The embassy departed for Spalato, and thence, at Hrvoje’s advice, proceeded to Hungary, but there they found that, Ostoja having shown himself willing to make peace, Sigismund had concluded a treaty with him already. By its terms Ostoja recognised Hungarian supremacy over Bosnia, and agreed to renew all the privileges of the Ragusans, and restore all the territory taken save the Primorije or coast-land. This did not satisfy the Republic, and Hrvoje was still more annoyed as it upset all his ambitious schemes. So he concluded an alliance with Ragusa against Ostoja, with the object of deposing him and placing Paul Radissić on the Bosnian throne. Hrvoje was to lead an army of Dalmatians and Bosnian malcontents up the Narenta valley, while Ragusa was to cut off Ostoja’s supplies and intrigue against him at the Hungarian court. Sigismund, however, supported Ostoja, and when the latter was besieged in his castle of Bobovac by Hrvoje he sent a force to his assistance under the Banus of Mačva[344] (Sigismund’s lieutenant in northern Bosnia), and gained back all his territory for him. But he did not forget his faithful Ragusans, and not only induced Ostoja to renew their privileges, but requested him to restore them the coast between the Ombla and Stagno.[345] After long negotiations the Diet or “Congregation” of Bosnian magnates met at Visoki in April,[346] and Ostoja brought Ragusa’s claim before it, but no decision was arrived at. After further useless negotiations the Ragusans again allied themselves with Hrvoje and the Bosnian rebels, including this time Sandalj Hranić and Paul Radinović. A second conference of nobles was summoned, and Ostoja was deposed. Stephen Tvrtko II., son of Stephen Tvrtko I., was elected king, and Ostoja retired to Bobovac, now occupied by a Hungarian garrison. The new king owed his position to Hrvoje and Sandalj, who were the real masters of the country, and Ragusa applied to them to obtain a lasting peace with Bosnia. “For what you desire,” wrote the Rector to Sandalj, “that also the lord King Tvrtko and the Duke (Hrvoje) and all Bosnia desire too, for God has granted you the favour that this should be so.”[347] Eventually Tvrtko gave them back all the territory that had been theirs and some more lands besides. The Republic made him and his brothers, as well as Sandalj, citizens of Ragusa, and gave them palaces in the town.
The loyalty of the Ragusans to Hungary was sorely tried this same year, for Sigismund prepared to make war on Tvrtko as a usurper and reinstate Ostoja as the rightful king. They would not side openly with Tvrtko against this suzerain, but they did not wish to lose the valuable and hardly won favours of Bosnia; they therefore placed their arsenals at the disposal of Tvrtko’s agents, who bought large supplies of arms for the war.[348] Sigismund sent three armies into Bosnia—one under the Banus of Mačva by way of Usora, a second under Paul, Banus of Croatia, up the Una valley towards Bihać, and a third to guard the Bosnian-Slavonian frontier under Peter of Perén. Ladislas lent his fleet to Hrvoje to keep watch at Arbe and attack Sigismund’s forces if they should invade the littoral. But after a few ephemeral successes the Hungarians were defeated at all points, and Tvrtko’s position was thereby considerably strengthened. Ostoja, fearing for his life, asked for a safe conduct to Ragusa in April 1407, and the Senate, much to his surprise, granted it, forgiving him all his former hostility, “for any man who from Bosnia or from the land of any other lord takes refuge in our city, according to the law, may enter freely and live here undisturbed.” But after all he did not avail himself of the permit, either because he mistrusted the Ragusans, or because he still hoped to regain his throne. While Tvrtko was trying to win Cattaro and Budua from the Balšas, Sigismund was preparing his revenge, and in 1408 invaded Bosnia with a large army, defeated the usurper and captured him, together with a large number of magnates, of whom 126 were beheaded at Dobor. Ostoja was replaced on the throne, and Sigismund retired to Buda with Tvrtko in his train.
We must now return to Ragusa’s relations with the Balšas. When George II. died in 1403 he was succeeded by his son, who styled himself Balša III. The Zedda was now surrounded by jealous rivals; the Turks claimed tribute, Venice wished to establish posts in the country against them, and various native princelings aspired to enlarge their estates. Ragusa being at war with Bosnia, allied herself with the lords of Njegoš (the nucleus of modern Montenegro) and with Cattaro, and tried to conciliate Venice. Balša determined to oust the Venetians from Albania, and invited the Turks to help him to capture Drivasto and Scutari. Thus Ragusa and he were in opposite camps. Drivasto fell, and so did the town of Scutari, but the castle held out (1404). With the help of Sandalj Hranič and the Albanian magnates Venice soon recovered all that she had lost, and by June, 1407, Balša and his ambitious mother Helena had to sue for peace and give way on all points. Balša, however, did not carry out his engagements, and Venice resorted to the threat of calling in the help of Bayazet to force him to do so (January, 1409); in June of the same year the Venetian fleet sailed down the Adriatic and put in at Ragusa, where the Capitano in Golfo met the envoy of Sandalj.[349] Balša, being now thoroughly frightened, went to Venice with his mother and signed a further agreement. But in 1410 he again raided the Venetian possessions and attacked Scutari with a large force. Benedetto Contarini defended the town with great skill, and received much assistance from a Ragusan flotilla operating on the lake.[350] Balša having also threatened Cattaro, that town offered itself to the Venetians, who were ready to occupy it; but now Sandalj came forward with his claims on it, which caused further complications. Ragusa, although allied to Venice, tried to better her relations with Balša on account of her Albanian trade. But this ambiguous attitude was not quite successful, and Ragusan merchants ended by suffering molestations both from the Venetians and from Balša’s subjects. In 1412 peace was concluded, and Balša restored everything.
