Dalmatian city-states were the Dalmatian localities where the local Romance population survived the Barbarian invasions after the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 400s CE. Eight little cities were created by indigenous inhabitants who maintained political links with the Eastern Roman Empire which defended these cities, enabling their commercial trade.[1]
The original names of these cities were Jadera, Spalatum, Crespa, Arba, Tragurium, Vecla, Ragusium, and Cattarum. The language and the laws were initially Latin, but after a few centuries, they developed their own Neo-Latin language, Dalmatian, which survived into the 19th century. The cities were maritime centers with important commerce links, mainly with the Italian peninsula and with the rising Republic of Venice.
Later were added other cities in north-central Dalmatia, like Sebenicum (now Šibenik), Flumen (now Rijeka), and Pagus (now Pag). According to Kingsley Garland Jayne:
The great Slavonic migration into Illyria, which wrought a complete change in the fortunes of Dalmatia, took place in the first half of the 7th century. In other parts of the Balkan Peninsula these invaders—Serbs, Croats or Bulgars—found little difficulty in expelling or absorbing the native population. But here they were baffled when confronted by the powerful maritime city-states, highly civilized, and able to rely on the moral if not the material support of their kinsfolk in Italy. Consequently, while the country districts were settled by the Slavs, the Latin or Italian population flocked for safety to Ragusa, Zara and other large towns, and the whole country was thus divided between two frequently hostile communities. This opposition was intensified by the schism between Eastern and Western Christianity (1054), the Slavs as a rule preferring the Orthodox or sometimes the Bogomil creed, while the Italians were firmly attached to the Papacy. Not until the 15th century did the rival races contribute to a common civilization in the literature of Ragusa. To such a division of population may be attributed the two dominant characteristics of local history—the total absence of national as distinguished from civic life, and the remarkable development of art, science and literature. Bosnia, Servia and Bulgaria had each its period of national greatness, but remained intellectually backward; Dalmatia failed ever to attain political or racial unity, but the Dalmatian city-states, isolated and compelled to look to Italy for support, shared perforce in the march of Italian civilization. Their geographical position suffices to explain the relatively small influence exercised by Byzantine culture throughout the six centuries (535–1102) during which Dalmatia was part of the Eastern empire. Towards the close of this period Byzantine rule tended more and more to become merely nominal.[3]
Indeed, in the Early Medieval period, Byzantine Dalmatia was ravaged by an Avar-Slavic invasion (more specifically the Croats per Thomas the Archdeacon[4]) that destroyed its capital, Salona, in 639 AD. This event allowed for the settlement of the nearby Diocletian's Palace in Spalatum by Salonitans, greatly increasing the importance of the city, followed by South Slavic settlement in the hinterland.[5]
The Slavs, loosely allied with the Avars, permanently settled the region in the first half of the 7th century AD and remained its predominant ethnic group ever since. The Croats soon formed their own realm: the Principality of Dalmatian Croatia which in 925 became Kingdom of Croatia. The meaning of the geographical term "Dalmatia" now shrunk to the cities and their immediate hinterland. These cities and towns remained influential as they were well-fortified and maintained their connection with the Byzantine Empire. Since the time of duke Branimir of Croatia, Venetians had to pay taxes to Croatia and to the Narentines for their ships traveling along the eastern Adriatic coast, while the Dalmatian city-states paid 710 ducats of tribute to the Croatian ruler.[6][7][8]
The two communities were somewhat hostile at first, but as the Croats became Christianized, this tension gradually subsided. A degree of cultural mingling soon took place, in some enclaves stronger, in others weaker, as Slavic influence and culture were more accentuated in Ragusium and Cattarum while the influence from the Italian peninsula was stronger in the northern Dalmatia islands and in Jadera and Spalatum. According to the analysis of the anthroponyms of the Dalmatian city-states Split and Trogir in the 11th century, it is estimated that 25% of upper class and 50% of citizens of Split had Slavic/Slavicized names, while both in Trogir were predominantly Slavic/Slavicized.[9]
