This essay investigates the new tax on church institutions introduced by King Sigismund
after the defeat at Nicopolis. The purpose of the tax was to raise funds
for the war against Turks and it ...amounted to half of the Church income. There are
few surviving data about the tax and some may be found in the archival funds of
Zadar and Korčula. I use the extant information to reconstruct this tax, how it was
collected and difficulties that arose in the course of its collection. I will try to assess
its overall importance within the contemporary social context.
For historians, Sigismund’s decision to introduce a tax that would collect half of the
income of all the church institutions, in order to organize defence against Turks,
was just one of the many conclusions of the 1397 Assembly of Temesvár (Timişoara).
Yet the discovery of new archival data from Zadar and Korčula has made this
conclusion come alive. It became manifest that, for several years, church institutions
indeed had to part with half of their income, and that the king put considerable
effort into the tax and into setting up the administrative organization around it.
It is striking that, around the turn of the fifteenth century, another royal tax was
added to the salt tax and the tax of one-thirtieth. This information changes our
perspective of the royal rule in Croatia. Because this tax was paid by the Church,
it is also a contribution to the understanding of the church history in Croatian-
Hungarian Kingdom under Sigismund. From the social perspective, taking half of
the (considerable) income from all the church institutions is not a negligible fact
and it contributes to our understanding of the relationship between the king and
the Church. We may also accept the argument of János M. Bak that, from the perspective of the
early modern era, Sigismund’s daring encroachment upon the church property at
the end of the Middle Ages indicates the dawn of a new era. It is a predecessor to
all the taxes that later, in the sixteenth century, would be introduced to finance the
fight against Turks. So we could say that the knowledge of this tax has pushed the
onset of the anti-Turkish taxes backward, from the sixteenth to the late fourteenth
century.
This article analyzes an early fifteenth-century episode discussed in the synthesis
of the medieval history of Zadar by the author Vitalino Brunelli. To prove that a
strong pro-Venetian faction had ...existed in Zadar even before 1409, the goal of
which was to hand the town over to Venice, Brunelli created a persuasive picture
by skilfully combining extant data and falsifying annotations. This article relies on
the prosopographies of some of the individuals mentioned in the Brunelli story to
uncover tricks that the author used and to disprove the validity of his thesis.
Autor je istražio najranije spomene Vele Luke u zapisima Arhiva stare korčulanske komune koji se čuva u Državnom arhivu u Zadru. Poznata je činjenica da je Vela Luka kao zasebna administrativna ...cjelina formirana tek početkom 19. st, pa se postavljalo pitanje nije li to područje i ranije uživalo u barem donekle izdvojenom položaju unutar okruga sela Blata. Pregledom arhivalija konstatirano je da se je širi prostor Vele Luke vrlo rijetko spominjao i to isključivo kao toponim koji administrativno pripada Blatu. Najraniji spomen odnosi se na godinu 1375., a od tada do prvih desetljeća 15. st., Vela Luka i njoj pripadajući predjeli (Lučica, Žukova, Vela spila…), nekoliko danas neubiciranih položaja (Grubinjanine lazi, Vatasa laz, Jurja Veloevića las…), kao i otočići vezani uz zaljev, spominju se više puta, ali ne tako često kao ostali toponimi na zapadnom dijelu otoka. Posebnu vrijednost čine osobna imena vezana uz, najčešće, sudske isprave, pa su na taj način postala poznata najstarija velolučka imena.
The aim of this essay is to review the state of the historiography on the nobility of
Dalmatian medieval towns and to discuss the research paths that historians may
take, with respect to surviving ...primary sources. The scarcity of original documents
severely hinders the study of the first phase of the nobility development, with only
Zadar in possession of sources sufficient for the study of these developments. With
the arrival of the Árpáds and after the promises of King Koloman to the communes,
the situation changed. A new upper layer formed out of urban noble families. Named
‘patriciate’, it emerged on the top of the social hierarchy. Simultaneously, a new urban
structure developed and medieval towns became communes. The development
of the communal organization and of the upper social layers may be studied on the
examples of several Dalmatian towns: Zadar, Dubrovnik, Split and even Trogir. Yet
some towns lack preserved sources that would illuminate this period even for this
(late) period. By the fourteenth century, from which many more sources survived,
the process of the urban nobility development had finished. Noblemen then obtained
the honorary titles of ser and closed themselves from the rest of the citizenry into
greater councils.
