THE PORTS OF THE MEDIEVAL ADRIATIC OPEN RESEARCH PROSPECTS Flocel Sabatƒ Keynote lecture F. Sabaté DOI: 10.1484/J.HAM.5.111327 Universitat de Lleida Plaça Victor Siurana, 1 25003 Lleida Catalonia, Spain The inherent dangers in the sea seem lesser than the relations, with marked demographic, economic and cultural difficulty of travelling overland in medieval Europe, with exchanges in very varied and sometimes even contradictory its seriously deficient roads, limitations in load bearing situations. It is necessary, therefore, to reflect on cultural and severe jurisdictional fragmentation.1 Supplying ships diversity and ultimately otherness and, inextricably, on the with victuals and water, repairing the vessels and moving frontier, taken in the sense as porosity that favours contact. produce had an evident effect on the port cities. Thus, as With the Adriatic as a place of contact and diversity, the Jehel and Racinet stated, “dès le début du Moyen Âge, il function of the ports as transmitters of values that structured existe une corrélation évidente entre le développement du their own territorial surroundings and linked to distant commerce maritime et l’expansion urbaine”. 2 Seaports then interior areas must be valued. The importance of the vari- played a role that is not always sufficiently recognised in the ous ports and the strong external relations conditioned the historiography and one that affected all aspects of human predominance finally achieved by Venice. All this required, relations, whether economic, social or cultural. in the end, the existence of the port as a physical space, If this maritime scenario is focussed on as sea as specific so that it’s very morphology reflected the inherent social, as the Adriatic, this interest becomes even greater. An exten- political, fiscal and economic realities. sive bibliography details a long diachronic path, on which All this converts the ports on the medieval Adriatic into the cities and peoples involved have changed, although these the scenario for an exchange which was simultaneously have always coincided with the apparent contradiction of economic, cultural and political, in other words, essentially concentrating intense human exchanges and a frontier of human. diversity. The medieval Adriatic was an area of great intensity and 1. THE PORTS IN THE DIACHRONIC POSITIONING OF THE plurality. Therefore, the only way to talk about it without ADRIATIC falling back on stereotypes requires detailed research and attention to specific areas. The diversity of recent research The various (up to six) partitions of the Roman Empire in distinct lines facilitates a move away from commonplace proposed in the 4th century came up against a conflictive point views and opens new perspectives for reflection. At the out- about the fate of Illyricum, either whole or divided, until the set, we should note the diachronic route, that has changed Germanic invasions imposed stabilisation, facilitated by the the actors but always maintained the Adriatic area as a pow- disappearance of the Western Roman Empire, and that left erful epicentre that impregnates all the population of the Dalmatia definitively under the eastern Empire.3 The Justin- epoch whether prominent or apparently anonymous people. ian reorganisation in the 6th century consolidated the Adriatic In reality, the proximity of such a closed sea combined very within the Byzantine order and confirmed Ravenna as the diverse regional situations, with varied rhythms and mul- capital. Its optimum position and power placed it beside tiple connections. This is not only a sea with two shores, and above the political changes, and it remained the leading the western and the eastern, but also with two spaces, one city of Late Antiquity, with a great international influence.4 northern and another southern, because, even at the times The link with the Greek-Oriental area is perceived in differ- of greatest homogeneity under the Venetian dominance, in- ent cultural aspects5 or in the large-scale import of marble, dependent relations continued between Albania and Apulia surely from Constantinople,6 because after all, Ravenna was in the south. The medieval Adriatic favoured close human then the great port of the Adriatic, with all that meant for 1 J. BERNARD, Comercio y finanzas en la Edad Media, 900-1500 in C. M. Cipolla, Historia económica de Europa (1) La Edad Media, Barcelona, 1987, p. 295-311. 2 G. JEHEL, P. RACINET, La ville médiévale. De l’Occident chrétien à l’Orient musulman Ve-XVe siècle, Paris, 1996, p. 223. 3 É. DEMOUGEOT, Le partage des provinces de l’Illyricum entre la ‘pars Occidentis’ et la ‘pars Orientis’, de la tétrachie au règne de Théodoric in La géog- raphie administrative et politique d’Alexandre à Mahomet, Leiden, 1981, p. 209-253. 