Around 950 AD, as the Dalmatian city-states gradually lost all protection by Byzantium, being unable to unite in a defensive league hindered by their internal dissensions, they had to turn to Venice for support. Each of the Dalmatian city-states needed protection (even from piracy), based mostly on economic reasons. In the year 1000 AD, an expedition of Venetian ships in coastal Istria and Dalmatia secured the Venetian suzerainty in the area, and the Narentines (Slav) pirates were suppressed permanently. On the occasion, Doge Orseolo named himself "Duke of Dalmatia", starting the colonial Empire of Venice. Croatia again had a period of control over the theme and Dalmatian city-states under Peter Krešimir IV by 1069, but during the 1074 invasion of the Normans he died in February 1075 the Venetians banished the Normans and secured the Dalmatian cities for themselves. The doge Domenico Selvo self-titled himself as the doge of "Venice, Dalmatia and Croatia" (later only of "Dalmatia"), but did not have nominal power over Dalmatia and Croatia. In October 1075 was crowned Demetrius Zvonimir as the king of "Croatia and Dalmatia" by the Holy See and his power was felt even on the island of Krk and Cres. His death in 1089 caused succession crisis in Croatia and Dalmatia, but although doge Vitale I Michiel made with Coloman, King of Hungary agreement of 1098—the so-called Conventio Amicitiae—determined the spheres of interest of each party by allotting the coastal regions of Croatia to Hungary and Dalmatia to the Republic of Venice, Coloman in 1105 successfully conquered coastal cities of Dalmatia.[10][11]
The Venetians, to whom the Dalmatians were already bound by language and culture, could afford to concede liberal terms as its main goal was to prevent the development of any dangerous political or commercial competitor on the eastern Adriatic. The seafaring community in Dalmatia looked to Venice as the new "queen" of the Adriatic Sea. In return for protection, these eight Neo-Latin cities often furnished a contingent to the army or navy of their suzerain, and sometimes paid tribute either in money or in kind. Arbe (now Rab), for example, annually paid ten pounds of silk or five pounds of gold to Venice. The Dalmatian cities might elect their own chief magistrate, bishop, and judges; their Roman law remained valid, and they were even permitted to conclude separate alliances.
In these centuries, the Dalmatian language started to disappear, assimilated by the Venetian language. Dalmatian was spoken on the Dalmatian coast from Flumen (now Rijeka) as far south as Cottorum (Kotor) in Montenegro. Speakers lived mainly in the coastal towns of Jadera (Zadar), Tragurium (Trogir), Spalatum[12] (Split), Ragusium (Dubrovnik), and also on the islands of Curicta (Krk), Crepsa (Cres), and Arba (Rab). Almost every city developed its own dialect, but the most important dialects now known were Vegliot, a northern dialect spoken on the island of Curicta, and Ragusan, a southern dialect spoken in and around Ragusa (Dubrovnik).
The cities of Jadera, Spalatum, Tragurium, and Ragusium and the surrounding territories each changed hands several times between Venice, Hungary, and Byzantium during the 12th century. In 1202, the armies of the Fourth Crusade rendered assistance to Venice by occupying Jadera, which started to be officially called Zara. In 1204, the same army conquered Byzantium and finally eliminated the Eastern Empire from the list of contenders on the Dalmatian territory.
The late 13th century was marked by a decline in external hostilities. The Dalmatian cities started accepting complete foreign sovereignty, mainly that of the Republic of Venice. The only exception was Ragusium, which remained independent creating the Republic of Ragusa, which later ended in 1808 after the Napoleon conquest.
From 1420 started the Venetian domination of the other seven of the original Dalmatian city-states, which were fully integrated with the Venetian (and Italian) society of the Italian Renaissance. Zara become the capital of Venetian Dalmatia—as part of the Stato da Mar—until the end of the Republic of Venice (1797). In the next centuries, the city was the main center of the Dalmatian Italians.