The aim of this paper has been to assess the importance of salt as the object of the most lucrative trade for some noble kindreds and individuals in Zadar. It has been established that 99 persons ...from 37 noble kindreds of Zadar were in some way connected to salt, which has allowed us to create a link between the well-known significance of this industry for the nobility of Zadar and some specific kindreds and individuals. Based on the relationship between the number of salt plants and shares in salt trade, it has been established which persons among those who dealt with salt focused primarily on production or trade. It has also been established to which degree certain individuals or kindreds excelled in the trade, be it as owners of salt plants, producers, or merchants. Thus, the greatest owner of salt plants in Zadar was Marin Matafar and the most prominent merchant – Juraj Rosa. As for Koža Begna, one might say that his numerous salt plants made him the greatest salt producer, while his numerous sale contracts also show him as a prominent salt merchant. Besides these prominent examples, the article presents a whole series of other noblemen and noble kindreds whose share in this industry, regardless of whether they were involved in production or trade, was somewhat less important, as well as some of those who were not directly related to salt. In this way, the author has offered a whole series of prosopographic sketches of various noblemen with regard to salt, which makes it possible to create a rough pattern and profile of the average “salt nobleman” from Zadar: a nobleman who possessed a number of salt plants and most likely traded in his own salt as well. It has thus been possible to establish how many salt plants they possessed and to which extent they engaged in salt trade, as well as how much salt they were purchasing or selling. This article also seeks to establish some of the mechanisms of salt production and trade in the Zadar area. Salt trade has been analysed in special detail in order to draw conclusions about the way in which the local trade functioned, particularly regarding the fact that the quantities were mostly small, unlike the extensive salt trade in the wider region.The analysis has also established a range of property size in the industry. Thus, taking into account the hundred or more salt plants owned by large salt producers, owning less than a hundred salt plants may be considered as mid-range property, while less than thirty would be small property. The range of property has also been established for salt trade, whereby extensive trade would refer to one to ten millier and small one to several hundred modius.Defining the large, mid-range, and small salt producers or traders has allowed us to propose a stratigraphic model of Zadar’s nobility in salt industry and to make conclusions about the relationships between its various participants. It is evident that, among the 99 noblemen involved in salt industry, small entrepreneurs prevailed, since as many as 53 owned less than 30 salt plants. Only 16 of them owned between 30 and 100 salt plants, and only five of them owned more than a hundred. Moreover, as many as 25 were involved only in trade, which means that they did not possess any salt plants.The statistics regarding salt merchants are indicative as well. First of all, we have observed a large discrepancy between those who bought salt and those who sold it. Thus, among all those involved in salt industry (the aforesaid 99 noblemen), be it as producers or merely as merchants, only 32 bought a certain amount of salt in order to sell it, whereas as many as 67 of the involved never bought any salt. The data concerning salt sales offer a somewhat different picture. The largest group (as many as 26) sold less than one millier in total during their entire involvement with salt. Comparison with the owners of salt plants has shown that they were mostly small salt plant owners, who sold their own salt from year to year. Among them, 24 may be considered as mid-range salt merchants, with the total of sold salt ranging between one and five millier. The smallest group consists of large-scale merchants (only nine of them), who sold over five millier of salt during the entire period in which they traded in salt. As the table shows, some sold a considerably large amount – dozens of millier. Even though some facts could not be established for objective reasons, such as who sold his own salt and who traded in purchased salt, or the impossibility of statistically evaluating the quantity and fate of the produced salt, the sale of which was not documented, the established parameters help us get a general idea about the status of salt industry among the nobility of Zadar.This paper is intended to mark the beginning of an economic analysis of Zadar’s noble kindreds and individuals, with the final aim of establishing the power hierarchy in this leading stratum of Zadar’s society.
