The second Via de Zenta started from the three harbours of Antivari via the Sutorman Pass, Budua by the bridle path to Cetinje (still in use), and Cattaro by the road to Cetinje. A little further east the three branches met, and the route proceeded over well-wooded mountains, now, alas, bare and desolate, past the ruins of Doclea to Podgorica (a day and a half from Cattaro); then to the Plava lake, one of the fairest spots in Albania, but now also one of the most dangerous, on the shores of which, according to Professor Stojan Novaković, stood the well-known Servian trading centre of Brskovo. Professor Jireček, however, who has had access to further materials, places it in the upper Lim valley. Brskovo (Brescoa or Brescoua in Venetian and Ragusan documents) was the chief commercial city of Servia, and is mentioned as early as the days of King Stephen the First-Crowned (1196-1228). It was principally frequented by the people of Ragusa and Cattaro, and to a lesser extent by the Venetians. The various products of the districts were collected here for export to the coast, while the caravans from the coast brought foreign goods for distribution throughout Servia. The customs, which were usually farmed out to Ragusans, were a source of considerable revenue to the Servian kings. Here, as in some other mining towns, was also a mint, where the grossi di Brescova were coined.[243] The Ragusan colony was numerous and influential, containing members of some of the noblest families.[244] Beyond Brskovo came Peč (Ipek in Turkish), an archiepiscopal, and later patriarchal, see (until 1766). Peč, too, enjoyed considerable traffic, and had a Ragusan colony in the fourteenth century.
The post from Venice to Constantinople went by this route in the sixteenth century. As soon as the ship arrived the despatches were handed to the messengers (they were always natives from two Montenegrin villages), who rode off with them via Plava, Peč, Novoselo, Priština, Samokov, and Philippopolis, reaching the Bosporus in eighteen days.[245]
Throughout Servia, Bosnia, Hlum, the Zeta, and Bulgaria there were thus numerous Ragusan colonies. As a rule mining was the chief industry, and it was in the mining districts that the commercial settlements were to be found. In Roman times the mines of Illyria were well known; they were abandoned at the time of the barbarian inroads, and it was not until the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, at the time of the rise of the Serb States, that the industry revived. Wonderful tales were told by mediæval travellers of the richness of the Balkan mines. As late as 1453 the Greek Critobulus asserted that gold and silver sprang from the earth like water, and that wherever you dug you found large deposits of the precious metals, in greater quantities than in the Indies.[246] King Stephen Uroš II. Milutin (1282-1320) was the first to summon in German miners, called Sasi (i.e. Saxons), so as to benefit by their superior skill, but the Ragusans were also numerous. Many of the technical terms relating to mining still used in Bosnia are of German origin: orat = Ort; hutman = Hüttenmann; karan = Karren. The ore was extracted from galleries and shafts, many of which are still in existence. The refining of the metal was executed at Ragusa or Venice.
Gold, silver, lead, and iron were the chief products of the Bosnian and Servian mines. Gold, of which the earliest mention is in 1253, was found chiefly in the neighbourhood of Novobrdo (Novus Mons, Nouomonte, Νοβοπύργον), which was for a long time the largest city in the interior of the Balkan peninsula between the plain of Kossovo and the Bulgarian Morava, three miles east of Priština. Silver, however, was found in much larger quantities. Of this metal two kinds are mentioned in the Ragusan annals, i.e. argento bianco (white silver) and argento de glama (glamsko srebro in Slavonic), which had a slight gold alloy. Srebrnica was the chief centre for the silver-mining industry. Lead was another important product, and was in much request for the roofing of houses and churches. Sometimes a whole caravan of 300 horses journeyed from the mining districts to Ragusa laden with nothing but lead. The iron output gave rise to various active industries, both locally and at Ragusa, where Bosnian iron-workers were often employed by the Republic. A certain amount of copper was also found, and there were tin and quicksilver mines in the Kreševo district. The principal mining centres thus were: Kreševo and Fojnica;[247] Srebrenica, near the Drina, chiefly for silver;[248] Zvornik on the Drina, for lead;[249] Rudnik, where there are traces of Roman mines mentioned by Ragusan documents of the thirteenth century; Kopaonik, for silver and iron;[250] Novobrdo, for gold and other metals;[251] Kučevo and Brskovo, which flourished at the end of the thirteenth century.[252]
Each mining centre usually consisted of a castle on a hill, wherein dwelt the Vojvod, or feudal lord, representing the King or Tsar, and a town below with a market, where the miners and merchants dwelt. In times of danger the whole community could take shelter in the castle.[253] The Saxons, as we have seen, were the most numerous of the foreign settlers, and the Ragusans came immediately after them. At Novobrdo early in the fifteenth century we find members of nearly all the noblest Ragusan families—Bobali, Benessa, Menze, Ragnina, Resti, Gozze, Caboga, &c. The Ragusans were the principal merchants and carriers, and the provision trade was almost wholly in their hands. They sold supplies in exchange for raw metal. There were also merchants from the other Dalmatian towns, from Italy, especially from Venice, and a few natives. The mining towns on the whole had a marked Latin character, and they were all provided with at least one Latin church,[254] under the authority of the Bishop of Cattaro. There were also several Franciscan monasteries, which afterwards ministered to the religious needs of the native Catholics in Turkish times; some of them still exist. The chief authority in the town was, as I have said, the Servian Vojvod, but the head of the mining and mercantile community was the Conte dei Purgari Vaoturchi.