Once the danger from Balša was passed Ragusan hostility against Venice revived again, and the Senate wrote to protest against Venetian depredations in Albanian and Sicilian waters. The Republic still desired the supremacy of Hungary in the Adriatic, and although that cause was lost, it tried to bolster it up by inducing Cattaro to return to Hungarian allegiance. This attempt was made, however, more with the object of injuring Venice than with any hope of benefiting Hungary. Ragusa also contracted an alliance with Balša and with Sandalj, who had married Balša’s mother, and was meditating a coup on Cattaro. But the Cattarini succeeded in inducing Ragusa to mediate between them and Sandalj, and even to provide them with a large loan with which to arm the whole population of the Bocche. The maze of intrigue and counter-intrigue between Venice, Hungary, Ragusa, Bosnia, and the various Slave and Albanian princes now becomes hopelessly involved, and no man trusted any other. Ragusa’s policy is well explained in a despatch,[351] in which it is stated that the Republic “had to be on good terms with these lords of Slavonia, for every day our merchants and our goods pass through their hands and their territory, and we fear lest they (the merchants) should suffer injury.” But when Balša demanded a number of Ragusan shipbuilders to repair his vessels for operations against Venice the Senate refused, fearing to incur the latter’s displeasure.
The protection and promotion of trade was the keynote of Ragusan policy, and everything was done with that end in view. In the meanwhile the Senate acquired much knowledge concerning the affairs of Italy and of the East from the Ragusan traders, and communicated the information to Sigismund. Thus the latter learned about the advance of the Turks in Bosnia at the instigation of Vuk, the son of Knez Lazar, who wished to get possession of his brother’s principality. Ladislas continued to send piratical fleets to Dalmatia, which did much damage to Ragusan commerce. But the Ragusans revenged themselves by relieving Curzola, which was attacked by the Apulian fleet. “With the favour of St. Blaize we shot so many arrows and javelins against the enemy, and did their ships so much damage with our bombards, that many of their men were killed or wounded. They abandoned much property and arms, and not only desisted from the siege, but abandoned these parts altogether.”[352] This same year (1409) the Venetians began to re-establish their rule over Dalmatia, and obtained Zara from Ladislas. This caused an outbreak of hostilities between them and Sigismund, who regarded Dalmatia as an integral part of his dominions. While the two Powers were fighting the common enemy was advancing, and in 1411 a Ragusan despatch announces that the Turks had taken and burnt Srebrnica. In 1413 negotiations were opened between Hungary and Venice, in which Ragusa took part, and while Sigismund agreed to give up the greater part of Dalmatia, Ragusa asked for and obtained the lease of the three coveted islands of Lesina, Curzola, and Brazza, which had been withdrawn from Hrvoje’s rule.[353] The Ragusans had hoped to obtain full ownership, but even the lease was a great point gained, and the Republic thought that it would eventually become vested into absolute possession. The islanders, however, were not well disposed towards their new masters, and were only cowed into submission by a naval demonstration. A count was appointed for each island, to remain in office for six months, with a salary of which Ragusa was to pay one-third and the islanders the remainder.[354] This acquisition might have been the beginning of great things for the Republic had its policy been a little less narrowly provincial and nervous. Its territory was now fairly large, its commerce and finances flourishing, and with its intimate connection with the dying kingdom of Bosnia it might have extended its influence far into the hinterland, establishing a strong Latin-Slavonic State as a bulwark against the advancing Turks. Ragusa was also trying to get possession of another part of Canali and Dračevica from Sandlaj Hranić, but the latter would not give it up, because “if he were hard pressed by the Turks he would have no other means of escaping to the sea,” and also because Dračevica was the best position for dominating Cattaro,[355] which he had now forced to pay him tribute. The Venetians, Sandalj, and Balša were now all suffering from the Turkish obsession. The enemy’s headquarters were at Üsküb, whence many raids into Bosnia and Albania were made. In 1415 the Turks invaded Bosnia for the third time, and raiding parties came as far as Sebenico and Almissa, so that the Ragusan Senate ordered the islanders to arm light galleys to co-operate with those of Ragusa and Stagno. The ridges dividing the hinterland from the sea were anxiously watched, and every moment it was feared that the dreaded turbans might appear over the crest. In 1416 Sigismund announced to Ragusa his intention of making war on a grand scale against the Turks, and declared that the property of all those who helped them should be confiscated. As the Despot of Servia, Sandalj Hranić, and almost every other Slavonic prince were more or less tributaries to the Sultan, this seems rather a sweeping order. In the same letter he declared that the three islands were withdrawn from Ragusan suzerainty and were to be given over to one Ladislas Jakez, a favourite of the Empress Barbara (September 21-23, 1416). No reason is assigned for the withdrawal of the concession, but it was probably due to the somewhat high-handed manner with which the Republic had governed its new possessions. Curiously enough, the Senate did not seem very unwilling to lose them.
