaty of 1232 by placing himself under the authority of the Patriarch of Grado, his position became untenable, and he was forced to abdicate (1257). The Ragusans obtained from the Pope that his successor should not be a Venetian. Another Venetian, however, was appointed in 1276.

In 1266 the quarrel with Servia broke out afresh. The King was angry, according to Resti, because a number of his nobles quitted the country and settled at Ragusa. This statement, if true, is interesting, as it is the first immigration of Slaves on a large scale into the city after the early settlements between the seventh and the tenth centuries. But again the quarrel was settled by stanico, and the Ragusans agreed to pay Uroš the tribute of 2000 ipperperi in exchange for increased privileges and the confirmation of their rights over the disputed territories at Breno, Gionchetto, &c.[129]

The year 1272 is a very important one in Ragusan annals, as it is the date of the promulgation of the statute-book by the Count Marco Giustiniani. Hitherto the constitution and laws of Ragusa had been based on custom, altered and modified by statutes. Giustiniani codified all the existing sources of Ragusan jurisprudence into a corpus called the Liber Statutorum. Dalmatian law is based on a Roman substratum, with additions from local statutes, Slavonic customs, and certain commercial and maritime statutes. The contents of the new code are summed up in the following mnemonic distich:—

“Elligit officia comes civitatis in primo,

Officiis fides datur sacrata secundo,

Causa litis sequitur terno sub ordine libri,

Conjugis inscripsit quarto dotalia bona,

Ordo datur domibus quinto plateasque divisit,

Judicis officium crimen exposit in sexto,

Septimo navigii additur, et mercium ordo,

Octavo in codice diversa colligit auctor.”

The introduction, which is full of generalities and abstract ideas, after the manner of the time, states that the object of the code was to collect the statutes of the Ragusan Republic, “to harmonise the discrepancies, suppress superfluities, supply omissions, explain obscurities, so that nothing superfluous, obscure, or captious should remain in them.” The first book defines the position, rights, and duties of the count and of the other chief functionaries of the Republic, and deals with sundry financial matters. The second book contains the formulæ and oaths of each officer of State; and in cap. xxiv. the salaries of the Ragusan envoys[130] to foreign countries were fixed. The third embodies the law of procedure and the judicial system, and sets forth the rules for the stanico, or international court of arbitration, to which we have already alluded. This institution was a peculiarly Serbo-Dalmatian one, and deserves examination. The statute of 1272 describes it as an antica consuetudo. It was of two kinds, the plenarium stanicum, or full court, and the parvum, or minor court. The full stanicum was agreed upon by the Government of Ragusa and that of some other State with whom the former had a dispute. Each side elected an equal number of judges, who met at some place easily accessible to both capitals, and, if possible, on neutral ground, i.e. in the territory of some State not concerned in the dispute. Thus in disputes between Ragusa and Zara the spot chosen was Santa Maria di Lesina, on the island of that name; for those between Ragusa and Sebenico, Traù, Spalato, Almissa, or Lesina, the stanicum met at or near Prevlaka (near Stagno); if the quarrel was with Hlum, at Malfi; if with the Serbs, at Gionchetto or Cresta; if with the Bosnians, at Trebinje, Popovo, or Canali. The dispute was settled by compromise rather than by arbitration, and each party was represented by State officials. The parvum stanicum was convened to settle private disputes between Ragusans and citizens of one of the Slave states (it was not resorted to in the case of disputes with the other Dalmatian towns). The presence of representatives of the two States was not necessary. But often when such disputes arose the parties would agree to defer settling them until the full stanicum met, provided that such a one was to take place shortly. It was not necessary that all private international disputes should be settled in this manner, and the plaintiff was free to summon his adversary before the latter’s own tribunal. He only resorted to it when he feared that he could not obtain justice from the foreign court. In proceedings by stanicum, the old Teutonic and Slavonic system of the conjuratio was applied, by which each party produced a number of relations and friends, who swore to the veracity of their kinsman; if any one was convicted of perjury, the curse fell on the whole clan alike. The institution exists to this day in Montenegro, Albania, and in certain districts of South Dalmatia and the Herzegovina.[131]

The fourth book deals with marriage, wills, and family affairs. The fifth deals with municipal regulations, building laws and contracts, land tenure, &c. The sixth is the criminal code, and also contains fiscal enactments and smuggling laws. The seventh regulates shipping, the relations between officers and crew, agreements for voyages, marine insurance, responsibilities and risks. The last book contains enactments on divers matters. It became law on May 9, 1272.

This code, although it is imperfect and not altogether well constructed, marks a great improvement on previous legislation, and compares favourably with the statutes of many of the more famous Italian Republics. The shipping and commercial enactments are often excellent, and parts of the code, especially those relating to land tenure and certain forms of contract, are still valid at Ragusa.

The Liber Statutorum was afterwards added to and enlarged, and numbers of new laws were enacted. Until 1357 these were incorporated in the Statute-book, but after the last Venetian count had left in that year a new code was begun, called the Liber Viridis or Green Book, which contains all the new laws down to 1460. Then the Liber Croceus or Yellow Book was begun, and continued down to 1791. The last laws of the Republic, from 1791 to its fall in 1808, are preserved in the Parti dei Pregadi. The deliberations and enactments of the various assemblies are contained in the Liber Reformationum, which was begun in 1306. Of all these collections of enactments, only the last has been published, but not in a complete form (see Bibliography). In addition, there are various minor collections containing the edicts of certain special bodies.

We shall now make a brief examination of the Ragusan constitution, which by this time had assumed the form which, with certain alterations, it preserved down to the fall of the Republic. Even the fact that in 1358 the Venetian counts were superseded by native Rectors did not change the internal constitution of the State to any considerable extent. The constitution since the early days of the city’s existence had undergone much the same transformation as that of Venice, and tended to become even more aristocratic. The laudo populi was still maintained,[132] but it was resorted to less and less frequently as years went by; and after having been an empty formality for some time, at the end of the period of Venetian suzerainty it had ceased to exist. The Liber Statutorum was confirmed “per populum Rhacusinum more solito (i.e. to the sound of a bell) congregatum,” but by that time all power was invested in the aristocracy. Only nobles might aspire to any but the humblest offices of the State, and every noble had a voice at least in the Grand Council. As at Venice there was the Golden Book, at Ragusa there was the Specchio, containing the names of all the noble families. These were as a rule the descendants of the original Latin colonists from Epidaurus and Salona, or, in a few cases, of those early Slave refugees who were nobles in their own country. The names themselves have an Italian sound, although most of them are unlike any real Italian names.[133] There was a fairly large part of the population of Slavonic origin, but the official, and to a great extent the popular, language was Italian. The laws and deliberations and official documents[134] are all either in Latin or Italian, and the general character of the community was prevalently Italian, modified to some extent by Slavonic influences. The latter tended to increase, especially after the end of Venetian suzerainty, and by the middle of the sixteenth century the bulk of the lower classes spoke the Servian language.

The head of the State, as we have seen, was the Count, who represented Venetian authority, summoned the councils, and signed all public acts. No act was valid without his approval, but, on the other hand, he could not make decrees without the assistance and consent of the councils. Of these there were three—namely, the Consilium Minus, the Consilium Majus, and the Rogati or Pregadi.

The Minor Council, which had in all probability existed in a rudimentary form from the earliest times, had now developed into an important body. It acted as the Count’s privy council, it arranged all official ceremonies, and gave audience to foreign ambassadors and envoys to Ragusa. It also acted as a sort of Court of Chancery, protected widows and orphans from injury, and watched over the morals of the citizens. It examined the deliberations of the other bodies on taxes, dues, and the rents, income, and real property of the State. On simpler matters it gave decisions, and others it referred to the Senate. It was an intermediary between private individuals and the State, and heard all complaints against the magistrates and other officials. It consisted of the Count and eleven members, of whom five formed the Corte Maggiore, or High Court of Justice, for all important cases.[135] The members were all men of mature age, and remained in office for a year only. Six made a quorum.

The Senate (Rogati) was the most influential of the three Councils, and transacted a great part of the business of the State. It imposed all taxes, tributes, and customs duties, decided how the money of the State should be spent or invested, and dealt with many other financial matters. It conducted the foreign affairs of the Republic, and nominated ambassadors and consuls. It was the Supreme Court of Appeal for criminal cases, and after 1440 for civil cases as well. It appointed a number of State officials, such as the Provveditori of the Arsenal, the financial secretaries, and the functionaries who attended to the supply of provisions. The number of Senators varied considerably. At the date of the Statute Book they were thirty-five;[136] later they rose to sixty-one. The body included the Count or Rector, the eleven Minor Councillors, various high functionaries, and a number of unofficial members. They met four times a week, and remained in office for a year, but might be re-elected, “for the Republic desires that her sons should exercise themselves in this kind of council, so that they may become Senators of judgment, and learn by long and continual experience the method and practice of governing excellently.”[137] By a decree of 1331[138] it was decided that thirty Senators made a quorum.

GENERAL VIEW, FROM THE WEST

The Grand Council was the ultimate basis of the State, and was composed of all nobles above twenty years of age,[139] including the Minor Councillors, the Senators, and all the officials. Its numbers usually ranged from 200 to 300. It met in September, and the list of vacant offices were read out by the Count. The Secretary called up the Councillors one by one, drawing the numbers of all the seats from a bag. Each Councillor then drew a ball from an urn, which contained a number of gold balls equal to that of the offices to be filled; those who drew the gold balls took their seats beside the Count and Minor Council, and ordered the Secretary to nominate three Councillors for each office. As each name was called out the Councillor in question and his nearest relatives left the hall and waited outside. Then all the remaining Councillors were given linen balls, which they were to drop into another urn divided into two sections, one for the ayes and one for the noes. If none of the three candidates received more than half the votes recorded, the election was repeated. No one might refuse the office thus conferred upon him, save a small number of persons who could obtain a dispensation by paying a small fine.[140]

The Grand Council ratified all the laws of the Republic; it gave the final decision for peace or war, although the diplomatic function was reserved to the Senate; it could recall exiles, it received petitions, and it managed many of the daily affairs of the city. Sixty members (including the Count and the Minor Council) formed a quorum.

Besides the three Councils, there were a number of special bodies appointed for different purposes. Thus there was the Corte Maggiores or Major Curia, already alluded to, whose sentences in civil matters were without appeal until 1440; the Minor Curia or Lower Court, with special advocates attached to each; the Advocatores Comunis or Public Prosecutors, and many other functionaries. The three Camarlenghi kept the public accounts, and the Doanerii supervised the customs. The four Treasurers of Santa Maria had important fiscal duties in guarding the State treasury and paying out the public money according to the decrees of the Senate. They also had certain charitable duties, and spent the income of invested surpluses in providing poor girls with dowries, and later in ransoming Christian slaves from the Turks or the Barbary pirates. Private citizens, and even foreigners from Slave lands, often appointed them executors of their wills. Originally they had been the guardians of the relics and treasury of the Cathedral, but as they gradually came to have so large a share of the financial business of the Republic on their hands, in 1306 another board, called the Procurators Sanctæ Mariæ, was instituted to manage the affairs of the Church, and act with powers of attorney for various religious confraternities. A similar body was formed when the church of St. Blaize was erected in 1349. The notary of the Republic, who drafted all public acts, patents, diplomas, &c., was usually an expert Italian lawyer.

There were numbers of other officers for different departments of the administration and for the purposes of defence, such as those super sale, super blado comunis, super turribus, the capitani di custodia, who were elected every month, and the captains of the sestieri or six wards, into which Ragusa was divided. All the citizens in turn had to bear arms for the defence of the town, and certain nobles, who were changed very frequently, commanded the guard, and saw that the gates were securely fastened at night. The rest of the Republic’s territory was ruled by officers appointed by the Grand Council, called counts, viscounts, or captains. They governed despotically, and no native of the territory had any voice in the administration. In many cases the Government was very tyrannical and arbitrary. Ragusan ideas of liberty were not only restricted to a limited class, but did not extend a yard beyond the walls. Only the island of Lagosta, purchased in 1216 from Stephen Uroš, King of Servia, was permitted to retain its own customs and laws.

