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relations in the peninsula. One consequence of the return of old
institutions and customs was
it took a very long time for the new Frankish order to establish itself. Mentions of tribuni,
locisalvatores and
vicarii in the oldest known private Istrian document, the will of a Triestine
nun named Maru (dated to 847), indicates the survival of the Byzantine administrative
structure into the Frankish period.
In the first phase of migration, around the end of the sixth century, Slavs only settled
in Istria as far as the large Karstic ridge just south of the Trieste-Rijeka road. Slavic, Avar, and
Lombard plundering of the peninsula during that period led the population to retreat behind
the walls of fortified towns and castles. Some areas were abandoned economically. The
curtain had been drawn on the wealth of the sixth century described by Cassiodorus in his
letters – praising a peninsula rich in wine, oil and grain, and relating that Istria was rightly
known as Ravennae Campania, in the sense that it was as important to the royal Ostrogoth
city of Ravenna as Campania had been to imperial Rome. When the Franks assumed control
of Istria at the end of the eighth century, Slavic immigration was strongly encouraged. For
economic and probably military reasons, Slavs were now arriving in numerous areas that had
only been extensively used since the beginning of the seventh century, to make better use of
them as arable land, and to increase the income that was partially destined for royal coffers.
These areas had once belonged to the towns (civitates), which were also bishops’ sees, as well
as to smaller castles (Lat. castella, Slav. kašteli), which, with their surrounding lands, created
the peninsula’s basic administrative network. This organisation in Late Antiquity and the
Early Middle Ages is vital to an understanding of Istrian history, even in later times: the
political border between Habsburg and Venetian Istria in the Late Middle Ages and the early
modern period followed the boundary between the two main forms of organisation in public
life and authority there, i.e. between the urban communes along the wider coastal belt, and the
seigneuries in the interior.
The Lombard occupation of the peninsula in the third quarter of the eighth century
meant that the Istrian bishops found themselves in a different state to their metropolitan
bishop, the patriarch in Byzantine Grado. The Lombards prevented the patriarch from
ordaining his Istrian suffragans. This led to the Istrian bishops ordaining each other and
existing for some time as an autocephalous church. The Lombard migration into Italy in 568
had already led to a division in the metropolitan province of the Patriarchate of Aquileia
between two states, Byzantine and Lombard. At that point, the patriarch of Aquileia, Paulinus
I, withdrew to the nearby lagoon castle of Grado, which remained in Byzantine hands. This
division between states led to the patriarchate splitting in 607 into the Grado and Aquileian
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patriarchates. The former covered Byzantine territory in the northern Adriatic, while the latter
operated on Lombard territory. Like the Lombard occupation in the third quarter of the eighth
century, Frankish occupation of the peninsula, which was finally confirmed in the Peace of
Aachen (812) between Charlemagne and the Byzantines, led to a split in the metropolitan
province of Grado. The Mantua synod of 827 attempted reconciliation between the state and
ecclesiastical administration, and recognised the ecclesiastical authority over Istria of the
Aquileian Metropolitan, in Frankish Friuli. But supported by the doges of Venice, the
patriarch of Grado, who was later to transfer his residence to the Rialto and become the
patriarch of Venice, continued the dispute with Aquileia, which ran on for centuries before
reaching resolution in 1180. Only then did the patriarch of Grado give up the claim of
ecclesiastical authority over Istria.
In 840, the Frankish emperor Lothair and the doge of Venice agreed the first known
treaty between Venice and its Frankish neighbours – with the Istrians and Friulians mentioned
first. The Venetians committed themselves to helping the emperor “against the inimical Slavic
tribes,” which allowed them to trade with towns in the Frankish Kingdom of Italy. Conflicts
between the Venetian fleet and Croat pirates, who were looting the towns of western Istria
during the reign of Doge Orso I (864–875), undoubtedly stand in the tradition of the above-
mentioned Pactum Lotharii. The pact (promissio) in 932, with which the people (populus) –
i.e. the political class – of Koper committed themselves to an annual supply of wine in
exchange for permit to trade in Venetia, provides a clear picture of the gradual extension of
Venetian influence across Istria. The next year, the Venetians agreed a treaty with the Istrian
margrave, and representatives of Pula, Poreč, Novigrad, Piran, Koper, Muggia and Trieste (all
previously sources of attacks on Venetian property, ships and people in Istria), which allowed
Venice to trade in its Istrian possessions without hindrance. The effective weapon used by the
Venetians to achieve this agreement was a trade embargo – economic ties between Istria and
Venice were already that important to life in the towns of Istria in the first half of the tenth
century. Thus began the developments that led to all the western Istrian towns (except Trieste)
coming under the rule of the Republic of St. Mark in the Late Middle Ages and to a political
division of the peninsula that would last until the fall of the Venetian state, in 1797.
The name Friuli derives from the name of Roman town of Forum Iulii; the modern
Italian and Slovene names of that town –
Cividale, Čedad – are derived from the Latin civitas.
The region has always had ties with its neighbouring regions to the east. Aquileia, founded in
181 BC, was the starting point of the important routes connecting Italy with the central
Danube area. The region maintained its ties with the east during the Early Middle Ages and,