The last speaker of any Dalmatian dialect of the Dalmatian city-states was Tuone Udaina (Italian: Antonio Udina), who was accidentally killed in an explosion on June 10, 1898, on the island of Veglia (now Krk).[13] With him disappeared the last vestige of the Dalmatian Neo-Latin cities.[14] His language[15] was studied by the scholar Matteo Bartoli, himself a native of nearby Istria, who visited Udaina in 1897 and wrote down approximately 2,800 words, stories, and accounts of his life. These were published in a book which has since provided much information on the vocabulary, phonology, and grammar of the language. Bartoli wrote in Italian and published a translation in German (Das Dalmatische) in 1906; this book is considered the first on ethnic minority disappearance in world literature.
Dalmatian Pale
The boundaries of the eight original Dalmatian city-states were defined by the so-called Dalmatian Pale, the boundary of Roman local laws.[citation needed]
Historian Johannes Lucius included Flumen (now Rijeka) and Sebenico (now Šibenik) after the year 1000, when Venice started to take control of the region, in the Dalmatian Pale.[citation needed]
Indeed, Flumen was the former Roman Tarsatica: a small, fortified city under the Italian Aquileia (and Pola) bishops, enclosed within the town walls which had several defense towers. The town, called Flumen, was granted autonomy in the 11th century by the bishop and was divided into two parts: in the upper part was the medieval Trsat Castle (formerly a Roman fort) and the church of St. Vitus (thus the name 'Flumen Sancti Viti'), while in the lower part (the popular[specify]) there was a commercial and trading center where many Italian merchants settled around the year 1000.
Furthermore, about Sebenico, Thomas Jackson[18] wrote that:
In 1167 Stephen III raised Sebenico to the rank of a 'free city' conferring on it a charter and privileges similar to those enjoyed by the old Dalmatian cities of Trau and Spalato, and from that time forward Sebenico must be reckoned as within the 'Dalmatian Pale', though a Croatian town by descent and tradition. Lucio says the Sebenzani were some time in learning to wear their new privileges easily; accustomed for so long to be governed despotically, they accommodated themselves with difficulty to the Dalmatian (Latin) laws; they had Counts appointed for life, and not for a short term like the other cities, who were with difficulty restrained from their old habits of piracy, and they were more exposed than the other cities to the arbitrary interference of the Ban. Gradually however the Sebenzani became Latinized, and in later ages, the city was described by Fortis as next to Zara the best built-in Dalmatia, and inhabited by the greatest number of noble families, as far removed from the barbarous manners of ancient pirates as their houses are unlike the former cottages or sibice; and the same writer tells us that in the sixteenth century the arts and sciences flourished in this city more than in any other of Dalmatia.
Lucius wrote even that Pagus (the Venetian Pago, now called Pag) had municipal autonomy and was virtually independent for centuries around the year 1000. In 1244, the Hungarian King Béla IV named it a "free royal city" and in 1376, Louis I of Hungary granted it autonomy. In 1409, Pago, together with the whole island, passed permanently to the Republic of Venice and reconfirmed their communal autonomy guaranteed by a board of 50 civic local aristocratic families (this board was created in 1451).[clarification needed]
Dalmatia is one of the four historical regions of Croatia, alongside Central Croatia, Slavonia and Istria, located on the east shore of the Adriatic Sea in Croatia.
Zadar, historically known as Zara, is the oldest continuously inhabited city in Croatia. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea, at the northwestern part of Ravni Kotari region. Zadar serves as the seat of Zadar County and of the wider northern Dalmatian region. The city proper covers 25 km2 (9.7 sq mi) with a population of 75,082 in 2011, making it the second-largest city of the region of Dalmatia and the fifth-largest city in the country.
