The administration of Dalmatia between the 12th and 14th centuries

Parallels and differences under Venetian and Hungarian rule

Abstract

The history of North and Middle Dalmatia, from the 12th to the 14th century, was basically, and the history of South Dalmatia was significantly dominated by the fight between Venice and the Hungarian Kingdom. Possession of Dalmatia was the basis of Venice’s power. This granted the constant rule over the Adriatic Sea, the wood needed for shipbuilding, and also the grain until the conquest of the Italian land (Terra ferma). The Hungarian Kingdom also had a great interest in the possession of the Dalmatian coast. It was impossible to reach the sea, to trade, start further conquests, and set on a fleet without it. Dalmatia had a special state operation in the Byzantine era and also in the Hungarian and Venetian era, which – although in many aspects differently – but the Kingdom and Venice took into account, preserved. In the 12th and 13th centuries the method of exercising power that determined the later ages, was practically established on both the Hungarian and Venetian sides, which from the Venetian side could rather be considered as power politics, and from the Kingdom’s side a soft method of power exercised by ensuring privileges and prerogatives. In the 14th century we witnessed changes not only from the Hungarian, but form the Venetian side as well, and the Kingdom’s methods of exercising power kept approaching the Venetian method. From the beginning of the 15th century rivalry ceased, Dalmatia became Venice’s for 400 years.