From: wickerhauser-victor@math.yale.edu (Victor Wickerhauser)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.croatia
Subject: Re: Povijest Hrvata (History of the Croats)
Date: 13 Dec 1992 02:02:59 -0500
Organization: Yale University Mathematics Dept., New Haven, CT 06520-2155
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: golem.math.yale.edu


More excerpts from "The Slavs in European History and Civilization" by
Francis Dvornik:


p.138: "The coastal cities were able to preserve their autonomous status
even through the period of Venetian occupation and under Croatian or
Hungarian supremacy.  They were usually governed by a chief known as
_comes, knez_, often nominated by the Venetians, who was assisted by a
vice-chief (_vicarius_) and by judges elected by the city assemblies.
Ragusa (Dubrovnik) had three kinds of council--a grand council, a
council of appeal similar to a senate, and a lesser council dealing
with the administration.  The cities has also preserved since the
Byzantine period their general assemblies of the whole population, but
these were falling into disuse toward the end of the fourteenth
century.  In Ragusa, for example, the functions of the assembly passed
to the grand council.
   "All these cities possessed their own statutes, based on based on
old traditions dating from the Roman and Byzantine perios but
supplemented with Slavic customary law and strongly influenced by
Italian and especially by Venetian juridical traditions.  The most
important is the Statute of Ragusa, the _liber statutorum civitatis
Ragusii, which dates from 1272 although it is only preserved in copies
of a later date.  Split (Spalato) also possessed its own statue,
dating from 1240, although only the Statute of 1312, which derives
from it, is preserved, showing a strong infiltration of Roman and
canon law besides the custom law.  It was re-edited and supplemented
in the second half of the fourteenth century.
   "The statute of Zara (Zadar) also dates from the beginning of the
fourteenth century.  It betrays some Italian influences, and one of
its books contains the maritime law of Zara.  The city of \v{S}ibenik
(Sebenico) also possessed an old statute, which is reflected in a
composition from between 1305 and 1322.  It was gradually added to
between the fourteenth and the sixteenth centuries.  This statue is
the more interesting in that it is largely of Slavic origin.  The city
of \v{S}ibenik was a Croatian settlement.  There also exist special
statutes of the Adriatic islands, especially those of Kor\v{c}ula
(Curzola), of Bra\'{c} (Brazza), of Hvar (Lesina), of Lastovo
(Lagosta), and of Mljet (Meleda).  These statutes have a more Slavic
aspet, and they contain laws and prescriptions concerning agriculture,
viticulture, and fishing.  The most ancient of these statutes is that
of Kor\v{c}ula, which already existed in part in 1214."

-- 
Prof. M. Victor Wickerhauser                      <victor@kirk.wustl.edu>
Department of Mathematics, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130 USA
Telephone:  USA(314)935-6771, USA(314)727-0749;     FAX: USA(314)727-4963
Sto se ljuckim trudom uzdignulo, Ljuckim znojem jopet se ponavlja. --Medo Pucic
Xref: sparky soc.culture.croatia:118 soc.culture.europe:10556 soc.culture.usa:9270