[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]
PROSPERITY AND POLITICAL REFORMS
[1198-1202 A.D.]
The settlement of the Venetian constitution prepared the republic for her brilliant career of commercial and political grandeur; and a new source of wealth and power had meanwhile been unfolding itself in her cupidity and ambition. No circumstance contributed more effectually to her subsequent prosperity than the religious wars of the Europeans for the recovery of the Holy Land from the Mohammedan infidels.