[255] The taxes and customs were farmed to Ragusan or Cattarine speculators, and in fact most of the higher financial officials in the South-Slavonic States, including the Protovestiars (Finance Ministers), were usually natives of those cities. The Ragusans who owned houses were bound to bear arms in defence of the castle and market-town, but the others were exempt. If a dispute arose between them and the Saxons or the Serbs the question was decided by an arbitration commission composed of six Ragusans and six Saxons or Serbs. Ragusan creditors enjoyed the privilege of being able to imprison their debtors, provided they too were Ragusans, in their own houses. The heads of the Ragusan community were the consul and two judges, usually noblemen appointed by the Republic. In 1332 a consul was appointed to reside at the Royal Court, which was at Prizren or Skopje (Üsküb).[256] This consul was to travel about the country, visiting all the market-towns, mining centres, and fairs, with a view to learning what openings there were for Ragusan trade, as well as all the towns where Ragusan colonies were already established. The different mints were under the superintendence of the Vojvods and of the gabellotti (tax-farmers) or aurifices (goldsmiths), usually Ragusans or Dalmatians. In the tenth century Constantine Porphyrogenitus alludes to the use of coinage by the Ragusans, but for a long time afterwards trade continued to be carried on by means of barter. Thus in 1280 we find a Ragusan selling a horse to a fellow-citizen for sixteen ells of cloth, and even as late as 1322, although mints were established in various places, a commercial treaty between Stephen, Banus of Bosnia, and Ragusa alludes to the fact that cattle were used for payments of indemnities.[257]
Communications between Ragusa and the settlements in the interior were carried on by means of couriers (cursores, corrieri, Slav. knižnici), who were instituted early in the fourteenth century, and lasted until the fall of the Republic. They carried official correspondence from the Republic to the ambassadors and consuls, and legal notices, writs, reports of judicial proceedings, &c., to the Ragusan traders. They were not allowed to convey private correspondence, which was usually sent by caravan, or in the case of the chief merchants by their own special messengers, save on the return journey. The time employed by these official messengers was usually two days from Ragusa to Blagaj (Mostar), four or five to Visoko or Sutieska, five or six to Prača, seven or eight to Srebrnica, ten to Zvornik, twelve to Syrmium, seven to Rudnik or Novobrdo, fifteen to Constantinople. In bad weather, when the passes were blocked with snow, double the time was often necessary to traverse the same distance, which was the time required by the caravans in favourable weather. The envoys sent to Constantinople with the tribute to the Sultan took as much as two months.[258] The official correspondence to the various Ragusan representatives in the East is preserved in the archives of Ragusa in 138 volumes, under the heading of Lettere e Commissioni di Levante.
This traffic proved to be a source of great wealth for the citizens, who in time came almost to enjoy a monopoly of the inland trade in this part of the Balkan peninsula. But great as were the privileges which they enjoyed, merchants and miners were subject to depredations and arbitrary confiscations at the hands of the Servian kings, the Bosnian Bani, or the various minor feudatories. Most of the quarrels between Ragusa and the Slavonic States were caused by these depredations, which after all were natural enough. The Ragusan merchants succeeded in accumulating large fortunes by intelligent management and indefatigable industry, which the less hard-working Slaves, devoted to the arts of war, were incapable of acquiring. Whenever the King or vassal lord was in need of money, what could be simpler than to pounce down upon a richly-laden caravan on its way to or from the coast and plunder it or take heavy toll of it, or to impose fresh taxes on the wealthy colonies of “Uitlanders” at Rudnik, Srebrnica, or Brskovo? Ragusa was often forced to pay tribute to this or that sovereign to ensure safety from depredation, and in those days the line of division between feudalism and brigandage was very vague. But the mercantile communities were quite willing to undergo the risks for the sake of the large profits which they made. There can be no doubt that in this way a certain amount of civilisation was introduced into these lands which would otherwise have remained quite without the pale. The currents of western thought and culture found their way into Bosnia and Servia by way of Ragusa and the other Dalmatian towns rather than by Constantinople.[259] These civilising influences increased and spread until the curse of the Turkish conquest fell on the land like a blight, from which it is only now beginning slowly and painfully to recover.
This mercantile development naturally led to the formation of numerous guilds or confraternities. Like other Ragusan institutions, they were based on Venetian models, and were really the beginnings of the modern mutual aid societies on a religious groundwork. Among the earliest of these are that of the joiners, founded in 1266; that of St. Michael, founded in 1290; that of the goldsmiths (1306), that of Rosgiato (1321), and that of St. Anthony the Abbot (1348). During the Venetian period they were under strict Government supervision, but after 1358 they were invested with political privileges and exemptions.[260]