It will thus be seen that the Constitution was essentially copied from that of Venice, and was designed above all to make personal government impossible. None of the officials, save the Venetian Count, remained in office for more than a year, and the great majority of them could not be re-elected for two years afterwards. Everything was done to prevent individuals from acquiring undue influence, and to make the Government as collective as possible. All business was executed by boards and committees, and hardly anything by single individuals. Every detail was carefully regulated, so as to leave no loophole for tampering with the institutions or suspending the continuity of the Government. The result was from some points of view satisfactory. In the whole history of Ragusa only three or four revolutions are recorded—almost a unique distinction among the city-republics of Italy and other European lands, whose history is one long tale of civil wars and seditions. Venice alone enjoyed a similar though less complete immunity. On the other hand, it gave the Executive very little power of acting energetically and pursuing a bold, broad-minded policy, and prevented Ragusa from expanding into a first-class maritime State, as it had more than one opportunity of doing. At the same time, had it become really powerful, and acquired a hegemony over a large part of the Adriatic littoral and of the Slave lands, it would have run greater risks at the hands of the Turks. Venice, who felt the need of a swift and silent executive, instituted the Council of Ten, to which the Ragusan constitution offers no parallel. The Ragusan Senate was too numerous a body to act in the same way, and in it those who hesitated and doubted usually carried the day.

We realise the character of the Ragusan constitution from the fact that so few individuals have left their mark on the town’s history. We read of the various noble families whose names appear again and again in the public records, but hardly any single citizen emerges high above the others. The few names which are remembered are those of scholars, men of letters, or scientists. Even the ambassadors were always sent in pairs, although in the Middle Ages this was not peculiar to Ragusa.

Another aspect was that the three Councils who had to transact all the weightiest matters of the Republic were also overwhelmed with the petty details of municipal administration. This of course was difficult to avoid in the case of a small city-republic, but it constituted the radical failing of that type of state, for its Government was a parliament, a court of justice, and a town council all in one. The same body might be called upon to decide on an alliance with Hungary and on the seaworthiness of a carrack in the same sitting.

In diplomatic affairs, however, the Ragusans were past-masters. The Republic was in constant danger from the powerful enemies which surrounded it on all sides. The Venetians, who claimed the monopoly of the Adriatic, were ever anxious to increase their influence and to become absolute masters of the city, as they were of the other Dalmatian towns, and after their retirement from Ragusa in 1358 they made many attempts to reinstate their authority. On the mainland there was the King of Servia, the Banus of Bosnia, the Lord of Hlum, watching for an opportunity to occupy Ragusa, whose splendid harbour they envied. But the city fathers, by a policy which was often tortuous and not always straightforward, certainly achieved their object of preserving the Republic’s autonomy. Although Ragusa was never absolutely independent—for she either had a Venetian Count or paid a tribute to this or that Power—she was always free from foreign control in her internal affairs, and to a great extent in her external relations. The Government always knew when to give way and when to hold out; this feature became particularly conspicuous in the Republic’s dealings with the Turks.

Of the non-noble citizens we hear very little. They played no part in the Government, and were ineligible save for the very lowest offices. On the whole, they seem to have acquiesced in the oligarchical constitution, and apparently had little desire to take part in public affairs. They were ruled with wisdom and without oppression, free from faction fights, and their commercial interests, being identical with those of the aristocracy, were well cared for and protected by the Government. Both classes derived their wealth from trade.

CHAPTER IV
VENETIAN SUPREMACY

II.—SERVIAN AND BOSNIAN WARS, 1276-1358

TO return to our story; in 1276 Ragusa was once more threatened from outside. The King of Servia[141] determined to make another attempt to convert Ragusa into a Servian seaport; he crossed the mountains with a large army and raided the territory of the Republic. A Ragusan force sent against him was defeated, and its leader, Benedetto Gondola, captured and hanged. Elated by this success, the King marched forward and tried to capture Ragusa itself by a coup de main. But the citizens were prepared, and the city put in a state of defence. The massive walls and well-armed battlements baffled the Servian king, and the Count Pietro Tiepolo, who had called in a Venetian contingent to stiffen the Ragusan levies, defeated the enemy. The Venetian Government sent a deputation to the King threatening him with severe reprisals if he dared to attack the cities under Venetian protection, whereupon the Servians retired and peace was made.[142] Ten years later the King of Servia, being offended with the Republic, harried and plundered its merchants, raided Ragusan territory, and tried to capture the city, but was again defeated.

Ragusa’s relations with Venice were on the whole satisfactory. There were occasional complaints on the part of the Venetian Government that the Ragusans did not fulfil their treaty obligations and failed to send the promised galleys to take part in the expeditions against the Almissan pirates and other enemies.[143] On other occasions they were blamed for delaying goods (chiefly grain) which passed through the city on the way to Venice. However, when in 1296 Ragusa was almost entirely destroyed by fire, the Venetians showed generosity in providing money and building materials,[144] and the Count Marino Morosini (1296-1298) issued a decree for rebuilding the city on a handsomer scale.[145] During the Genoese war Ragusa lent four galleys to the Venetians, which took part in the battle of Curzola, and after that disastrous defeat the Ragusan ships lent aid to the scattered remnants of the Venetian fleet (1298).

Ragusa had considerable intercourse with the neighbouring Dalmatian townships, especially with Cattaro, which was one of the oldest city-republics on the coast. But there were frequent quarrels between the two communities, partly through the intrigues of the Slavonic princes, and partly on account of commercial rivalries, both towns being competitors for the salt trade from the coast to the interior.[146] Cattaro had sometimes been under the protection of the Servian kings, who used it as their seaport, and sometimes under that of Venice. But in 1257 a treaty was made by which the Cattarini promised in the event of a war between the Serbs and Ragusa to do their best to harass the former without openly espousing the latter’s cause, and each Republic was to try and promote arbitration if the other was at war. We are not told how this curious compact was carried out, but it was not by any means an unusual arrangement among these semi-independent Dalmatian townships.

In 1301 or 1302 there was another Servian war, in which Venice and Ragusa co-operated, caused by a quarrel with Cattaro. This town was now under Venetian protection, but continued to hold underhand intercourse with the Slaves. The Venetians protested, and Stephen Uroš, who called himself “King of Servia, Melinia, Albania, Chelmo, Doclea, and the maritime region,”[147] made another raid on Ragusan territory, burning the houses, destroying the crops, and murdering many of the inhabitants and making prisoners of others.[148] The Venetians, however, came to the rescue, and ordered their Capitano in Golfo, or Admiral of the Adriatic, to remain with the fleet at Ragusa for so long as the city should be in any danger. The Serbs were defeated on several occasions, and finally induced to listen to the remonstrances of the Venetian ambassadors.[149] In 1302[150] peace was made, and as the Ragusans had suffered much during the war, and the devastating raids had caused a famine, they were allowed to retain the grain destined for Venice, and received loans and other favours.

For the next fourteen years there was peace, and Ragusa remained undisturbed save for one or two small disputes with Venice about certain prava statuta, which denied all value to the evidence of Venetian witnesses at Ragusa.[151] But in 1316 another quarrel broke out with Uroš, who arrested and plundered a number of Ragusan traders. Venetian attempts at conciliation proved fruitless,[152] and in 1317 war broke out. The Count Paolo Morosini wrote that “much serious damage has been done to the commune and people of Ragusa in their persons and property by Uroš and his people, who have again raided our territory.” Among other damage, the Franciscan monastery outside the Porta Pile was burnt.[153] The Venetians sold arms to the Ragusans, and deferred claiming payment until the following year. These arms were “many breast-plates, 100 cross-bows, 10,000 arrows, and 5000 falsatores.[154]

We are not informed as to the outcome of this war; but apparently Ragusa was reconciled with Servia in 1322, as in that year Stephen Uroš IV.,[155] who succeeded his father in 1321, granted the city an accession of territory, i.e. the districts of Bosanka and Osoinik.[156] A far more important acquisition obtained during the next few years was that of Stagno and the peninsula of Punta, or Sabbioncello, as it is now called, which converted Ragusa from a city-republic, with only a few miles of territory beyond the walls and some small islands, into a fairly respectable territorial State. The Punta di Stagno is a long mountainous peninsula jutting out from the Dalmatian coast in a north-westerly direction, with a sort of spur or branch promontory stretching towards the south-east and forming a deep bay. Its length is 71.2 km., in breadth it varies from 3.1 km. to 7.1 km. Parts of the peninsula are very fertile, especially in vineyards. Its population is to-day over 10,000, and in the Middle Ages it was probably more considerable. It is joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus 1½ km. across, with two small towns, Stagno Grande (Slav. Veliki Ston), looking towards Ragusa, and Stagno Piccolo (Mali Ston), on the north towards the Mare di Narenta, each with a good port. On both shores of the peninsula are other small harbours. On the southern coast, opposite the island of Curzola, rises the imposing mass of the Monte Vipera, with the town of Orebić at its foot. The importance of this territory for the Ragusans was partly strategical, as it formed a bulwark against invaders, from the north, whether by sea or by land, and partly commercial, on account of the valuable salt-pans of Stagno, which afterwards formed one of the chief sources of revenue for the Republic, and are still in use to this day. The Punta and the island of Curzola are the only spots in Europe where jackals are still to be found. This territory had formed part of the principality of Hlum, which, as we have seen, was originally joined to Doclea, and recognised Servian overlordship from about 1222 until some time between 1320 and 1330, when it was added to the Banat of Bosnia under Hungarian suzerainty. Hlum was divided into a number of župe, like the other Serb lands, under different feudal families. Stagno and the Punta was ruled by that of the Branivoj, with whom the Ragusans

BAS RELIEF OF ST. BLAIZE,
NEAR THE PORTA PLOCE had hitherto lived on terms of friendship and commercial intercourse. The Republic sent them an annual gift of 100 ipperperi,[157] which may, however, have been blackmail to secure immunity from piracy, to which so many of the Slave tribes were addicted. It is probable that the Ragusans had had their eyes on this district for some time, and in 1320-21 they gladly obeyed the injunctions of the Venetian Senate to act against the pirates of Stagno and Cattaro.[158] About 1323, for some unrecorded reason,[159] a quarrel broke out between Ragusa and the Branivoj; and on April 8, 1325, instead of sending the usual gift, the Republic decreed warlike preparations against the lord Branivoj and his sons “qui fecerunt offensionis multas, depredationes, et rubarias contra comune et speciales personas civitatis Ragusii.” A few months later Ragusa sent envoys to Venice to request the Doge’s intervention on account of the King of Servia’s attitude, which appeared to be insincere.[160] Hostilities were commenced, and carried on with a barbarity unusual even for those times. The following year Braico, one of Branivoj’s sons, was captured at Sant’ Andrea in Pelago, and condemned to be exposed in a cage and starved to death. Some time afterwards his brother Grubaza or Grubeza was captured, and their mother, who had asked for Ragusan hospitality on her way to Bosnia, was detained as a hostage. The third brother, Branoe, was arrested by the King of Servia, who was now friendly towards the Ragusans. The latter requested him to hand the prisoner over to the commune of Cattaro, where he would have less chance of escaping. Uroš agreed, but the Republic was still unsatisfied, and private citizens offered rewards out of their own pockets for the heads of the surviving members of the Branivoj family. A certain Pasqua promised 500 ipperperi, and the Croce family 2000, to any one of the King’s barons who would kill Branoe on the way from Svezana (where he had been detained) to Cattaro![161] The Servian king apparently had another slight disagreement with the Ragusans about 1327; but when war broke out between him and the Bulgarian Tsar Michael, he required their help to obtain Italian mercenaries, and in return he favoured their projects on Stagno.[162] His successor, Stephen Dušan (1330-1355), was still more favourable, and through the two citizens of Cattaro, Trifone and Niccolò Bucchia, who held high positions at his court as Protospathar and Protovestiar, the Republic obtained his full support. Trifone was sent to arbitrate, but his sympathies were so thoroughly Ragusan that he actually contributed to the price on Branoe’s head. Niccolò finally induced the King formally to cede the coveted territory to Ragusa, and accompanied him on a state visit to that city. The Servian king was received by the citizens with their usual magnificence (1332), and Niccolò Bucchia was presented with wide lands and houses on the Punta, and a house in Ragusa itself. He was afterwards granted citizenship and a seat in the Grand Council, and became the founder of a famous family. The document ceding Stagno in exchange for a tribute is published in the Monumenta specantia Historiam Slavorum Meridionalium.[163]

“We, Stephen Nemanja Dušan, by the grace of God, King of Servia, Dalmatia, Dioclia, Albania, Zeuta,[164] Chelmo, and the Maritime Region, ... concede and grant to the community of Ragusa by hereditary right to them and to their successors the whole Punta and coast of Stagno, beginning from Prevlaca to the confines of Ragusan territory, with all the towns and villages and houses therein contained, and also Posrednica[165] ... in exchange for which they must pay to us and to our successors annually on the day of the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ 500 soldi in Venetian grossi, on pain of paying double in case of delay.” In addition he was to receive a sum down of 2000 ipperperi, and Stephen Kotromanić, Banus of Bosnia, who had certain rights over the Punta, was to receive 600 ipperperi a year. According to Resti,[166] it was necessary for the Republic to bribe several of the King’s nobles and councillors so that they should influence him in favour of the grant, and they influenced the Banus of Bosnia through his secretary, Domagna Bobali, who was a native of Ragusa. The compact was carried out, save for the island of Posrednica, which the Ragusans were not allowed to occupy until 1345. What became of the Branivoj family, whether it was entirely wiped out or whether the surviving members were merely expelled, we are not informed.

