LITMIR.BIZ

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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 Narenta38 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,

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