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

by Unknown

VENICE IN THE TENTH CENTURY

[900-996 A.D.]

While the Venetians disputed with the Lombards, the Frank and the German emperors, the little land on which stood their houses, they had also to dispute the sea that bathed them, with the Slavonians, who had established themselves for the purpose of piracy on the eastern side of the Adriatic.[b] It was hardly five hundred years since the fugitives from Padua and Aquileia had sought refuge in the lagunes. Content with having found safety there and freedom to enlarge their town and extend their commerce, they had hitherto only made just wars, having only taken to arms to repulse pirates, help oppressed neighbours, or to defend their liberty against Pepin and the Hungarians.

Although many victories had given them a just appreciation of their strength, they had no aggression to reproach themselves with, unless perhaps that against the Saracens, but this war was undertaken at the solicitation of the Italian people, and on the request of the Eastern emperor. Moreover, in generally received ideas of this epoch, the Saracens, in their quality as infidels, were beyond the pale of common rights. The republic had never made incursions on the continent, for it would not be just to lay to its account the short expeditions of the two doges, who had no other object than their own interests.

A Doge of Venice

This union of exiles and fishers had become a rich, powerful, warlike, yet at the same time a peaceful nation. The fruit of this moderation had been if not an existence exempt from trouble, at least a medium to the creation of an independent state, freeing itself little by little from the influence of the two empires between which it found itself—a state, moreover, which treated with its neighbours, counted many illustrious families, whose princes married kings’ daughters, yet in its entity did not extend beyond the lagunes and several points of the neighbouring coast. A new scene was to open up.

Commerce, that profession in which fortunes are continually being tried, is not a school of moderation. Successes inspire greediness and jealousy, and these latter the spirit of domination. Maritime commerce wanted ports where her ships could be gathered, authority where she bought, privileges where she sold, safety for navigation, and, above all, no rivals. This ambitious spirit is really the same as that of conquest. Venice will show us an example of it.

No choice of the Venetians was more justified by its great and lasting results than that of Doge Pietro Orseolo II in 991. He was the son of him who had abdicated the dogate fifteen years before. As in the life of all great men there is something of the marvellous, it was spread abroad that his father had announced that his son would be the glory of his country, and the holiness of Orseolo I gave to these paternal hopes all the authority of a prophecy.

Hardly was the new doge on the throne, than the factions which had torn Venice during the reign of his feeble predecessor calmed down or at any rate were quiet. Deliberations had been frequently troubled ones; the palace had more than once been stained with blood. Orseolo made a law by which all acts of violence in the public assembly should be punished by a fine of twenty gold livres or the death of those who had not the wherewithal to pay. A statesman as well as a clever warrior, he occupied himself with forwarding commercial prosperity. He treated with all the Italian states for goods. He obtained from the emperor of the East that all subjects of the republic should be exempt from dues throughout the empire, not only in ports but inland, or at least that the dues should be reduced in the proportion of thirty gold sols to two. Finally he assured himself, by an embassy and presents, of the favour of Egyptian and Syrian sultans. The interior commerce of the Adriatic was itself an abundant source of riches for the Venetians. Favoured by concessions from the patriarch of Aquileia and the Italian kings, their ships went the whole length of Lombardy and Friuli to sell all sorts of foreign wares. They were welcome in the ports of Apulia and Calabria; on the eastern coast of the gulf they enjoyed some privileges, bought, it is true, by a tribute, but which were none the less profitable.

They got from Dalmatia firewood, wines, oils, hemp, linen, all kinds of grain and cattle. The eastern coast offered lead, mercury, and metals of every kind, wood for building, wools, cloth, house linen, cordage, dried fruits, and even slaves and eunuchs. Everywhere they possessed themselves of the exclusive commerce in salt and salted fish, and carried into every country the merchandise of the East. It was owing to a so extended commerce that Venice, until then without territory, armed fleets, and placed between two empires, knew how to resist one and make herself necessary to the other. These advantages were considerable, but to enjoy them peaceably it was necessary to be delivered from these Narentine pirates, who for one hundred and fifty years annoyed Venetian commerce with their continual inroads. They furnished no immediate cause for attack, only demanded the annual tribute which the republic had promised them, to which the doge answered that he would soon bring it himself. Their attacks were at that time directed against the peoples established the length of the Adriatic; the Istrians, Liburnians, and the Dalmatians.

[996-997 A.D.]

Various nations had established themselves one after another on these coasts; at first they depended on their chiefs for protection; then those in Dalmatia came under the sway of the Eastern emperor, while those farther north looked to the ruler of the West. These two empires became feeble; various commercial towns sprang up on the sea coast which came by little and little to regard themselves as independent, and these would have found an assured source of prosperity in maritime pursuits were it not for the interference of the neighbouring Narentines. It would not be unreasonable to conjecture that Venice was not without some anxiety, even jealousy, with regard to these people settled on the east coast of the Adriatic, for they were independent, industrious, and good sailors.