The Republic at once set to work to partition the land in the new territory among its citizens. Three-quarters of it were granted to the nobles, and the rest to the burghers; the grantees were forbidden to sell any land to the Slaves. A colour of piety was lent to this conquest by the determination of the Ragusans to stamp out Bogomilism and schism from the peninsula, and the caloyers[167] and heretical priests were exiled, and their places occupied by Roman Catholics. At the end of the century the Franciscans were established as an additional bulwark of the Church. In order to protect Stagno from more earthly dangers an elaborate system of fortifications was begun, which were to serve the Republic in good stead on more than one occasion. Both Stagno Grande and Stagno Piccolo were surrounded with massive walls, and a castle was built in each. A third was erected at the top of the hill, between the two seas; a long wall with towers at intervals was carried right across the isthmus, and other walls from both towns to the castle on the hill. These defences may be seen to this day, and although in a woeful state of neglect and disrepair, still form a most conspicuous feature in the landscape.

FORTIFICATIONS OF STAGNO GRANDE

The following year King Stephen rather repented his generosity, and demanded back the gift on the pretext that the Ragusans were incapable of defending it securely. But his envoys, who visited Stagno, being convinced by the sight of the Ragusan fortifications, and perhaps by that of Ragusan gold, that it was being rapidly made quite secure, induced him to confirm the grant. This he did, and forbade his subjects to attempt to enter the ceded territory. Another dispute with the fickle Servian king broke out in 1330, because the Ragusans had given shelter to the widow of the Bulgarian Tsar, who had been forced to fly after the defeat and death of her husband by the Serbs at the battle of Velbužd.[168] Stephen wished to secure the fugitive, and demanded her of the Republic. The latter refused the demand, in spite of promise of still further territories and privileges, and sent the Empress safely to Constantinople. Stephen then demanded back Stagno once more, and tried to take it by storm. But as it was too strongly fortified he limited himself to a raid on Ragusan territory on the mainland, until called away to defend his northern frontier against the Hungarians. Peace was made in 1335, and in 1336[169] a solemn Ragusan embassy was sent to honour him at Scutari.

The maritime trade of the Republic had brought great riches to the citizens, but contact with the East also brought the plague in its train, and in 1348 Ragusa, like the rest of Europe, was visited by the terrible scourge. It was probably introduced into the western world by the Tartars besieging Caffa in 1344, and although the town was saved, the relieving force caught the disease, which spread through Europe with lightning-like rapidity. The following document preserved in the book of wills in the Cathedral treasury at Ragusa, written by eye-witnesses, gives a vivid picture of the terror inspired by the fell scourge:—

“Our Lord God sent a terrible judgment, unheard of in the whole world, both on Christians and on pagans, a mortality of men and still more of women, through an awful and incurable disease, which caused the spitting of blood and swellings on various parts of the body, so contagious that sons fled from their fathers and still more often fathers from their sons; all the art of Apocrates, Galen, and Avizena proved useless, for no art or science availeth against Divine judgment. This disease commenced at Ragusa on the 15th day of December, in the year of our Lord 1348, and lasted for six months, during which 120 persons or more died each day; of the (Grand) Council there died 110 nobles.”[170] According to Gelcich, the total number of deaths in the town ranged from 7000 to 10,000, including 160 nobles and 300 burghers; it is impossible to conjecture how many died in the territory. It made its appearance at the same time at Spalato, preceded, according to the legend, by an eclipse of the sun, so complete that the stars were visible by day, and by a drought so great that the dust remained suspended in huge clouds in mid air.[171] Ragnina, who wrote more than a century after the event, declares that the belief that the Jews had poisoned the wells was very prevalent, while others believed that the cause of the disease was a conjunction of three planets under Jupiter and Mars.[172] At this time no sanitary precautions were taken against further visitations, but large sums were collected to build the votive church of San Biagio.

This same year there was another disagreement with King Stephen, as we find the Venetian Government authorising the Ragusans to purchase a further supply of arms;[173] in 1349 and 1350 Venetian embassies were sent to Servia to protest against his raids on Ragusan territory, a Venetian galley stationed in the harbour as a protection,[174] and two mangani or catapults were forwarded to the citizens.[175] Some of the Venetian documents on the subject allude to Bosnian as well as Servian raids. Klaić says that the Banus Stephen Kotromanić actually did make raids before 1345, but in that year made peace and never molested the Ragusans again. His nephews, however, the Nikolići counts of Hlum and Popovo, had many quarrels with Ragusa and raided her territory, and it is to them that the documents allude.[176] War now broke out between Servia and Bosnia, because the Banus would not consent to his daughter’s marriage with the King’s son, Uroš. The King invaded Bosnia on two occasions with a large army, and besieged the Banus in the royal castle of Bobovac, but could not capture him. These quarrels between Bosnia and Servia, like those between Servia and Bulgaria, were paving the way for the Turkish conquest, and the obscure battles in the Bosna and Drina valleys formed the prelude to the fatal day of Kossovo and the bondage of the South-Slavonic race. The Banus Kotroman died in 1353, and was succeed by his nephew, Stephen Tvrtko, who was the first King of Bosnia. He too was friendly to the Ragusans, and granted them important privileges.

The conditions of Venice in the middle of the fourteenth century were far from prosperous. The plague of 1348 had carried off three-fifths of the population, in spite of the most stringent precautions.[177] In 1350 the fratricidal war with Genoa was again renewed in consequence of disputes about the Black Sea trade. The battle of the Bosporus (1353) was indecisive; in that of Cagliari the Venetians were successful, but dared not attack Genoa, because the city had placed itself under the protection of the Visconti. But in the same year they were totally defeated at Sapienza in the Greek Archipelago and their whole fleet captured. In 1354 the conspiracy of Marin Faliero broke out, and kept the whole State in a turmoil for many months, until the execution of the Doge and his accomplices.[178] His successor, Giovanni Gradenigo, made peace with Genoa, and the Venetians set to work to rebuild their fleet and restore their exhausted treasury by means of new commercial enterprises in the Levant. But their possession of Dalmatia and the land frontier north of Treviso were now threatened by Lewis of Hungary. The latter allied himself with the Count of Gorizia and the Carraresi of Padua against Venice, and invaded the Trevisan march, defeating all the forces sent against him and capturing city after city. A five months’ truce was concluded in 1356, but when it expired hostilities broke out once more, and the treasury was soon empty. Merchandise might arrive by sea, but with the mainland in the hands of the enemy there was no outlet for its distribution.[179] New taxes were raised, causing much discontent, and the Republic was at last forced to sue for peace. Lewis made the cession of Dalmatia an express condition of his retirement from the Trevisan march. After much discussion and expostulation the Senate was forced to agree to these humiliating terms, and Dalmatia, which had been acquired and maintained at such great sacrifices, was now given up (Feb. 1358). The Republic had hoped to create a diversion by an alliance with the King of Servia, who had been fighting with the Banus of Bosnia, then a Hungarian vassal. But Stephen Dušan got more and more involved in the Greek war, and when the Hungarians invaded the Venetian terraferma he was marching towards Constantinople, but died on the way thither (1355).

The Ragusans were delighted at the successes of Lewis; they had received him with great honour when he touched at their city in 1349 on his return from the Neapolitan expedition,[180] and from that moment they began to contemplate the advisability of placing themselves under his protection. They had been afraid of the Hungarians when they threatened to conquer Bosnia and Hlum, but now there was little fear of that, and Hungary not being a great naval Power, could not threaten their liberties by means of the fleet as Venice could always do. When in 1356 the Venetians sent commissioners to claim the Ragusan contingent for the war, the Grand Council made professions of friendship, and agreed to send it. At the same time they were negotiating with the Hungarian king for the surrender of their city to him. On July 7, 1357, Lewis confirmed their possession of Stagno, which, having formed part of Bosnia, was in a measure under his authority, and it is probable that a preliminary treaty of dedition was signed at the same time. When, by the peace of February 1358, Venice gave up the whole eastern shore of the Adriatic, from the Quarnero to Durazzo, she attempted to retain her hold over Ragusa on account of that very claim to separation from the rest of Dalmatia which she had hitherto always combated. Blandishments were tried, and by a rescript of the Doge Giovanni Dolfin (Jan. 2, 1358) the Ragusans were granted Venetian citizenship and commercial equality with the Venetians.[181] But Ragusa had no wish to retain even a vestige of Venetian authority, and a few weeks later Marco Soranzo, the last Venetian Count, left the city by order of the Doge. The Ragusans treated him with courtesy and evinced no ill-feeling against him, whereas the Venetian officials in the other Dalmatian towns had departed amidst the jeers and curses of the inhabitants. A triumvirate of Ragusan nobles was elected by the Grand Council to carry on the government while arrangements with King Lewis were being completed. By a curious irony they sent commissioners to Venice in March to order “unum gonfalonem et aliquas banderias cum armis D. N. D. Regis Hungariæ pro galleis et lignis nostris,” and later “unum gonfalonerium ad modum penoni de sindone torto cum arma (sic) Regis Hungariæ cum argento albo et cum argentum (sic) deauratum pro duc. auri xxx.”[182]

On June 27 the final treaty was signed by Lewis of Hungary and Giovanni Saraca, Archbishop of Ragusa, at Višegrad. The Ragusans placed themselves under Hungarian protection, but were allowed to retain their own internal liberties more fully than under Venice. The King’s praises, instead of those of the Doge, were to be sung in the churches of Ragusa three times a year. The Hungarian standard was to be adopted as well as the banner of San Biagio, and 500 ipperperi a year were to be paid to the King. Should Hungary be engaged in naval warfare Ragusa must provide one galley for every ten Hungarian galleys whenever the Dalmatian fleet put to sea; if the Royal fleet alone were employed, Ragusa need only provide one for every thirty. The supreme government of the State was no longer to be vested in a foreign count, but in three native Ragusans (afterwards reduced to one) to be chosen by the Council. The only representative of the King was the captain of the Hungarian and Bosnian guard, but he too was really in the service of the Republic, and had no political authority. From this moment Ragusa may be considered an independent State, as Hungarian authority, save for the tribute, was little more than a formality.

