The historians' history of the world in twenty-five volumes, volume 09

by Unknown

THE ORIGIN OF THE DOGESHIP

[600-713 A.D.]

There are but few records of the period between the stipulation of the compromise with the emperor Maurice to the foundation of the Venetian dukedom, but they suffice to confirm the autonomous policy enjoyed by the Venetian islands at that time. The majority of these records refer to the wars engaged in by the Venetians with the Lombards. By these they became masters of Padua. At the time of King Agilulf they turned their arms against the islands to get them under their own sway. The increasing prosperity of the islands, and the idea that the wealth accumulated there had been mostly imported from the continent to protect it from the usurpation of conquerors, kindled a strong desire to complete its conquest. The external dangers of the islands were attended by the internal disputes from the ambitions and jealousies of the tribunes.

An imminent invasion of the Lombards was feared when the greater part of the country, recognising the gravity of the danger menacing them, summoned a general council to Heraclea under the presidency of the chief patriarch Aristoforo. And here it was unanimously agreed to introduce a stricter form of government by preventing the rivalries of the magistrates who were the chief fomenters of the internal dissensions. And following the example of great cities like Rome, Genoa, and Naples, which were saved by dukes, they agreed to appoint a chief magistrate with jurisdiction over all the islands with the title of “duke” (doge). Then, proceeding to the election of the person on whom this dignity was to be conferred, their choice fell upon Paolu Lucio, or Paoluccio Anafesto. Such was the origin of the Venetian dukedom as it is recorded by chroniclers. But if there is unity among them as to the causes which gave rise to the ducal power in maritime Venetia, there is none with regard to the time in which it was instituted. Some put it in the year 697, others relegate it to the first years of the next century. Among them there is Giovanni Diacono,[h] who puts the election of Paoluccio at the time of Anastasius II, emperor, and of Liutprand king of the Lombards. And as, according to the most ancient Venetian chronicler, Liutprand succeeded to the throne in 712 and Anastasius in 713, the election of Paoluccio could not have been before the latter year.

[713-900 A.D.]

Therefore between the two extreme dates quoted by the chroniclers there is a difference of sixteen years, sufficient time to afford material for criticism. But the different points were defended and contested without result. Muratiri Leo defended the date of 697, which is the date given by Dandolo and his followers; Romanin oscillated between the two dates; Filiasi and Balbo were inclined to the medium course and put the election of Paoluccio in the year 706 or 707. But as neither the one nor the other adduces more authentic proofs in support of the closer date, we will remain firm in preferring that of 713, which is according to the most eminent author on Venetian matters. We are the more led to this preference by the cause to which the chroniclers generally attribute the foundation of Venetian dukedom. For if it is true that the imminence of the Lombards led the inhabitants of the islands to institute a supreme magistrate, it could not have referred to the time preceding Liutprand in which the Lombards, either through flaccidness of purpose or through internal disputes, were incapable of thinking of new conquests or exercising fears or apprehensions among their neighbours. The chronicler Giovanni says nothing of the attributes of the new magistrate, and his silence on such an important subject is the more deplorable, as in the computations made by posterior chroniclers on the ducal authority we find names used of matters more contemporaneous to them than to the time of which they speak.

Andrea Dandolo,[g] the most authentic among them, describes in the following words the attributes of the first Venetian dukes: “They had,” says the doge chronicler, “the power and right to convoke the general meeting for public affairs, to appoint tribunes and judges to administer all matters private, lay, and ecclesiastical, save the mere spiritual; they had power in everything befitting the title of duke; and by their orders there the councils of the clergy took place and the election to the prelature was made by the clergy and the people, the election and the investiture being from their hands, as they had the power of appointment.” It is very doubtful whether the ducal attributes were originally so defined in detail. Anyhow, from the appearance of a military magistrate with the title of master of the militia alongside of the first duke, it can be inferred that the jurisdiction of the duke was limited to civil affairs. For the chronicler Giovanni,[h] in speaking of Paoluccio Anafesto, says that he judged his own with temperate justice. And here the verb to judge is used in a more definite and proper sense than in that used by the Lombard histories and documents respecting their dukes. It expresses that which is solely civil jurisdiction, whilst the jurisdiction of the Lombard dukes included the military jurisdiction as well as the civil.

We have an important document of the dogedom of Anafesto,[i] which shows how beneficial the institution of the ducal power was to the Venetians. This document is a convention of the doge with Liutprand, by which the Lombard king conceded to the Venetians the trade of the territories of the kingdom proper, and, defining the limits between the two states, it declared to be Venetian the territories between the Piave Major and the Piavicelli on the side of Heraclea. Such, according to the chronicler Giovanni, was the tenor of the treaty of peace concluded between Liutprand and the first doge of Venice. And we have authentic confirmation of its truth in its verification, made by Barbarossa in the year 1177, of that which pertained to the designation of the Venetian confines on the part of Italy.[c]

It was in 809 [or 810], in a war against Pepin, son of Charlemagne, that the Venetians made choice of the Island of the Rialto, near which they assembled their fleet bearing their wealth, and built the city of Venice, the capital of their republic. Twenty years afterward they transported thither from Alexandria the body of St. Mark, the evangelist, their chosen patron. His lion figured in their arms, and his name in their language whenever they would designate with peculiar affection their country or government.