LITMIR.BIZ

      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 1336169 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

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