During the Venetian epoch the territory of the Republic had expanded considerably, and when the last count departed it consisted of the following districts:—In the immediate neighbourhood of the city it possessed the valleys of Gionchetto (Šumet), Bergato (Brgat), and Ombla (Rijeka), with the bay of Gravosa and the Lapad peninsula, but the frontiers were very near, and on the crest of Monte Sergio, immediately behind the city, watchmen were posted day and night. Part of this territory had been acquired in the earliest times, but small additions had been made at intervals. Beyond the Ombla the citizens owned the stretch of coast known as Starea or Astarea.[183] Of the islands, they possessed in the thirteenth century Mercana—a small rock opposite the promontory of Ragusavecchia, with a monastery of St. Michael[184]—and Isola di Mezzo, Calamotta, Daksa, and S. Andrea of the group known to the ancients as the Elaphites Insulæ were added in 1080.[185] In 1218 the more distant island of Lagosta had been acquired, and at an early date that of Meleda had been granted by the Servian king to the Benedictine monks, with the condition that the civil government should be entrusted to the Republic. Stephen the First-Crowned gave them Giuppana in 1216. Between 1220 and 1224 Stephen, Nemanja’s son, granted the same monks a stretch of land about Žrnovica and Ombla. As a consequence of the Ragusan alliance with Michael Asen, the Bulgarian Tsar, against Stephen Uroš I., King of Servia, in 1254, the Republic’s southern frontiers were extended so as to include the vineyards of Breno and the peninsula on which the ruins of Epidaurus are said to lie.[186] Here a new town arose, which by a strange inversion of names was called Ragusavecchia. We have seen how in 1333-1334 Stagno and the peninsula of Sabbioncello and the coast as far as the Narenta’s mouth were acquired. In 1357 small additions were made about Breno and Gionchetto between the Ljuta stream and the village of Kurilo[187] (north of the Ombla). The districts of Carina and Drieno, although on the Ragusan side of the mountain above Breno, remained beyond the frontier: eventually they became Turkish territory, and such they remained until 1878.[188]

Cloister of the Franciscan Monastery

The Ragusan Church had also been increasing in wealth and dignity with the growth of the Republic, and a number of handsome ecclesiastical buildings were begun during the fourteenth century. In the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth centuries the Slavonic princes gave the churches many valuable gifts of land, gold and silver ornaments, and relics. But in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries Bosnia, Hlum, and Servia were torn by religious wars owing to the spread of that strange and little known heresy called Bogomilism, on which it will be useful to say a few words. Of the origin of this heresy as of its tenets there is very little reliable evidence. In all probability it was an offshoot of Armenian Paulicianism, itself derived from the earlier Adoptionist creed.[189] Paulician colonies have been settled in Europe as early as the ninth century by the Emperor Constantine Copronymus, and the heresy spread to Bulgaria, Servia, Bosnia, and Macedonia. In his History of the Bulgarians, Prof. C. J. Jireček gives an account of the beliefs of the Bogomils according to the researches of various Slavonic scholars. They believed in the existence of two principles, equal in age and power, one good personified in God, and one evil personified in Satan. They recognised the New Testament, but not the Old. All matter and all the visible world were essentially evil; the body of Christ was only an apparent, not a real, body. The sacraments were corporeal, therefore evil. They had no hierarchy, but an executive consisting of a bishop and two grades of Apostles. Besides the ordinary Bogomils there was a special order of the Perfect, who renounced all worldly possessions, marriage, animal food, and lived like hermits. They had no churches or images. They had a deathbed ceremony, without which one went to hell. They did not believe in purgatory.[190] But, as Prof. Bury remarks, it is doubtful if this is a true presentation of the Bogomil creed. Hardly any of their books of ritual survive, and all the accounts of them which have been preserved are written by their prosecutors. It is more probable that they were a monotheistic sect, believing in one God only, and rejecting the Trinity. This view is supported by the fact that at the time of the Turkish conquest such numbers of Bogomils became Muhamedans. It was not merely that they went over to the conqueror’s creed from motives of mere self-interest; there was really more similarity between that religion and Bogomilism than between the latter and either the Eastern or the Western Church.

In the tenth century there was a bishopric of Bosnia, which until the eleventh century was in the ecclesiastical province of Spalato. In 1067 it was transferred to that of Antivari. Later in the same century it was added to the archbishopric of Ragusa. But the dioceses of Antivari and Spalato continued to dispute Ragusa’s supremacy, and in the conflict of authorities Bogomilism found scope to increase its adherents. The Bosnians were mostly Roman Catholics, although there were Orthodox Christians among them. Ban Čulin was himself a Catholic, but when in 1189 the Pope, at the instigation of the King of Hungary, Bela III., transferred the Bosnian bishopric once more from the Ragusan province to that of Spalato, he went over to Bogomilism, so as not to be in any way under Hungarian authority. His conversion gave the heresy a fresh impetus, and it spread all over Bosnia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Croatia, even to the coast towns. Pope Innocent III. had to induce the King of Hungary to make a crusade against the Bogomils in Bosnia, but Čulin declared that they were good Catholics, induced the Archbishop of Ragusa to go to Rome with several of the heretics to be examined by the Pope, and asked for a Papal envoy to be sent to Bosnia to study the question. The Pope agreed, and sent his chaplain, Johannes de Casamaris, to Bosnia in 1203. The heads of the Bogomil community, who were also heads of monasteries, met at Bjelopolje on the Bosna, and met the Banus, Casamaris, and Marinus, the Archdeacon of Ragusa, and presented an address in which they affirmed their orthodoxy and their attachment to the Roman Church,[191] and declared themselves ready to obey the Pope in everything. Čulin himself abjured all heresy. They renewed these declarations before the King of Hungary and the Banus at Pest. The Papal legate was quite content, and advised the Pope to erect some new bishoprics in Bosnia.

But in 1218 the heresy was again rampant, and Honorius III. sent a legate to Hungary and Dalmatia to preach a crusade against the Bogomils. But no crusade was organised, and the legate went alone to Bosnia, where he died in 1222. The quarrels between the Pope and Hungary gave the Bogomils a respite, and they became even more numerous in consequence. In 1222 Andrew II., King of Hungary, placed Bosnia under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Ugolin, Bishop of Kalocsa, on condition that he stamped out the heresy, and Pope Honorius confirmed the donation. But the crusade never came off, and the Bogomils became so powerful that they deposed the Banus Stephen and succeeded in placing their co-religionary Matthew Ninoslav on the throne (1232). James, the Papal legate, went to Bosnia and found that the greater part of the inhabitants were tainted with the heresy, including the Catholic bishop; the Archbishop of Ragusa knew of this and did not trouble about it, so that the legate reconfirmed the union of the bishopric to that of Kalocsa. He succeeded, however, in inducing Ninoslav to become a Catholic, and endow a new cathedral, which was to be in the hands of the Dominicans. Many magnates followed his example. But the Bogomils soon raised their heads once more, and the Banus was either unable or unwilling to extirpate them. A crusade was therefore proclaimed against them, which lasted from 1234 to 1239. Bosnia was ravaged with fire and sword, and finally conquered by the crusaders under Koloman, the King of Hungary’s son. In 1238 the Dominican Ponsa was made bishop of Bosnia, and by 1239 Bogomilism seemed to have been suppressed. But the moment the crusaders retired the heretics, who were supported by the nation, rose in arms once more and became independent of Hungary. In 1246 Innocent IV. ordered a second crusade, but this time without success. After Ninoslav’s death Bosnia again fell under Hungary, but no very severe measures were taken against the Bogomils. The Bogomil Church of Bosnia became an established institution, and the Catholic bishops themselves no longer resided in the country, but at Djakovar, in Slavonia. Various attempts to organise crusades against them failed. The Bani were afraid of persecuting them lest they should rise in arms and put themselves under the protection of the King of Servia, who as a Greek Christian was also an enemy to the Catholics. Moreover, the missionary efforts of the Catholic Church were hindered by the quarrels between the Franciscans and the Dominicans. Bogomilism spread to Croatia and Dalmatia, and found adherents even at Traù and Spalato. Pope Benedict XII. ordered the Croatian barons to make war on the heretics (1337), but they were too busy fighting among themselves to achieve much result. But the Banus Stephen declared himself a good Catholic in 1340, and protected the Roman Church in Bosnia once more, agreeing to the establishment of two more bishoprics. We hear little more of the heresy after this date until the crusade of 1360.[192]

The Ragusan Church suffered in consequence of the heterodoxy of so many of the Slave princes, and no longer received rich gifts from them. On the other hand, both on account of its convenient situation and because it was a stronghold of Catholicism, the town became the centre of all this missionary activity. In 1225 the Dominican Order was established at Ragusa, and occupied a small house attached to the church of S. Giacomo in Peline. When the Order became more numerous it removed to the Ploce quarter, where a large new church was erected for it in 1306, and a monastery about 1345. The Franciscans first came to Ragusa in 1235, twenty-eight years after the foundation of the Order by St. Francis of Assisi, who is said to have visited the city himself on his return from the Holy Land, although there is no foundation for the legend. In 1250 a monastery was built for them outside the Porta Pile; it was destroyed by the Serbs during the raid of 1319.[193] A concession of land was granted to them within the walls in the Menze quarter, and by the middle of the fourteenth century they were established in the large, handsome monastery which still exists, built partly at Government expense and partly by the munificence of private citizens, including the guild of Ghent merchants established there.[194] The two Orders gave battle to the heretics, and helped to organise crusades against them, which are among the most barbarous examples of religious persecution which history records. On the other hand, if we are to believe the Ragusan legend, the Bogomils themselves persecuted the Catholics in the Cattaro districts, and the bodies of three martyrs who were murdered by them were brought to Ragusa, where a church was built in their honour.[195] It is somewhat difficult to unravel the tangle of contradictory accounts on this subject, especially as Ragusan writers often confuse the Bogomils with the followers of the Oriental Church.

CHAPTER V
THE TRADE OF RAGUSA

THE whole basis of Ragusa’s prosperity, as we have seen in the first chapter, was trade. The Republic’s territory was too small, and in part too arid, to provide sufficient foodstuffs for the population and three-quarters of the grain which it consumed annually were imported from abroad. Consequently it was upon trade and industry that the citizens had to depend for their means of livelihood. Manufactures, however, save shipbuilding, never assumed great importance at Ragusa, and it was not until the following century that any industries at all were established. Trade, on the other hand, both sea-borne and overland, received a great additional impetus from the extension of Venetian traffic and from the increasing civilisation of the Slave states. At Ragusa, as at Venice, Florence, Siena, and elsewhere in Italy, the aristocracy as well as the middle classes were all interested in trade. We find members of all the noble families in the Ragusan settlements in Servia and Bosnia and Albania, and no nobleman disdained to travel overseas with his own goods.

We have seen the division of Ragusan maritime trade into coastwise traffic, navigation intra Culfum, and navigation extra Culfum. This last now became of considerable importance, and Ragusan vessels were found in every port of the Eastern Mediterranean. A special form of trade which had now arisen is that described in the Statute-book as ultra marinis partibus, i.e. up the courses of navigable rivers like the Narenta and the Bojana.

The Levant trade became extremely active, and was no longer limited to the tract of sea between the Capo Cumano on one side, and Apulia and Durazzo on the other. From the commercial provisions contained in the various treaties between Ragusa and Venice, we learn that the former traded with all parts of the Eastern Empire. Syria, Tunis, Barbary, Italy, Sicily, and probably Egypt. At Constantinople the privilege granted by the Comneni were renewed by the Latin Emperors Baldwin I. and Henry. The Ragusans traded especially with the Morea and the feudal duchy of Chiarenza or Clarence,[196] whence they brought silk to Ancona and other parts of Italy. At the same time they kept up their connection with the Greek princes who held sway over the fragments of the Greek Empire, namely, the Emperors of Nicæa and Trebizond[197] and the despots of Epirus. After the capture of Constantinople by the Latins, Epirus continued to hold out against their arms, and was ruled by the despots Michael I. (who died in 1214), Manuel (1214-1241), and Michael II. (1241-1271), all of whom granted valuable privileges to the Ragusans.[198] When the Greek Empire was re-established in 1261 all the exemptions and privileges were reconfirmed, first by Michael Palæologus, and later, in 1322, by Andronicus II.[199]

With regard to Egypt, if for the word Rakuphia in Benjamin of Tudela we should read Ragusa, the citizens of St. Blaize also frequented the market of Alexandria. In 1224 Egypt was placed under interdict, and the Venetians forbade the Ragusans to trade there; Ragusan merchants before starting on a journey had to swear that they would not visit Egypt, but in all probability the prohibition was often disregarded.[200] Subsequent attempts to enforce the interdict were equally unsuccessful. The object of the prohibition was above all to prevent the Egyptian Sultans from obtaining timber and iron, which were rare in their own country, for military purposes. Traders were attracted, however, by the enormous profits of the venture, for which they were willing to brave ecclesiastical thunders. In 1304 three Ragusans were captured whilst engaged in illicit traffic with Alexandria; they were granted absolution by the Pope on condition that they devoted part of their profits to building the Dominican monastery in their native town.[201]

Another country with which Ragusa had commercial intercourse was Bulgaria. In the early days of the second Bulgarian Empire (established in 1186) the Venetians could not trade with it, as they were the supporters of the Latin Empire at Constantinople in withstanding Bulgarian inroads; the Genoese were equally cut off because the Venetians excluded them from the Bosporus. The field therefore lay open to the Ragusans alone, and they were very favourably received by the Tsar John Asēn II. (1218-1241),[202] who called them “his well-beloved and trusted guests.” The Bulgarian trade was partly carried on by sea and partly overland through the Balkans.

