In the year 1071 the Normans from Apulia made their first appearance in Dalmatia; they crossed the Adriatic, and threatened the Eastern Empire. The Emperor Alexius Comnenus having implored the help of the Venetians, the Doge Selvo set sail for Dyrrhachium in command of a fleet. Alexius had also asked help of the Ragusans, who were now practically independent; but they feared the Normans more, and cast in their lot with them. The Græco-Venetian fleet encountered the Normans off Dyrrhachium; but in spite of the valour displayed by the allies they were defeated, and the town fell into the enemies’ hands. It is said that the Ragusan contingent distinguished itself by hurling clouds of arrows, which wrought much havoc among the Venetians.[55] As a reward they obtained important commercial privileges in Southern Italy. In 1085 the Venetians again attacked the Normans, and partially defeated them at Corfu, for which action Alexius granted the Doge Vitale Falier the Golden Bull, conferring upon him the title of Protosebastus, and created him Duke of Dalmatia and Croatia. Thus the Republic regained all its lost influence on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.
Yet another Power now begins to interfere in the affairs of Dalmatia, a Power which was to play a most important part in its subsequent history. In 1091 Ladislas, King of Hungary, was summoned by the Slaves of inland Croatia, who as usual when quarrelling among themselves called in foreign aid, and they willingly recognised him as their king. He did not wait to be asked a second time, but at once entered the province and appointed his nephew, Almus, Count of Cismontane Croatia. On his death in 1094 he was succeeded by another nephew, Koloman, who in the following year crossed the Velebit mountains and invaded Maritime Croatia. He defeated and killed the Croatian king, Krešimir, at Petrovogora, became master of the littoral from Istria to the Narenta, and prepared to conquer the Serb states of Rascia and Tribunia. By marrying Busita, daughter of King Roger, he allied himself with the Normans, and enlisted their help for his schemes. At Beograd he crowned himself King of Dalmatia and Croatia. These conquests were not at all to the taste of the Ragusans, who had every interest in the maintenance of a number of weak but independent Slavonic buffer States at their back, whereas they dreaded the advance of a powerful military monarchy like Hungary. At first they tried to conciliate Koloman with gifts,[56] but as this availed them little they applied to their old enemies, the Venetians; the latter made a treaty with the Hungarian king, by which the Latin municipalities of Dalmatia were recognised as outside the Hungarian sphere. But it was not respected for long. The Emperor Alexius, annoyed with the Venetians for their action in the First Crusade and in the Levant generally, intrigued with Koloman, and induced him to violate his pledges. The Magyar king needed but little pressure, as the conquest of the Dalmatian seaboard was one of his chief ambitions. When the Venetians sent their fleet to Palestine in 1105 he occupied Zara, Traù, and Spalato, and forced the citizens to swear fealty to him. The Ragusans were not disturbed, but they sent him another deputation. The Venetians, 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]