CHAPTER IX
TRADE AND INTERNAL CONDITIONS DURING THE HUNGARIAN PERIOD
IN spite of Ottoman raids, piracy, plagues, and earthquakes, the Republic prospered exceedingly in every direction. According to Palladius Fuscus, there were three hundred Ragusan merchantmen on the sea, visiting every port. Ragusa was the starting-point for journeys into Turkey, and the ambassadors of foreign Powers passed through the city on their way to Constantinople. Its traders were to be found in every part of the Mediterranean. At the end of the period of Venetian domination, in 1358, we have seen that “marineritia Rhacusii erat amissa.” But after the proclamation of independence it revived and increased to a far greater degree than ever before, and to this the permission granted by the Popes to trade with the Infidel contributed not a little. In 1434 the Bull Cœna Domini, based on the decrees of the Council of Bâle, was issued as follows:—
“To the city of Ragusa, situated on a hard rock, on the coast of the sea and therefore exposed to its ire, and in a most sterile land, wholly devoted to the Church of Rome and ever obedient to her, constantly faithful to the King of Hungary ... is granted permission to navigate with its ships even unto the Holy Land and to the ports of the Infidel, for the purpose of conveying pilgrims thither, and of trading; to maintain consuls, erect churches, and establish cemeteries in those countries.” That Ragusan trade extended as far as England is proved by the letter of Barbarigo, the Venetian ambassador to the Porte, who in 1513 passed through the city on his way to Constantinople. He wrote that in the harbour was a ship which “had come from England laden with 9000 pieces of cloth worth 85,000 ducats, besides tin and various kinds of stuff valued at 13,000 ducats, all belonging to Ragusans; and to-day, the third day, another ship of 5000 botti has departed laden with silks and Zambeloti worth 100,000 ducats, besides 12,000 ducats’ worth of gropi, all belonging to Ragusans and Florentines.” He adds that the wealth of Ragusa was very great and incredible.[436] In 1526 Clement VII. addressed a Brief to the Chancellor and Councillors of the Duchy of Brittany, who had seized a Ragusan ship coming from England laden with English goods, believing it to be English property.[437] Part of the cargo was recovered, but the loss amounted to 70,000 ducats, which caused a number of bankruptcies at Ragusa.[438]
Ragusan trade with the Greeks continued down to the fall of the last Greek despotates in the Morea. In June 1451, only two months before the capture of Constantinople by the Turks, the Republic received a Golden Bull from the Emperor Constantine Palæologus, decreeing that the Ragusans in the capital might build themselves a church and an official residence for the consul whom they elected; if a Greek claimed a debt of a Ragusan he was to appeal to the latter’s consul, while in the inverse case the Ragusan would appeal to the local authorities; Ragusan merchants might import and export goods free of duty save for a 2½ per cent. tax on the sale of imports; there was to be no limit to the number of Ragusans residing at Constantinople; if a Ragusan left the city owing money to natives, none of his compatriots might be arrested in his place. The same year two Silver Bulls of a similar character were issued to the Ragusans by Thomas Palæologus, Despot of Achaia, at Misithia, and by his brother Demetrius, Despot of the Peloponnesus, at Chiarenza. The treaties were negotiated by Volzo Bobali, who in 1451 made a journey through the remnants of the Greek Empire to improve commercial relations with his own city; but they were merely the renewal of old-established connections, for since the fourteenth century Ragusan traders had brought the famed silks of Chiarenza to Ancona[439] and Italy. In the treaty with Ancona of 1372 allusion is made to the Ragusan trade in spices, sugar, and silks from Tartary and “Gazaria,” which shows the wide extent of the city’s sea-borne trade.
At the same time, as we have seen, the Republic’s relations with the Turks and the Egyptians were by no means unfriendly, and every opportunity was seized to ensure a good understanding with the Court of Brusa and afterwards of Adrianople. The Turkish trade was chiefly carried overland, especially after the establishment of the Ottomans in Europe, and Ragusa’s friendly relations with the Slave princes gave her easy access to the Balkan trade-routes, and therefore an advantage over her Italian rivals. After the conquest of the Slave States by the Turks the Ragusans were granted the fullest privileges, although they were liable as before to attacks from brigands and arbitrary impositions on the part of the Pashas and Sandjakbegs. Some of their old settlements in the Balkans were destroyed, but others arose in their place. Of the older towns, only Belgrad maintained its former importance under the new rulers. But now Vrnbosna (Sarajevo, Bosna Serai in Turkish) arose, founded, it is said, before the invasion by Ragusan merchants. Instead of Novobrdo we find Novibazar and Prokopje (Prokuplje), Skoplje (Üsküb), Sofia, Travnik, and Mostar. In all these towns there were wealthy Ragusan colonies, each with its church and its consul. Some were found even at the mouths of the Danube.[440] The inland trade in Turkish times was carried on by caravan as before, and along the same routes. Turkish guard-houses were only two miles from the town, but the traffic became more active in the sixteenth century than it had ever been previously. Benedetto Ramberti, Venetian ambassador to the Porte, gives an interesting account of the journey from Venice to Constantinople via Ragusa in his Libri Tre delle Cose dei Turchi.[441] He took exactly one month to go from Venice to Ragusa, owing to the bora and the scirocco, which drove the ship back continually and forced her to remain in various ports for several days at a time. From Ragusa it took him thirty-four days to reach the Turkish capital, by the following stages:—
February 8th.—From Ragusa to Trebinje, 16 miles, by “a very bad and dangerous road, over steep and precipitous mountains, which we had to ascend more on foot than on horseback.... All this country formerly belonged to the Duke Stephen Herzeg, father of the young Herzeg who is now in Venice; it has become quite Turkish, and is under the Sandjak of the Duchy.”
February 10th.—Reached Rudine, 20 miles, passing by the castle of Cluaz (or Klobuk), then partly in ruins. On the 11th Curita (Korito) was reached, 28 miles, and on the 12th he passed Cervice (Cernica) and then on to Verba, 25 miles.
February 13th.—Priedio, 24 miles. “We passed through a mountainous gorge, on each side of which is a small castle, one of them in ruins, the other still in good repair, called Vratar.[442] Here Duke Stephen kept a guard-house, where all travellers had to pay a toll. The castles are built into the living rock; they are reached by a road by which only one person at a time can pass, and could easily be defended by twenty men against a whole army.”
February 14th.—Orach, 28 miles, passing through Cozza (Foča), “a large settlement with good houses in the Turkish style, many shops and merchants. Here resides the Sandjak of the Duchy, who has all Servia under his authority. By this spot all goods going from Ragusa to Constantinople must pass, as also those from Constantinople to Ragusa. No horse worth over 1000 aspers (20 ducats) is allowed to cross the river, but if any traveller brings one he must either spend more in bribes than the horse itself is worth, or sell it for what it will fetch.”