From Italy and Sicily the Ragusans obtained most of their breadstuffs, and in exchange they brought Eastern and Slavonian goods to those countries. Among the new treaties with Italian towns we may mention those with Rimini (1235),[203] with Taddeo, Lord of Ravenna and Cervia (1218-1238),[204] with Ancona in 1256 and 1292,[205] with Fermo in 1288;[206] with Trani, Bari, Molfetta, and Barletta the old treaties were renewed at various times, and in the Reformationes we find numerous allusions to the special envoys sent to Apulia to collect grain. A large storehouse was built in the city with fifteen large dry wells to contain an adequate provision of grain in time of war.[207] Constantinople, Smyrna, Durazzo, Antivari, the Bojana valley, and to a lesser extent the Slavonic principalities, were resorted to for the same purpose. With Florence, too, Ragusa traded, and although there was no regular commercial treaty between the two cities, the Bardis and other Florentine merchant princes sent agents to Ragusa from time to time.

Shipping was regulated by a number of minute enactments to ensure safety, to fix the relations between captain and crew, and to define the obligations and risks of the owner. The amount of cargo which each ship was to carry was established by statute and varied according to the seasons of the year, and the vessels were examined before starting on a voyage by special officers to see that these and other regulations, such as those concerning the necessary coatings of pitch and the proper amount of arms to be carried, were complied with. Piracy being very prevalent in the Adriatic, it was decreed in 1336 that each vessel employed for other than coastwise traffic should carry five cuirasses, four spears, four bows, a suitable number of arrows, and a sword, shield, and helmet for every person on board. The personnel of these merchant ships consisted of the nauclerius (captain or master), the scribanus (accountant), the mercator (the owner of the goods carried, or his representative), the custodia (supercargo), the marinarius (mate), the conductus (ship’s boy), and a crew varying from eight to fourteen men for vessels up to a tonnage of eighty miara; for larger ships the necessary number was fixed in each particular case by the authorities. Members of noble families engaged in trade were constantly making voyages on their own ships, and later we find them even employed as scribani, and in fact a decree of 1462 in the Liber Croceus established that no one could be a scribanus unless he belonged to the Ragusan nobility.[208] At this time the ships were still small as compared with the great argosies[209] of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but they were swift and suitable for the purposes for which they were required. The war fleet and the mercantile marine, as at Venice, were interchangeable, and ships which in peace time served for commercial purposes were converted into warships simply by increasing the number of armed men, strengthening the bulwarks, and providing them with engines of war.

Shipbuilding from the earliest days of the Republic formed an important industry. The timber was obtained from the forests of Monte Sergio, now, alas, disappeared, and from those of Lagosta and Meleda, of which traces still remain, as well as from Bosnia. The iron came from the interior, and was manufactured at Venice or locally, the canvas from Ancona and the Marche, pitch from Dalmatia, cordage from Ragusa itself. So jealous was the Republic of the shipbuilding industry, that no native builder (calafato or marangone) might lend his services to foreigners, under which heading the Slaves were included. In later times an exception was made in favour of the Turks. The harbour of Ragusa, which is too small for large modern steamers—these always land passengers and goods at Gravosa—in the Middle Ages was ever busy with arriving and departing ships, and the arsenal hands were always engaged in building or repairing craft of all kinds. Other shipping yards existed at the Isola di Mezzo, at Malfi, on Giuppana, and later at Stagno, Slano, and Ragusavecchia. The Ragusan vessels were famed throughout Illyria, and the Republic was frequently requested to lend some to this or that Slave potentate, to the Hungarians, and sometimes to the Venetians themselves.

COURTYARD OF THE SPONZA (CUSTOM-HOUSE)

The dangers of navigation, even in the Adriatic, were by no means trifling. The storms of that narrow sea, the sudden gusts of bora or scirocco which sweep down among the countless islands, channels, and promontories of the east coast with terrific violence, are considered dangerous for small ships even to-day. In the Middle Ages the light sailing-craft ran much greater risks. But piracy was then the chief source of anxiety. We have already spoken of the Narentan corsairs in a previous chapter, but even after Venice had broken their power, piratical communities still survived. Almissa, between Stagno and the Narenta, was their chief centre, and its inhabitants were almost exclusively devoted to piracy. The Ragusan statutes contain numerous provisions forbidding all intercourse with them. A Ragusan who sold a ship to the Almissans was fined 100 ipperperi besides the price of the vessel itself; nor could he buy one from them, as it was presumed to be stolen property.[210] Occasionally some arrangement was made with this community of freebooters, and in 1235 a treaty of perpetual peace was signed with Koloman, Count of Almissa.[211] But it proved to be of little avail, and the Ragusan annals are full of entries concerning the depredations of the pirates. The Almissans were not finally subdued by the Venetians until after they regained Dalmatia in 1409. Other piratical communities were found in Northern Dalmatia and Croatia—the district formerly known as the Kraina[212]—and from the ports of Apulia,[213] Sicily, and even from Cattaro pirate vessels often issued forth to ravage the Dalmatian coast or prey upon the Adriatic trade. With Cattaro in particular Ragusa was very often at war on account of the rivalry for the salt trade, and all intercourse with the Serbs on the shores of the Bocche was forbidden. On various occasions the Government issued decrees forbidding Ragusan merchantmen from setting sail without an armed convoy, and whenever news was brought to the city that corsairs had been sighted the armed galleys of the Republic were instantly got ready and sent in pursuit of the freebooters. The Venetians had undertaken the policing of the Adriatic, and the Ragusans were bound by treaty to contribute one or more ships for the purpose. Thus in 1326 they were thanked by the Venetian Senate for their past services in this direction, and requested to send two of their best galleys to the head of the Gulf.[214]

Another risk which Ragusan traders ran was that their ships and goods might be seized and confiscated in foreign ports by the local authorities. Antivari, Dulcigno, Durazzo, and Trani were the worst offenders in this respect, but even at Venice and Alexandria the citizens of St. Blaize were not always safe.

The sailor’s calling was consequently fraught with considerable danger and responsibility, and the return of a merchant ship from a long voyage was hailed as a great event, especially if it occurred at Christmastide or Easter. Then, as Prof. Gelcich says, “more than an occasion for domestic rejoicing, it was a national festival.... We can see with our mind’s eye the large crowd lining the quays watching the ships entering the harbour, each vessel trying to be the first to drop anchor, so as to receive the small gift of one ipperpero awarded by the State for the achievement.”[215] On Christmas Eve all the sailors of the ships which happened to be in port that night carried a block of wood (ceppum)[216] to the castle, singing songs (kolende), and placed it on the Count’s hearth. The Count in return gave them each a cup of wine and two ipperperi pro kolendis. They also received two ipperperi from the Salt Commission, and two more from the Cathedral treasury.[217] All ships, whether Ragusan or from cities with whom the Republic had a commercial treaty, “qui navigant more Raguseorum,” coming into port were exempt from the stata or harbour dues, and only paid a small tax to the Count, the Archbishop, and the Cathedral treasury. With the proceeds of the latter the new Cathedral was built, declared by De Diversis and other writers to have been the finest church in all Illyria. Ships from countries with whom there were no treaties paid the arboraticum and the stata.

The weakening of Venice in consequence of the Hungarian wars, although acceptable to the Ragusans for political reasons, produced a very deleterious effect on their commerce, as piracy revived; Ragusan unfriendliness was also punished on occasion by exclusion from the Venetian ports. Shipbuilding had declined to such an extent that in 1329 the Venetian Senate ordered the Ragusans to construct an arsenal where ships could be built or repaired.[218] A resolution added to the Statute-book in 1358 declares that “marineriza Racusii erat amissa.” Ragusan ships were now very few, and seaborne commerce was carried chiefly on foreign bottoms and in partnership with foreigners. With the separation from Venice, Ragusan trade came to be almost wholly in foreign hands. A series of statutes were enacted forbidding Ragusans from associating with foreigners, and various other measures were taken to revive national shipping; the results were very successful, and by the end of the fifteenth century the city had more than regained its old position.

The overland trade of the Balkans attained a remarkable development in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and regular trade routes were established from the Adriatic coast through the interior to Constantinople and the Black Sea. Of these routes which, together with that from Hungary, formed the connecting link between Western and Eastern Europe, there were several. One was from Spalato, one from the Narenta mouth, one from Ragusa, one from Cattaro, and one from the mouth of the Bojana. They all joined the Belgrad-Constantinople route at different points, and all had branch routes to the various mining and commercial centres of Servia, Bosnia, Hlum, Albania, and Bulgaria. Ragusa, owing to her geographical position, was always the chief market on the Adriatic for the hinterland, and Ragusan caravans were constantly travelling along the various routes. The chief exports from the Slavonic lands were cattle, cheese, dried fish from the lake of Scutari, skins, wool, honey, wax, timber, silver, and iron. Ragusa imported salt, manufactured cloths, clothes, brocades, arms, axes, horse-trappings, glass-ware, perfumes, sweetmeats, southern fruits, fish, oil, wine, and gold- and silversmiths’ wares.[219] The salt trade formed one of the Republic’s chief sources of income, as the interior, although rich in other minerals, was absolutely wanting in this necessary commodity. Salt-pans were established at four points along the Illyrian coast—the Narenta, Ragusa, the Bocche di Cattaro, and San Sergio on the Bojana. The Ragusans, by means of old treaties with the Slaves, had almost acquired a monopoly of the traffic, and they were often able to punish the depredations to which their territory was subjected by cutting off the supply. The largest salt-pans were in the neighbourhood of Ragusa itself, but after 1333 they were removed to Stagno, where the industry is carried on to this day, and continues to supply the saltless interior.[220] The Narenta salt-pans were monopolised by the Ragusans, who established a customs station at the river’s mouth, and those of the Bojana, although outside their territory, were also in their hands; their only rival was Cattaro, whence the innumerable quarrels with that city. Cloth was imported from Venice, Florence, Mantua, and later from the looms of Ragusa herself. The presents which the Ragusans gave to the Slave princes and nobles out of friendship or as blackmail and bribery often took the form of rich gold brocades, silks, and satins, which greatly delighted the splendour-loving barbarians. We can well imagine the semi-civilised and proud vojvods and župans gloating over a consignment of the choicest products of Florentine industry, and being thereby induced to concede almost any commercial or political privilege to the patient and cunning envoys from the Republic of St. Blaize. To this day the Slaves of Servia, Dalmatia, and Bosnia, even the very poorest, love to deck themselves out in the most gorgeous costumes and the brightest ornaments, which adds not a little to the picturesqueness of that country.

A large part of Ragusan territory, both on the mainland and on the islands, was covered with vineyards; wine was, in fact, the chief agricultural product of the country. No wine could be imported from abroad save by a special licence, occasionally granted to the Count, foreign ambassadors, or eminent ecclesiastics.

The land trade was carried on entirely by means of caravans. There were no carriage roads since the decay of those built by the Romans, and all goods travelled by caravan and were carried on the backs of pack-animals, chiefly horses. Each caravan, which was formerly called a turma, a word still used in Montenegro, consisted of 200 to 300 pack-animals under the charge of Vlach drovers. These Vlachs or Rumans of Dalmatia were nearly all shepherds or horse- and cattle-drovers, and had markedly nomadic habits. At an early date they became identified with the Slaves, but, as I have said, they were probably of Latin origin.[221] In the Middle Ages they were usually the subjects of the feudal chiefs and monasteries. The leader of the caravan, also a Vlach, provided an adequate armed escort, and undertook to protect his charge against the brigands. Most of the traders were Ragusans or natives of the other coast towns, but Slavonic merchants also took part in this trade, especially those who were settled at Ragusa, where some of them became naturalised so as to enjoy the same exemptions and privileges as the citizens. Even noble feudatories and kings did not disdain this kind of traffic, and employed their own Vlachs for the purpose. The journey was by slow stages, as the paths were steep and rocky, and many precautions were necessary. In Bosnia and the Herzegovina, in spite of the roads and railways, much of the traffic is still carried on on pony-back, the more valuable goods in gaily painted green boxes, the rest packed up in canvas, secured to clumsy wooden saddles. Save for the proportions of the caravans, which are now much smaller than in the heyday of the Ragusan Republic, and for the fact that armed escorts, so far as Bosnia and Dalmatia are concerned, are no longer necessary, but little has changed. The importance of this traffic was very considerable, as it was then, as I have said, the chief link between the Western world and the Slavonic lands; Ragusa probably did far more to civilise the latter than was attempted by the Greeks, with whom the Slaves have always been in eternal conflict.

