Dalmatian city-states

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.

Dalmatia was inhabited by autochthonous Illyrian tribe Dalmatae since the Iron Age. The Roman–Dalmatae Wars lasted until 33 BC when Octavian installed Roman hegemony in Dalmatia. The defeat of the Great Illyrian Revolt began the integration of Dalmatia which in turn led to the romanization of the region by the early Middle Ages. Dalmatian language evolved from the vulgar Latin of the Illyro-Romans. After the fall of the Western Roman Empire, Dalmatia consisted of a group of coastal cities functioning much like city-states, with extensive autonomy, but without control of the rural hinterland controlled by the Slavic tribes who arrived after 640 AD.^[2] These city-states were characterized by common Latin laws, Catholic religion, language, commerce, and political and administrative structures.


The eight city-states were:


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:


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.