Rad analizira udio plemstva u proizvodnji i prodaji soli u Zadru u XIV. stoljeću. Utvrđen je položaj i broj solana pojedinih plemića te količina soli kojom se trgovalo. Načinjena je određena ...hijerarhija te je zaključeno tko su bili najveći i najvažniji solari među zadarskim plemstvom, koji su spadali u nešto manje, a koji u najmanje proizvođače odnosno trgovce solju. Utvrđen je način njihova funkcioniranja i na kraju je dan popis svih zadarskih plemića koji su se bavili solju, broj solana koje su posjedovali i količina soli kojom su trgovali.
Zadnja dva desetljeća XIV. i početak XV. st. vrijeme je velikih perturbacija u Hrvatsko-Ugarskom Kraljevstvu. To je razdoblje od smrti kralja Ludovika pa do potpadanja Dalmacije pod mletačku vlast. ...Na ovim prostorima središte tih događanja predstavlja Zadar koji odražava sve one složene tendencije koje potresaju Kraljevstvo. Jedan od karakterističnih likova koji su bili akteri svih tih zbivanja, pa stoga lijepo dočarava odnos svih tada relevantnih političkih silnica, jest zadarski plemić Damjan Nassi. No, on je samo jedan iz najužeg kruga gradskog vrha, izabran zbog šarolikosti građe koja ga spominje. Njegov curriculum vitae zrcali glavne točke u presjeku kroz vrijeme u kojem je živio, počevši od ranih dodira s Karlom Dračkim za njegova boravka u Zadru sedamdesetih godina XIV. st. i poslova s najvećim firentinskim trgovcem solju i novčarom Petrom Monetarom, preko brojnih veza s drugim dalmatinskim gradovima, posebno Dubrovnikom, te njegove vodeće uloge u pobiranju kraljevskog poreza tridesetine i soli za cijelu Dalmaciju do udjela u politici, najprije u gušenju paške pobune, a zatim na znamenitim saborima u Ninu 1396. i Kninu sljedeće godine te konfiskacije njegove kuće i posjeda u Zadru od kralja Ladislava, očito kao Sigismundovu čovjeku, i konačnog izgnanstva iz rodnoga grada.
Ovaj rad istražuje pojavu novoga poreza koji je kralj Sigismund uveo na crkvene institucije nakon poraza kod Nikopolja. Porez je namijenjen prikupljanju sredstava za borbu protiv Turaka i iznosio je ...polovicu crkvenih prihoda. O njemu ima iznimno malo sačuvanih podataka i to u arhivalijama Zadra i Korčule. Na temelju njih nastojalo se rekonstruirati funkcioniranje toga poreza, način njegova prikupljanja i poteškoće
koje su se oko toga pojavile te procijeniti njegovu važnost u cjelokupnome društvenom kontekstu.
Rad analizira jednu epizodu iz sinteze povijesti Zadra u srednjemu vijeku autora V. Brunellija s početka XV. stoljeća. Da bi dokazao da je u Zadru i prije 1409. godine postojala jaka promletačka ...struja koja je već tada pokušavala ovaj grad predati Veneciji, autor vrlo vješto - kombinirajući postojeće podatke i falsificirajući bilješke - uspijeva
stvoriti uvjerljivu sliku. Stoga je ovaj rad preko prosopografije pojedinih čimbenika koji se spominju u Brunellijevoj priči postupno razotkrio zakučice kojima se autor poslužio i dokazao lažnost njegove tvrdnje.
Autor ovim prilogom pokušava s jedne strane uputiti na dosadašnje spoznaje o dalmatinskom plemstvu, a s druge strane upozoriti na mogućnosti tih spoznaja i njihova ograničenja s obzirom na sačuvanost ...povijesnih izvora.