FAÇADE OF TTHE SPONZA (CUSTOM HOUSE), AND CLOCK TOWER

The principal route from the coast was that from Ragusa to Niš, in Servia, where it joined the great road from Hungary to Constantinople via Belgrad. The caravan left Ragusa by the Porta Ploce to the east, and ascended the slopes of the Monte Sergio to Bergato, the Ragusan frontier, situated on a ridge between the valleys of Breno and Gionchetto. A few minutes farther on the Slave customs station of Ledenici[222] was reached. Thence the path descends into the broad and fertile valley of Trebinjčica to the town of Trebinje in the land of Hlum, which was usually the first halting-place (five or six hours from Ragusa). The caravan encamped outside the town, and the merchants and part of the escort lodged in the inns. From Trebinje the march was resumed up the course of the Trebinjčica past Ljubomir to Bilek or Bileće; then along what is now the Montenegrin frontier through dense forests to Crnica, where in 1380 a Ragusan commercial colony was established; thence past the castle of Kljuć (= key), which was afterwards the stronghold of the Vojvod Sandalj Hranić into the basin of Gacko,[223] close to the watershed between the Adriatic and the Black Sea. The country about here is fertile, and offers good pasturage. The Sutieska or Sutiska gorge was next entered, one of the finest tracts of scenery in the Balkans, guarded by the two castles of Vratar; there was an important customs station here in the fifteenth century, at the time of Duke Stephen Kosača, who levied a toll on all caravans. The route is so narrow at this point that a small body of men could hold a whole army at bay. The French traveller Des Hayes de Courmenin, who wrote in 1621, mentions an iron chain by which the path could be closed in war time. On emerging from the gorge the swirling waters of the Drina are reached, on the banks of which were a number of castles and several trading stations; the most important of these was Chotča (now Foča), on the right bank, with a wooden bridge; under the Turks it was for a long time the residence of the Sandžakbeg of the Herzegovina, and is still a town of some consequence. Another station was Ustikolina, where there was a Ragusan colony, first mentioned in 1399. A day’s march farther on is the town of Goražda, guarded by the castle of Samobor, after which the route proceeds in a south-easterly direction over the finely wooded Metalka saddle, whence an extensive view of the mountains of Montenegro, Servia, Bosnia, and Albania is obtained, to Breznica.[224] This was an important centre in Roman times, and the remains of a large Roman settlement (name unknown) have been unearthed close by. In the Middle Ages it was the meeting point of three trade routes—one to Ragusa, one to Niš and Constantinople, and a third to Cattaro via the Tara gorge, the source of the Piva, the castle of Onogošt, Nikšić, and Grahovo. From Plevlje the route travelled through what is now the Sandžak of Novibazar to Priepolje on the Lim, a favourite halting-place of the Ragusan merchants in the fourteenth century. On the opposite side of the river are the ruins of a fine large castle guarding the road, a stronghold of King Stephen Vladislav, who also built the adjoining monastery of Mileševa.[225] A few miles farther on was the point which was afterwards the eastern frontier of Stephen Kosača’s duchy. Another day’s march brings us to Senica or Senice, which was often the residence of the Nemanjid rulers of Servia. Here the route from Ragusa joined the one from Northern and Eastern Bosnia;[226] at Raška the two routes again separate, one going southwards to Salonica, the other eastwards to Niš. Just beyond Raška, in the latter direction, was Trgovište (market-place), often mentioned between 1345 and 1459 where a Ragusan colony was established. Two-thirds of the way from Ragusa to Niš were now accomplished. Trgovište was the centre of the great Servian Empire, and the surroundings abound in ruins and memories of the Nemanjid Tsars. At the end of the fifteenth century the town is alluded to as Novibazar (New Bazar, Yeni Bazar in Turkish). Not far off, in the valley of the Raška, are the remains of some Roman baths, and here was probably the site of the ancient Ras (mentioned in the tenth and eleventh centuries), which gave its name to the whole country (Rascia). From Trgovište the route proceeded by the Ibar valley through the mining district of the Monte Argentaro to Toplica, Prokoplje, and Niš. The whole journey took fifteen days in favourable weather. From Niš onwards the Ragusan caravans followed the great road to Constantinople or went to Bulgaria, where they had considerable trade and at least one colony at Vidin, in consequence of the privileges obtained from the Bulgarian Tsars.[227]

Another much frequented caravan route was that which started at the mouth of the Narenta and passed through Bosnia and Servia. Ragusan goods were transported either wholly by sea round Sabbioncello or via Stagno to the little island of Osinj in the river delta, where a trading depôt was opened. Close by were several other depôts, the most important of which was the Forum Narenti (called Driva by the Slaves), with a large customs station, salt stores, and a Ragusan colony. Later it was supplanted by the Venetian castle of Gabela or Gabella.[228] The caravans travelled from the mouth of the Narenta through the land of Hlum, following the course of the river to Blagaj, the residence of the lords of Hlum (afterwards Dukes of St. Saba or the Herzegovina), above the spot where the river Buna springs full-grown from the rocks.[229] The route continued up the Narenta valley, as the railway does to-day, past Konjica, which was to play an important part in later times, over the Ivan Pass to Visoko in the centre of Bosnia, the castle of the Bani. Below was the town of Podvisoko (Sotto-Visochi in Ragusan documents), on the banks of the river Bosna. Between 1348 and 1430 this was the commercial capital of the country and the seat of important trading communities. From Visoko the route proceeded to Olovo and Borač, near Vlasenica,[230] where it branched off into three. One led eastward to Srebrnica, the centre of the silver-mining district,[231] and Rudnik; another went northwards to Soli; the main route went to Kučlat, well known as a trading station in the fourteenth century, with a large Ragusan colony, to Zvornik and across the Drina to Sirmia and Belgrad. At Sirmia,[232] which was on the ruins of the Roman Syrmium, the Ragusans had a flourishing settlement protected by the Kings of Hungary, until the town was burnt by the Turks in 1396. Its importance was due to its position as a starting point for the Ragusan traders going to all parts of Hungary.[233]

These various routes were called collectively the Via de Bossina in the Ragusan documents. The routes which started from the coast at points south of Ragusa were denominated the Via de Zenta.[234] Ragusan vessels sailed down the coast, and either discharged their goods at the towns of Antivari and Dulcigno, or sailed for some distance up the various rivers—the Bojana, the Drim, the Mat, the Išmi, the Vrego, the Devol, and the Vojussa. This stretch of coast, which had formed part of the Byzantine theme of Dyrrhachium, was under Servian rule from 1180 to 1440.

“In Servian times,” writes Prof. Jireček,[235] “this region, now so desolate, was in the most flourishing condition, and had a large population and numerous beautifully situated towns. Even in the sixteenth century Italian travellers who ascended the course of the Bojana compared this green land with its many villages to their own fair country. Large Latin and Oriental monasteries stood peacefully side by side. Servian, Albanian, and Italian were the principal languages spoken. The cities enjoyed important privileges, granted by the Servian Kings, Tsars, and Despots (later by the Balšići), and their citizens occupied important positions in the Government service; the ruling princes themselves often visited these districts. The ports plied a busy trade, for from hence goods were transported to the Byzantine districts of Macedonia and Thrace, as far as Bulgaria and the Mare Majus (Mar Maggiore) as the Italians in the Middle Ages called the Black Sea.”

The chief city off the coast of Zedda was Antivari, situated about four miles from the sea, where the open bay of Volovica served as a harbour. Its government, like that of Ragusa and Cattaro, was an oligarchical constitution, in the hands of a numerous and active aristocracy, under privileges granted by the Servian Tsars. The citizens were of Latin origin, and Latin and Italian were the official languages, but the inhabitants of the surrounding country were Serbs. It was the centre of the archiepiscopal see of Northern Albania. After the Turkish conquest its importance was reduced to nil, and nearly all the noble families either died out or emigrated to Ragusa. It is not easy to realise that the actual Montenegrin village was once a busy commercial city. Nothing but a few escutcheons on some of the houses bear witness to its past magnificence.

A few miles farther south is Dulcigno,[236] which was also an autonomous oligarchical Republic, albeit less important than Antivari. Here the Roman element was always mixed with the Albanian. After the Turkish conquest it became a nest of pirates. Close by was the Golfo dello Drino, into which the two rivers Bojana and Drim (Drino) flowed. Eighteen miles up the course of the former was the great Benedictine monastery of San Serge and St. Bacchus, round which stood warehouses, customs offices, salt stores, shops, and booths, forming a centre called San Sergio by the Italians, Sveti Srgj by the Serbs; it retained its importance until the sixteenth century.[237] At the time of Queen Helena, the widow of Stephen Uroš I., the settlement was under a “Bajulus Regine at Portum Sancti Sergii.”[238] Here the ships unloaded their cargoes, which were forwarded to all parts of the interior by caravan; goods designed for Scutari, however, were sometimes transhipped into smaller boats and thus carried up to the lake and town. The caravan route went past Scutari to the castle of Danj (now Daino) on the Drim, where the Servian kings sometimes resided, and where the route joined that from Alessio (Lissos, Alexium, Slav- and Alb-Lješ[239]) at the mouth of the Drim. Thence the caravans proceeded to Prizren, which they reached in thirty-three hours by a road reputed to be one of the most difficult in the Albanian mountains.[240] The chief halting-places were Pilot and Spas, where there was a custom house. Prizren, which is on the Bistrica, some distance east of the junction of that river with the White Drim, is still a large town, on the site of the Roman Therenda.[241] Nemanja conquered it from the Eastern Empire; in 1204 it was in Bulgarian hands; in the course of the century it came once more into Servian possession, and was one of the chief cities of the kingdom. King Milutin and the Tsars Dušan and Uroš frequently made it their residence, and many ruined castles are found in the vicinity. Here was the chief commercial factory of the Ragusans for Albania, and they erected two Latin churches. From Prizren the routes crossed a fertile and well-populated plain, over the watershed between the Adriatic and the Black Sea, and into the plain of Kossovo. At Lipljan (Ulpiana and Justiniana Secunda in Roman times) it crossed the route from Bosnia to Salonica, reached Novobrdo, and finally Sofia, one of the Bulgarian capitals. The first mention of a Ragusan merchant in this city is in 1376; the Ragusan colony became very important at the end of the century in Turkish times, when Sofia was the residence of the Beglerbeg of Rumelia.[242]

The second Via de Zenta started from the three harbours of Antivari via the Sutorman Pass, Budua by the bridle path to Cetinje (still in use), and Cattaro by the road to Cetinje. A little further east the three branches met, and the route proceeded over well-wooded mountains, now, alas, bare and desolate, past the ruins of Doclea to Podgorica (a day and a half from Cattaro); then to the Plava lake, one of the fairest spots in Albania, but now also one of the most dangerous, on the shores of which, according to Professor Stojan Novaković, stood the well-known Servian trading centre of Brskovo. Professor Jireček, however, who has had access to further materials, places it in the upper Lim valley. Brskovo (Brescoa or Brescoua in Venetian and Ragusan documents) was the chief commercial city of Servia, and is mentioned as early as the days of King Stephen the First-Crowned (1196-1228). It was principally frequented by the people of Ragusa and Cattaro, and to a lesser extent by the Venetians. The various products of the districts were collected here for export to the coast, while the caravans from the coast brought foreign goods for distribution throughout Servia. The customs, which were usually farmed out to Ragusans, were a source of considerable revenue to the Servian kings. Here, as in some other mining towns, was also a mint, where the grossi di Brescova were coined.[243] The Ragusan colony was numerous and influential, containing members of some of the noblest families.[244] Beyond Brskovo came Peč (Ipek in Turkish), an archiepiscopal, and later patriarchal, see (until 1766). Peč, too, enjoyed considerable traffic, and had a Ragusan colony in the fourteenth century.