Trogir is a historic town and harbour on the Adriatic coast in Split-Dalmatia County, Croatia, with a population of 10,923 (2011) and a total municipal population of 13,192 (2011). The historic city of Trogir is situated on a small island between the Croatian mainland and the island of Čiovo. It lies 27 kilometres west of the city of Split.
Krk is a Croatian island in the northern Adriatic Sea, located near Rijeka in the Bay of Kvarner and part of Primorje-Gorski Kotar county. Krk is tied with Cres as the largest Adriatic island, depending on the methodology used to measure the coastline. Krk is the most populous island in the Adriatic, with multiple towns and villages that contain a total of 19,916 (2021) inhabitants.
Morlachs has been an exonym used for a rural Christian community in Herzegovina, Lika and the Dalmatian Hinterland. The term was initially used for a bilingual Vlach pastoralist community in the mountains of Croatia from the second half of the 14th until the early 16th century. Then, when the community straddled the Venetian–Ottoman border until in the 17th century, it referred only to Slavic-speaking, mainly Eastern Orthodox but also Roman Catholic people. The Vlach, i.e., Morlach, population of Herzegovina and Dalmatian hinterland from the Venetian and Turkish side were of either Roman Catholic or Christian Orthodox faith. Venetian sources from 17th and 18th centuries make no distinction between Orthodox and Catholics, they refer to both groupings as Morlachs. The exonym ceased to be used in an ethnic sense by the end of the 18th century, and came to be viewed as derogatory, but has been renewed as a social or cultural anthropological subject. As the nation-building of the 19th century proceeded, the Vlach/Morlach population residing with the Croats and Serbs of the Dalmatian Hinterland espoused either a Serb or Croat ethnic identity, but preserved some common sociocultural outlines.
The Kingdom of Dalmatia was a crown land of the Austrian Empire (1815–1867) and the Cisleithanian half of Austria-Hungary (1867–1918). It encompassed the entirety of the region of Dalmatia, with its capital at Zadar.
The History of Dalmatia concerns the history of the area that covers eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea and its inland regions, from the 2nd century BC up to the present day. The earliest mention of Dalmatia as a province came after its establishment as part of the Roman Empire. Dalmatia was ravaged by barbaric tribes in the beginning of the 4th century. Slavs settled in the area in the 6th century, the White Croats settled Dalmatia the following century.
Giorgio da Sebenico or Giorgio Orsini or Juraj Dalmatinac was a Venetian sculptor and architect from Dalmatia, who worked mainly in Sebenico, and in the city of Ancona, then a maritime republic.
The Treaty of Zadar, also known as the Treaty of Zara, was a peace treaty signed in Zadar, Dalmatia on February 18, 1358. Under the treaty, the Venetian Republic lost influence over its Dalmatian holdings in exchange for ending hostilities with Louis I of Hungary. Both had been contesting control of a series of territories along the eastern Adriatic coastline in what is now Croatia.
Dalmatian Italians are the historical Italian national minority living in the region of Dalmatia, now part of Croatia and Montenegro.
The Italian language is an official minority language in Croatia, with many schools and public announcements published in both languages. Croatia's proximity and cultural connections to Italy have led to a relatively large presence of Italians in Croatia. Italians were recognized as a state minority in the Croatian Constitution in two sections: Istrian Italians and Dalmatian Italians. Although only 0.43% of the total population is Italian by citizenship, many more are ethnically Italian and a large percentage of Croatians speak Italian, in addition to Croatian.
The Stato da Màr or Domini da Mar was the Republic of Venice's maritime and overseas possessions from around 1000 to 1797, including at various times parts of what are now Istria, Dalmatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece and notably the Ionian Islands, Peloponnese, Crete, Cyclades, Euboea, as well as Cyprus.
Angelo Antonio Frari was a Dalmatian Italian physician, who served as the municipal physician and the head of the lazaretto of Split, province of Spalato (1806–1821), the protomedicus, and the president of the Maritime Health Magistrate of Venice (1835–1843), famous epidemiologist and historian of medicine.
