LITMIR.BIZ

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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

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