The post from Venice to Constantinople went by this route in the sixteenth century. As soon as the ship arrived the despatches were handed to the messengers (they were always natives from two Montenegrin villages), who rode off with them via Plava, Peč, Novoselo, Priština, Samokov, and Philippopolis, reaching the Bosporus in eighteen days.[245]

Throughout Servia, Bosnia, Hlum, the Zeta, and Bulgaria there were thus numerous Ragusan colonies. As a rule mining was the chief industry, and it was in the mining districts that the commercial settlements were to be found. In Roman times the mines of Illyria were well known; they were abandoned at the time of the barbarian inroads, and it was not until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, at the time of the rise of the Serb States, that the industry revived. Wonderful tales were told by mediæval travellers of the richness of the Balkan mines. As late as 1453 the Greek Critobulus asserted that gold and silver sprang from the earth like water, and that wherever you dug you found large deposits of the precious metals, in greater quantities than in the Indies.[246] King Stephen Uroš II. Milutin (1282-1320) was the first to summon in German miners, called Sasi (i.e. Saxons), so as to benefit by their superior skill, but the Ragusans were also numerous. Many of the technical terms relating to mining still used in Bosnia are of German origin: orat = Ort; hutman = Hüttenmann; karan = Karren. The ore was extracted from galleries and shafts, many of which are still in existence. The refining of the metal was executed at Ragusa or Venice.

Gold, silver, lead, and iron were the chief products of the Bosnian and Servian mines. Gold, of which the earliest mention is in 1253, was found chiefly in the neighbourhood of Novobrdo (Novus Mons, Nouomonte, Νοβοπύργον), which was for a long time the largest city in the interior of the Balkan peninsula between the plain of Kossovo and the Bulgarian Morava, three miles east of Priština. Silver, however, was found in much larger quantities. Of this metal two kinds are mentioned in the Ragusan annals, i.e. argento bianco (white silver) and argento de glama (glamsko srebro in Slavonic), which had a slight gold alloy. Srebrnica was the chief centre for the silver-mining industry. Lead was another important product, and was in much request for the roofing of houses and churches. Sometimes a whole caravan of 300 horses journeyed from the mining districts to Ragusa laden with nothing but lead. The iron output gave rise to various active industries, both locally and at Ragusa, where Bosnian iron-workers were often employed by the Republic. A certain amount of copper was also found, and there were tin and quicksilver mines in the Kreševo district. The principal mining centres thus were: Kreševo and Fojnica;[247] Srebrenica, near the Drina, chiefly for silver;[248] Zvornik on the Drina, for lead;[249] Rudnik, where there are traces of Roman mines mentioned by Ragusan documents of the thirteenth century; Kopaonik, for silver and iron;[250] Novobrdo, for gold and other metals;[251] Kučevo and Brskovo, which flourished at the end of the thirteenth century.[252]

Each mining centre usually consisted of a castle on a hill, wherein dwelt the Vojvod, or feudal lord, representing the King or Tsar, and a town below with a market, where the miners and merchants dwelt. In times of danger the whole community could take shelter in the castle.[253] The Saxons, as we have seen, were the most numerous of the foreign settlers, and the Ragusans came immediately after them. At Novobrdo early in the fifteenth century we find members of nearly all the noblest Ragusan families—Bobali, Benessa, Menze, Ragnina, Resti, Gozze, Caboga, &c. The Ragusans were the principal merchants and carriers, and the provision trade was almost wholly in their hands. They sold supplies in exchange for raw metal. There were also merchants from the other Dalmatian towns, from Italy, especially from Venice, and a few natives. The mining towns on the whole had a marked Latin character, and they were all provided with at least one Latin church,[254] under the authority of the Bishop of Cattaro. There were also several Franciscan monasteries, which afterwards ministered to the religious needs of the native Catholics in Turkish times; some of them still exist. The chief authority in the town was, as I have said, the Servian Vojvod, but the head of the mining and mercantile community was the Conte dei Purgari Vaoturchi.[255] The taxes and customs were farmed to Ragusan or Cattarine speculators, and in fact most of the higher financial officials in the South-Slavonic States, including the Protovestiars (Finance Ministers), were usually natives of those cities. The Ragusans who owned houses were bound to bear arms in defence of the castle and market-town, but the others were exempt. If a dispute arose between them and the Saxons or the Serbs the question was decided by an arbitration commission composed of six Ragusans and six Saxons or Serbs. Ragusan creditors enjoyed the privilege of being able to imprison their debtors, provided they too were Ragusans, in their own houses. The heads of the Ragusan community were the consul and two judges, usually noblemen appointed by the Republic. In 1332 a consul was appointed to reside at the Royal Court, which was at Prizren or Skopje (Üsküb).[256] This consul was to travel about the country, visiting all the market-towns, mining centres, and fairs, with a view to learning what openings there were for Ragusan trade, as well as all the towns where Ragusan colonies were already established. The different mints were under the superintendence of the Vojvods and of the gabellotti (tax-farmers) or aurifices (goldsmiths), usually Ragusans or Dalmatians. In the tenth century Constantine Porphyrogenitus alludes to the use of coinage by the Ragusans, but for a long time afterwards trade continued to be carried on by means of barter. Thus in 1280 we find a Ragusan selling a horse to a fellow-citizen for sixteen ells of cloth, and even as late as 1322, although mints were established in various places, a commercial treaty between Stephen, Banus of Bosnia, and Ragusa alludes to the fact that cattle were used for payments of indemnities.[257]

Communications between Ragusa and the settlements in the interior were carried on by means of couriers (cursores, corrieri, Slav. knižnici), who were instituted early in the fourteenth century, and lasted until the fall of the Republic. They carried official correspondence from the Republic to the ambassadors and consuls, and legal notices, writs, reports of judicial proceedings, &c., to the Ragusan traders. They were not allowed to convey private correspondence, which was usually sent by caravan, or in the case of the chief merchants by their own special messengers, save on the return journey. The time employed by these official messengers was usually two days from Ragusa to Blagaj (Mostar), four or five to Visoko or Sutieska, five or six to Prača, seven or eight to Srebrnica, ten to Zvornik, twelve to Syrmium, seven to Rudnik or Novobrdo, fifteen to Constantinople. In bad weather, when the passes were blocked with snow, double the time was often necessary to traverse the same distance, which was the time required by the caravans in favourable weather. The envoys sent to Constantinople with the tribute to the Sultan took as much as two months.[258] The official correspondence to the various Ragusan representatives in the East is preserved in the archives of Ragusa in 138 volumes, under the heading of Lettere e Commissioni di Levante.

This traffic proved to be a source of great wealth for the citizens, who in time came almost to enjoy a monopoly of the inland trade in this part of the Balkan peninsula. But great as were the privileges which they enjoyed, merchants and miners were subject to depredations and arbitrary confiscations at the hands of the Servian kings, the Bosnian Bani, or the various minor feudatories. Most of the quarrels between Ragusa and the Slavonic States were caused by these depredations, which after all were natural enough. The Ragusan merchants succeeded in accumulating large fortunes by intelligent management and indefatigable industry, which the less hard-working Slaves, devoted to the arts of war, were incapable of acquiring. Whenever the King or vassal lord was in need of money, what could be simpler than to pounce down upon a richly-laden caravan on its way to or from the coast and plunder it or take heavy toll of it, or to impose fresh taxes on the wealthy colonies of “Uitlanders” at Rudnik, Srebrnica, or Brskovo? Ragusa was often forced to pay tribute to this or that sovereign to ensure safety from depredation, and in those days the line of division between feudalism and brigandage was very vague. But the mercantile communities were quite willing to undergo the risks for the sake of the large profits which they made. There can be no doubt that in this way a certain amount of civilisation was introduced into these lands which would otherwise have remained quite without the pale. The currents of western thought and culture found their way into Bosnia and Servia by way of Ragusa and the other Dalmatian towns rather than by Constantinople.[259] These civilising influences increased and spread until the curse of the Turkish conquest fell on the land like a blight, from which it is only now beginning slowly and painfully to recover.

This mercantile development naturally led to the formation of numerous guilds or confraternities. Like other Ragusan institutions, they were based on Venetian models, and were really the beginnings of the modern mutual aid societies on a religious groundwork. Among the earliest of these are that of the joiners, founded in 1266; that of St. Michael, founded in 1290; that of the goldsmiths (1306), that of Rosgiato (1321), and that of St. Anthony the Abbot (1348). During the Venetian period they were under strict Government supervision, but after 1358 they were invested with political privileges and exemptions.[260]

CHAPTER VI
ART IN THE THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES

DURING the Venetian period, with the increasing wealth and consequence of Ragusa, the city itself was beautified by the erection of numerous handsome buildings, both lay and ecclesiastical, and by 1358 it was almost entirely reconstructed. In its early days the walls, the castle, and one or two churches were the only stone edifices; all the rest of the town was of timber. Throughout the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the defences were increased, new bastions erected, and the older walls strengthened. The city now occupied both the seaward ridge and the slopes of Monte Sergio. The walls by which it was surrounded climbed painfully over the rocky eminences on each side, and dropped down almost to the sea-level in between. The fortifications did not acquire their present aspect until the sixteenth century, but parts of them were begun much earlier. Four towers were erected at the entrance of the harbour on the south-east side of the town, of which two—San Luca and San Giovanni—still survive. The latter, which is now called the Forte Molo, a huge round bastion, has been considerably altered in later times; San Luca has preserved more of its original character. Of the tower called the Campana Morta (the dead bell),[261] few traces beyond the name survives. The sea-tower which occupies its site is evidently of a much later date. These towers were garrisoned by the town guard of 127 men, who were chosen by lot from the citizens every month, and increased in times of danger.[262] Other towers were built at intervals along the walls, and their defence was entrusted to the private families whose houses they adjoined. Of these the most important was the Torre Menze or Minćeta, one of the most beautiful features of the city. Its erection was decreed on July 3, 1319, but it was entirely rebuilt in the fifteenth century, and considerably altered in the sixteenth. It stands on one of the highest points of the town on the Monte Sergio.

Of the other buildings of this time there are some important remains, from which we may resume a fair idea of Ragusan architecture under the Venetians. Its characteristic note at all times is the fact that early forms were preserved here, as in other parts of Dalmatia, down to a much later date than in the rest of Europe. The style is a mixture of Italian with an Oriental touch, and occasionally, according to Mr. Jackson, even a German element. During the Venetian age traces of Byzantine art still survive, and in buildings of the fourteenth century, a time when Italian Gothic was most flourishing, we find the round arch of Romanesque art. But Ragusan builders did not follow any very distinct system. The various styles were no more than tapped by them. None were fully developed; and in every building, from whichever point of view we regard it, we find many deviations from strict orthodoxy. Some of the Ragusan architects and master-masons had been educated in Italy, others perhaps at Constantinople, but no part of their work shows an absolute grasp over any definite style. Nevertheless it is extremely interesting, and proves them by no means deficient in artistic sense. Many of the buildings of this little Republic are of great beauty, and the whole ensemble of edifices compares favourably with many a more famous Italian town.

The principal buildings erected or completed between 1200 and 1350 are the following: The cathedral church of Santa Maria (1206-1250), San Biagio (1348), the church and monastery of the Franciscans (begun 1319), the Dominican church and monastery (1254-1306), the Castello (1350, on the site of an earlier building), and the Sponza or custom house, begun early in the fourteenth century. The cathedral was destroyed by the earthquake of 1667, San Biagio by fire in 1706, the Castello supplanted by another building in 1388. The Franciscan and Dominican churches were almost entirely rebuilt in later times, but of their monasteries much remains, and the cloisters are in their original state. The Sponza, too, survives, although the top story, the façade, and the portico were added subsequently.