Istrian Italians are an ethnic group from the Adriatic region of Istria in modern northwestern Croatia and southwestern Slovenia. Istrian Italians descend from the original Latinized population of Roman Histria, from the Venetian-speaking settlers who colonized the region during the time of the Republic of Venice, and from the local Croatian people who culturally assimilated.
The Theme of Dalmatia was a Byzantine theme on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea in Southeastern Europe, headquartered at Jadera.
Italians of Croatia are an autochthonous historical national minority recognized by the Constitution of Croatia. As such, they elect a special representative to the Croatian Parliament. There is the Italian Union of Croatia and Slovenia, which is a Croatian-Slovenian joint organization with its main site in Rijeka, Croatia and its secondary site in Koper, Slovenia.
Italian irredentism in Dalmatia was the political movement supporting the unification to Italy, during the 19th and 20th centuries, of Adriatic Dalmatia.
Venetian Dalmatia refers to parts of Dalmatia under the rule of the Republic of Venice, mainly from the 15th to the 18th centuries. Dalmatia was first sold to Venice in 1409 but Venetian Dalmatia was not fully consolidated until 1420. It lasted until 1797, when the Republic of Venice fell to the forces of Napoleon Bonaparte and Habsburg Austria.
The city of Split was founded as the Greek colony of Aspálathos (Aσπάλαθος) in the 3rd or 2nd century BC. It became a prominent settlement around 650 CE when it succeeded the ancient capital of the Roman province of Dalmatia, Salona. After the Sack of Salona by the Avars and Slavs, the fortified Palace of Diocletian was settled by the Roman refugees. Split became a Byzantine city, to later gradually drift into the sphere of the Republic of Venice and the Kingdom of Croatia, with the Byzantines retaining nominal suzerainty. For much of the High and Late Middle Ages, Split enjoyed autonomy as a free city, caught in the middle of a struggle between Venice and the King of Hungary for control over the Dalmatian city-states.
The Croatian–Venetian wars were a series of periodical, punctuated medieval conflicts and naval campaigns waged for control of the northeastern coast of the Adriatic Sea between the city-state of Venice and the Principality of Croatia, at times allied with neighbouring territories – the Principality of the Narentines and Zahumlje in the south and Istrian peninsula in the north. First struggles occurred at the very beginning of the existence of two conflict parties, they intensified in the 9th century, lessened during the 10th century, but intensified again since the beginning of the 11th century.
↑ Jayne, Kingsley Garland (1911). "Dalmatia". In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol.07 (11thed.). Cambridge University Press. pp.772–776, see page 774, beginning at line nine. History – Dalmatia under Roman Rule, A.D. 9–1102 – The great Slavonic migration...
↑ Filipec, Krešimir (2020). Praishodište i/ili situacija: Slaveni i hrvati - do zauzimanja dove domovine. Zagreb: Centar za ranosrednjovjekovna istraživanja. ISBN978-953-57369-1-2.
↑ Curta Florin. "Southwestern Europe in the Middle Ages, 500-1250". Introduction
↑ Zekan, Mate (1990). Kralj Zvonimir - dokumenti i spomenici[King Zvonimir - Documents and Monuments] (in Croatian and English). Zagreb: Muzej hrvatskih arheoloških spomenika Split, arheološki muzej Zagreb. p.9–24.
↑ Colloquia Maruliana, Vol. 12 Travanj 2003. Zarko Muljacic — On the Dalmato-Romance in Marulić's Works (hrcak.srce.hr). Spalatum Romance (Spalatin) is studied by the author. Zarko Muljacic has set off in the only way possible, the indirect way of attempting to trace the secrets of its historical phonology by analysing any lexemes of possible Dalmato-Romance origin that have been preserved in Marulić's Croatian works.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