Venetian historians relate that all these people, as if moved unanimously, sent deputies to Venice to implore help against the pirates, offering to give themselves to the republic if she would deliver them. There are very few people who will give themselves away, and there are no magistrates who have the right of giving away people. This deputation, if it be true that it took place, did more honour to the politics of those who received it than to the wisdom of those who sent it. However that may be, the Venetians hastened to collect a considerable armament to go and help, or overthrow, their neighbours, and the doge, after having received from the bishop’s hands the standard of the republic, went to sea in the spring of the year 997.[d]

[997-998 A.D.]

It was on the 18th of May, 997, that the fleet left its moorings, and pointed its prows toward Grado, where it was met by the patriarch Vitali Sanudo, followed by a solemn procession of the clergy and the people. From Grado the whole armament sailed successively to Pirano, Omago, Emonia, Parenzo, Rovigno, Pola, Zara, Spalatro, Trau, Ossero, Arbo, Veglia, Sebenigo, Belgrado, Lenigrado, and Curzola. All those places appeared to welcome the Venetians as their deliverers, and each readily took an oath of allegiance to its suzerain. At Zara, where the merchants of Venice had formed their earliest settlements, and where the people exhibited peculiar fervour, Orseolo spent six days; and during that period arrived a deputation from Dircislaus, king of Croatia, whose alarm at the successful progress of the expedition rendered him desirous of conciliating the republic. The ambassadors of Dircislaus were dismissed without an audience. At Trau, he found the brother of the king, Cresimir by name, who implored his Serenity to aid him in establishing a joint claim to the throne of his father, from which he stated that he had been recently driven by the perfidy of Dircislaus. Orseolo entertained the matter favourably, and even consented shortly afterward (998), as a mark of his friendship and esteem, as well as on grounds of commercial policy, to the union of his own daughter, Hicela, with the son of the Croatian prince.

But the campaign was far from being at a close. A great impediment was still to be conquered. Lesina, the principal member of the Illyrican group, and the chief resort of the pirates, still remained untaken; and the doge, having sent ten galleys from Trau to ravage the coast of Narenta, hastened with the main squadron to accomplish that object. Orseolo entered the harbour without hesitation; and the usual summons to surrender having produced no effect, an order was given to commence the assault. The Lesinese shrank in dismay from the tempest of stones and darts which poured without cessation over their walls; the escarpment was scaled; a tower was invested and taken; the Venetians entered the town; and, after a brief interval of license and confusion, the arrival of the doge restored order. The judicious clemency of Orseolo conciliated the esteem of the vanquished; and such was the powerful effect which the reduction of a place, generally thought to be unassailable, produced on its neighbours that, so soon as she heard of the fall of Lesina, the little republic of Ragusa despatched an embassy to offer her allegiance to the conqueror. At the same time, the ten galleys which had undertaken to lay waste the coast of Narenta, rejoined the main squadron with forty Croatian prizes; and this collateral success, which might be partly instrumental in humiliating King Dircislaus, afforded no slight satisfaction to Orseolo. Having thus, in the course of a few months, completed the object of his expedition, the doge concluded the campaign by dictating terms to the sea-robbers of Narenta; and Orseolo, having returned to the capital, and communicated to the national Arrengo the wonderful success which had attended the arms of the republic, was proclaimed Doge of Venice and Dalmatia (998). The assumption of this lofty appellation seems to have been entirely in harmony with the notions of sovereignty generally prevalent at that epoch. The incomplete conquest and precarious tenure of a few hundred miles of the Dalmatian seaboard sufficed, in the eyes of the Venetians, to constitute Dalmatia itself into an integral portion of their dominions; and it is a circumstance strikingly characteristic of the age, that, in conferring new honours upon the crown, no attempt was made to discriminate between an immense tract of country in which the republic had little or no territorial interest and over a small portion only of which she exercised the barest of feudal rights, and the islands, to which she enjoyed the fullest prescriptive and possessory title.[4][k]

[998-1198 A.D.]

In the intervals of peace Orseolo nobly employed his fortune raising public monuments. His father had founded a hospital and rebuilt at his own expense the palace and church of St. Mark. The son had the cathedral of Grado rebuilt, others say the whole city, and many buildings in Heraclea. This magnificence may give an idea to what degree of splendour the great families had arrived. This particular one had only been raised to ducal dignity one generation.[d]

It would have been to expect from the illustrious citizens of Venice more than one could expect from the human race to ask them to forget the glory and splendour of their house, to raise themselves above domestic interests, to work only for the grandeur of the state, and make this generation consist in the equality of all the citizens. The tendency towards aristocracy was for a long time only the result of influence given by riches, office, the remembrance of service rendered, and the respect which attaches itself naturally to an illustrious name. This kind of aristocracy existed long before the legal one. In the political order there was no distinction between nobles and plebeians, and when a foreigner, or a prince even, was admitted to the quality of Venetian, they said to him, “Civem nostrum creamus”—“We make you our fellow-citizen.”

But the Venetian nobles had frequented the society of high French barons, and naturally took some of their opinions. On their side the people and the middle class, like the nobles, were also interested. If the very legitimate pride of the aristocrats made them desire power, the good sense of the other party advised them to claim a share. It was from the struggle between these interests that a new form of government arose. One historian has forgotten himself so far as to say that this revolution led things back to “a natural order, in which the lower orders were dominated by the upper.” The language has no more sense than dignity.[c]