What the Duomo was like we can only discover from the somewhat confused account of De Diversis, and from the model of the town in the hands of the silver statuette of San Biagio. According to local tradition, it was erected through the munificence of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, King of England, who on returning from the Holy Land encountered a terrible storm off Corfu, and made a vow that he would build a church to the Virgin on the spot

CAPITAL IN THE FRANCISCAN CLOISTER where he should first touch land in safety. After being tossed about for several days he was able to land on the island of Lacroma, near Ragusa. In fulfilment of his vow he built the church, at the request of the citizens, in Ragusa itself, as well as a small chapel on the island. There is, however, no evidence of the truth of this story, and none of the contemporary accounts of Richard’s peregrinations even mention Ragusa, while the entries in the Ragusan archives state that the church was built with the contributions of the nobles. According to De Diversis, it was the most beautiful church in Dalmatia. It consisted of a nave and side aisles separated by great columns; and from the above-mentioned model of the city we see that it had a cupola mounted on a drum pierced with windows and a clerestory. De Diversis also speaks of a curious ambulatory formed by small columns outside the church, the walls of which were ornamented with figures of animals. In the choir was the high altar, with a pala of silver under a beautiful ciborium supported on four pillars. The floors were of mosaic, and the windows all filled with stained glass. On the walls were depicted scenes from the Old Testament and the New. All this bespeaks a Romanesque building with traces of Byzantine art. But alas! nothing remains of this exquisite piece of architecture; the present church (1671-1713) is a large classical

CAPITAL IN THE FRANCISCAN CLOISTER edifice with barocco ornamentation.

The original church of San Biagio was begun in 1348 as a votive offering after the plague of that year. From De Diversis’s description it was very similar to the Duomo, but on a smaller scale. It suffered little damage from the earthquake, but was burnt down in 1706. Both this church and the Duomo are fairly good examples of an unattractive style, and the stone of which they are built is of a rich mellow tone.

The two stately piles at each end of the town—the Franciscan and Dominican monasteries—have fortunately preserved much of their original character. The latter was begun after the destruction of the first Franciscan house outside the Porta Pile by the Slaves in 1319, and the new building was erected just within the gate, which its inmates were to guard in times of danger. The church and a large part of the monastery have been rebuilt since the earthquake, although here and there a few interesting details remain. Thus on the south side, opening on to the Stradone, there is a handsome doorway in the Venetian Gothic style, surmounted by a Pietà, a very fair piece of sculpture; the date is probably the end of the fifteenth century. In the sacristy we find a Renaissance lavabo of carved stone. The campanile marks the transition from the Romanesque to the Gothic. The east window of the lower story and those on the second story are Venetian Gothic, while the south window of the lower story is round-arched. The top story with the cupola was rebuilt after the earthquake. But it is in the cloister that the chief interest of the building lies, a cloister which Mr. T. G. Jackson calls “one of the most singular pieces of architecture I have ever seen.”[263] Here we observe the most notable feature of Dalmatian architecture in all its force, for although its date is later than 1319 it is thoroughly Romanesque in character, and all the arches are round. It consists of a courtyard with three bays opening out into it on each side; the openings are divided into six round-headed lights, each head being pierced by a large circular light. A series of coupled octagonal shafts standing one behind the other, with a common base and common abacus, but separate capitals, serve as mullions to the arches. The capitals are extremely quaint and curious. Each one is different from its fellows, and the architect seems to have let his fancy run riot in designing them, “recalling the wildest and most grotesque fancies of early Romanesque work.”[264] Some are adorned with simple foliage, spiral volutes, and block leaves, but on others we find hideous grinning faces, dragons, strange uncouth monsters, masks, dogs, and all manner of fanciful ornaments. Judged by ordinary standards, we should take them to be work of the twelfth or thirteenth century, but as a matter of fact they are of a much later date. According to Eitelberger, these early forms were preserved in most of the monasteries of the East when they had given place to Gothic in Western Europe.[265] The workmanship of these capitals, like much Ragusan carving, is somewhat rough and unfinished, but for this the material, which is not sufficiently hard, may be partly responsible. Of the open circles in the heads of the opening, the centre one on each side of the cloister is larger, and ornamented with a rich border of acanthus leaves; the others are cusped. Possibly it was intended that they should all contain some ornamentation, and indeed the large round openings look somewhat bare. Above the cloister is an elegant balustrade, of which only one side survived the earthquake, but a few years ago it was restored according to the original design. The name of the architect has been preserved in an inscription in the cloister itself:

☩ S · DE · MAGIST
ER MYCHA PETRAR
DANTIVAR QVIPPE
CITCLAVSTRVM
CVM OMNIBVS SVIS.

He was one Mycha of Antivari, a town where Byzantine influence was stronger than at Ragusa. The inscription has no date, but it is close to two others of 1363 and 1428, and the style of the lettering, according to Jackson, is even earlier than 1363. The building was not begun until after 1319, when the former Franciscan monastery was destroyed, so that the date is somewhere between 1319 and 1363. Within the enclosure are orange trees and evergreen shrubs, and a graceful little fountain is placed in the centre; the whole scene forms a most charming picture of mediæval monastic life. A second cloister higher up the hillside served as a garden where the simples for the monks’ pharmacy were grown. This, too, is a delightful old-world nook.

At the opposite end of the town, just inside the Porta Ploce, stands the massive group of the Dominican church and monastery. These buildings originally formed the southern bulwark of the town, the monks themselves, like the Franciscans, being entrusted with the defence of the gate; but later a second wall was built outside it. The church, which was begun in 1245 and completed in 1360, consists of a vast nave separated from a polygonal choir by a high arch. The building is extremely bare; the traces of Gothic arches and clustered pillars form a sort of skeleton, around which the existing church was constructed in the seventeenth century. In the sacristy there are a few more fragments of early work, and the south doorway, with a round arch of many receding orders under an ogee crocketed hood mould, also belongs to the original church. Jackson notices a strong flavour of German Gothic in it. There are several pointed windows of extreme simplicity, and a large round one decorated with an outside frill of small Venetian arches. The campanile was begun in 1424[266] by Fra Stefano, a Dominican, but it was not completed in 1440, for De Diversis says of it, “nondum perfectum, in dies crescit.” It has round arches and shafts set back to the centre of the wall.

But as in the Franciscan monastery, the cloister is almost untouched. It is an irregular square, with five bays on each side, each bay being divided by three lights, the head pierced by two irregular lights above. The style is a curious medley “of Gothic and Renaissance, of forms understood and otherwise, as indeed could only occur in a land which, being on the borders of Eastern and Western culture, did not possess the power to create and execute the various styles correctly.”[267] The arches of the bays are round, but the inside work has more the character of Venetian Gothic, especially in the foliage. The shield of the semicircular head is pierced by quatrefoil lights encircled alternately with an ornament of interlacing circles almost Byzantine in character. The Dalmatian architect had doubtless seen Gothic work in Italy, but “had failed to grasp the idea of receding orders in the arch, or consistent mouldings in his tracery.”[268] The columns with their caps and bases are of a severely antique character. But in spite of all deviations from architectural orthodoxy this cloister, set off by cherry and orange trees and evergreen shrubs, is, after the Franciscan cloister, one of the loveliest monastic buildings in Dalmatia.

The secular buildings, with one notable exception, belong to a later period. The exception is the Sponza[269] or custom house, a large part of which was built in the early fourteenth century. It stands at the end of the Stradone, opposite the Piazza and the church of San Biagio, and consists of three stories built round a courtyard. The ground floor and first floor were probably built in the first years of the thirteenth century.[270] The top story, the façade, and the portico belong to the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The oblong courtyard is surrounded on the lower story by vaulted arcades of round arches with square soffits supported on short plain solid octagonal columns, without bases (like those of the Ducal Palace at Venice), and short capitals opening out into square abaci. The second story is also arcaded, and has twice as many window openings as the lower story has arches, round at the two ends and pointed on the sides, with square piers over the columns below and round columns over the centres of the arches; their capitals are adorned with foliage, some à crochet, and some with deflected leaves at the angles. According to Jackson, all this part is of the same period, in spite of the fact that some of the openings are round and some pointed. The general effect is one of extreme simplicity and sobriety; it is, as Jackson says truly, “an admirable piece of plain, useful, and not ungraceful architecture, not too showy for the commonplace purposes of the building, and yet well proportioned and carefully built.”[271] Round the courtyard are the various warehouses, over the doors of which are the names of different saints. Above the end arch is the inscription:—

FALLERE NRA VETANT ET FALLI PONDERA MEQ.

PONDERO CVM MERCES PONDERAT IPSE DEVS.

The early work ends with the moulded stringcourse above the second story; the third story, which has plain square windows, bears the date 1520 and the monogram

, found on so many houses in Ragusa, to commemorate the earthquake of that year. The façade has a portico of five handsome round arches in the Renaissance style, the columns of which are adorned with elaborate capitals; many of these have been renewed. Above is a row of windows in the purest Venetian style of the fifteenth century. The central window is a three-light aperture, the two side ones are of a single light. The windows of the third story are square like those looking on the courtyard. In the centre is a niche with a statue of St. Blaize, while the row of pinnacles on the roof call to mind many a Venetian palazzo. In spite of all incongruities the Sponza is a very attractive building, full of quaint grace and good work.

It has many interesting associations with Ragusan history. It was here that the caravans about to start on their perilous journeys through the wild Balkan lands formed up, and those which arrived at Ragusa first stopped. Every bale of goods arriving at or departing from the city, by sea or land, had to be first examined at the Sponza, where the proper amount of duty was assessed and paid. All business was transacted at or around this building. To this day it serves as a custom-house, and still forms a picturesque background for the crowds of peasants and traders from all parts of Dalmatia, the Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Albania who congregate here on market days, although the traffic has declined both in bulk and in value since the palmy days of the Republic. The first floor was used in later years for literary and learned societies and entertainments. The second floor was the mint.

Of the Castello no traces now remain, its place having been taken by the Rector’s Palace, with which we shall deal later on. The buildings we have described were almost the only stone edifices in the town. All the rest, including the convent of the Clarisse, founded in 1290, were of timber.[272] Ragusa was in great part destroyed by fire in 1292, and rebuilt shortly afterwards, mostly of wood, as before. In a Reformatio of 1320 the Government published a decree against the excessive use of timber in construction. But the city was improving in various ways. The streets were wider and more regular, and stone steps were built on either side of the Stradone to make the higher quarters more accessible. Elaborate rules were issued to ensure the solidity of the roofs and chimneys, and by 1355 the town was paved with brick.[273] The steep streets on the seaward ridge and on the eight slopes of Monte Sergio began to assume their present aspect, although but few details of fourteenth-century domestic architecture have remained. There are several houses in the Venetian Gothic style, but these were built during the Hungarian occupation, the artistic influence of Venice outlasting her political suzerainty.

Of the plastic arts we find as yet only slight beginnings, but we may mention a few early paintings in the Dominican church. A large crucifix in the Byzantine style, which hangs over the choir arch, was vowed during the black death of 1348. In the sacristy there is a polyptych in ten sections, with the Baptism of Christ in the centre of the lower row, and St. Michael, St. Nicholas, St. Blaize, and St. Stephen; the Virgin, with St. Peter, St. Dominic, St. Peter Martyr, and St. Francis above. The work is very primitive; but if it be by a local master, it is probably of a later date than the style suggests. The robes are very rich and profusely gilt, but the effect is garish rather than brilliant, although restoration may perhaps be responsible for this. A Byzantine Madonna and Child in red is in the same church between the nave and the transept.

In the city records there are occasional entries alluding to the engagement of painters, and in 1344 a certain Magister Bernardus was commissioned to paint the new hall of the communal palace, which he was to decorate “pomis et stellis auratis.” No trace of this work has survived.

An interesting piece of sculpture is the bas-relief of St. Blaize on a wall near the Porta Ploce. The figure is seen in profile, and carries a crozier with a Lamb in the crook. It is somewhat stiff and Oriental in pose, but full of character. Curiously enough, it is the only really good statue of the city’s patron saint at Ragusa. Other images may be seen over the gates, on the fortifications, and on various buildings, but they are all colourless and of very rough workmanship. A plaque of marble, with figures in high relief, in the sacristy of the Franciscan church, deserves notice. It is said to be thirteenth-century work of the Isola di Mezzo.

During the next two hundred years architecture attains to its full development, and at least one painter arises whose work is of considerable value, while the goldsmith’s and silversmith’s art come to occupy an important place.

CHAPTER VII
RAGUSA UNDER HUNGARIAN SUPREMACY—THE TURKISH INVASION, 1358-1420