TERRACE OF THE FRANCISCAN MONASTERY WITH THE TORRE MENZE IN THE BACKGROUND
There were now fresh disturbances in Bosnia, and Tvrtko, who had been deposed in favour of Ostoja, was causing trouble. He raised a band of rebels, with which he defeated his adversaries and obliged some of them to take refuge in Ragusan territory. Of this hospitality Tvrtko, as an old friend of the Republic, complained, but the citizens replied that it was better for malcontents to fly to Ragusa, where they usually ended by making peace with their king, than to other lands. For a few months Tvrtko was quite powerful, but soon after he was again defeated. Hrvoje, who had been deprived of his duchy, now called in the Turks to aid him against Hungary and Bosnia, and the Sultan Mohammed I. thereupon sent a force into the latter country, which defeated the Hungarians near Usora, and obtained much booty. As soon as it had retired civil strife broke out again, in consequence of the murder by Ostoja of Paul Radinović, a powerful Bosnian noble. Hrvoje died in March 1416, and in October a Ragusan despatch declared that “the whole of Bosnia is laid waste, and the barons are preparing to exterminate each other.” The rebel magnates met in a Diet, and forced Ostoja to fly to Hlum, where he succeeded in establishing a precarious rule, but after the year 1418 nothing more is heard of him. The magnates elected his son, Stephen Ostojić, as King, and Ragusa at once sent an embassy to try to obtain from him the rest of Canali, of which a part had been given by Sandalj and a part by Paul Paulović. This request Ostojić granted, and in exchange for a yearly tribute of 500 ipperperi promised to protect the city. Sandalj and Paulović still retained a part of that territory, but on Paulović’s death in 1419 Sandalj sold all his remaining share to the Republic for 18,000 ducats, and included that of Paulović. The latter’s son, Radosav, protested, and induced the Canalesi to revolt. He too asked for Turkish help, for, as Resti says, “he had begun after the example of the other Slave princes to nourish in his breast the viper that was to devour them all.” He continued to disturb Ragusa for years to come.
Between 1417 and 1421 Balša had been at war with most of his neighbours, including Venice and Ragusa, but in this last year his stormy life came to an end, and with him the house of Balša died out, for he left no sons. Stephen, the Despot of Servia, Sandalj Hranić, and a native prince named Stephen Maramonte, laid claim to his estates, but Venice obtained the lion’s share, as Drivasto, Dulcigno, and Antivari surrendered spontaneously to the Republic. Thus disappeared the principality of the Zedda.
With the year 1420 opens a new epoch in the history of Dalmatia, for it marks the final reconquest of the country by Venice and the withdrawal of Hungary from the Adriatic. In 1409 the great Republic had, as we have seen, reoccupied Zara, and in 1412 Sebenico. She seized the opportunity of Sigismund’s being engaged in the Hussite war in 1420 to seize Lesina, Brazza, Curzola, and Almissa. Traù, defended by a strong Hungarian garrison, held out for a little while, but ended by surrendering too. Spalato fell next, and Cattaro, after having for some time owed allegiance to Sandalj Hranić, now spontaneously surrendered to the Venetians, who took possession on March 8. Thus they regained the whole of Dalmatia, including the Croatian towns of Novigrad, Nona, and Vrana. Ragusa alone remained outside their sphere, but according to Resti they meditated a coup de main even on the town, and had actually prepared an expedition for the purpose; the plot, however, was disclosed by a Venetian Senator to a Ragusan who had lived twenty-seven years in Venice and was regarded as almost a Venetian. But he had not forgotten his duty towards his native city, and hastened to inform the Ragusan Government. The town was immediately put in a state of defence, so that when the Venetian squadron arrived it saw that a surprise was out of the question, and gave up the idea. This story, like every other statement of Resti’s, is doubtful; but according to Lucio there actually were hostilities between the two Republics at the time, nor is it unlikely that Venice may have meditated uniting her Dalmatian possessions by occupying Ragusa.