4 E. CIRELLI, Ravenna, archeologia di una città, Firenze, 2008. 5 E. GRITTI, Ravenna tardoantica: il Liber pontificalis ecclesiae ravennatis e le recenti scoperte archeologiche in Medioevo Adriatico (MA) 4, Rome, 2012, p. 53-96. 6 Y. A. MARANO, Il commercio del marmo nell’Adriatico tardoantico (IV-VI secolo d.C.) in S. Collodo, G. L. Fontana (dirs.) Eredita culturali dell’Adriatico Archeologia, storia, lingua e letteratura, Rome, 2008, p. 159-174. F. Sabaté: The ports of medieval... 11 the traffic of men, merchandise and ideas.7 Consequently, sides of the Adriatic. In this investment dynamic, there in Lopez-Jantzen’s words, between the 6th and 7th centuries, was a notable appetite for building and controlling ports, in “Ravenna remained wealthy in comparison with other centers protected sites, with good communications with the interior both in Byzantine and Lombard north Italy as a result of its and in the hands of monasteries, bishops and lay lords. The privileged political and economical position in the empire”. 8 examples were the bishop of Chieti and the monastery of San The area around the great capital could not fail to benefit Giovanni in Venere in the port on the Pescara River. It was from this dynamic. A little further north, Comacchio, which so profitable that there were numerous private initiatives: archaeologists have promoted in recent years, participated the Count of Teate, Trasmondo III allied himself with the in the favourable conjuncture exploiting its excellent posi- monastery of Tremite to create a port at the mouth of the tion to become “un emporio sul delta del Po”, in the Early Tecchio River and to spill the teloneum on all merchandise.14 Middle Ages, with a great capacity to handle merchandise Meanwhile, the increase in the commercial reach of Ven- and protect shipping as a nodal axis between the Adriatic, ice in the 11th and 12th centuries led to the use of force against Ravenna, the Po and with it, the Padanese cities.9 the Slav population on the eastern shore of the Adriatic.15 At However, Ravenna had the excellent port of Classe, which the same time, on the western shore, Ancona was becom- acted as a link between the hinterland, beyond the Po Valley, ing consolidated. It was related directly to Constantinople and the Mediterranean linked permanently with the coasts in both the 12th and 13th centuries and the subject of famous of the Near East and the north of Africa.10 The vigour of this adagios: unus Petrus in Roma, una turris in Cremona, unus port marked the great difference with the possibilities of portus in Ancona”16 or, as was still recalled in an early 16th- other coastal cities that were also strong at that time, like Ri- century Spanish text, “es el mejor puerto de toda esta costa mini.11 In any case, the dynamism of Ravenna had a regional e por este suelen decir ‘un Dios, una Roma, un puerto en effect, and favoured a wider area made up not only of Rimini, Ancona”. 17 As the papacy’s port on the Adriatic and with but also Faenza, Forli or Cesena. In contrast, further south, good connections to both Rome and Florence, from the outside this radius of influence, in the Marches the urban 13th century, it would accept agreements with Venice, thus system of that same time fell into a full crisis, including the certifying the latter’s pre-eminence.18 disappearance of places of reference.12 The rising power of Venice in the 12th century became The remoteness and restructuring of the Byzantine area imperial, to use Ernesto Sestan’s phrase, after it had ben- in the 9th and 10th centuries in reality had positive effects on efited from the assault of Constantinople in 1204. The eco- the development of the ports on the Adriatic. The remote- nomic, political and social vigour of 13th-century Venice19 ness of Byzantium favoured the development of Venice, turned it into a power that correctly calculated strategy it in an optimum position between Veneto and Istria.13 The should follow: avoid taking over vast territorial extensions international Byzantine context and the commercial incen- in Asia and the Balkans, which would have been costly to tive encouraged the development of the ports on the coast of maintain, and focus on strengthening its position in key Abruzzo and Molise. From the end of the 10th century, great places, seeking recognition from the leading towns on the Benedictine monasteries in the interior and with deeply- Adriatic, including Parenzo (Poreč), Ragusa (Dubrovnik) rooted agricultural traditions like Volturno, Montecassino or Durazzo (Durrëssi), and establishing fronts against pos- or San Clemente a Casauria had extended their properties sible rivals like Ancona. Thus, with close links of one kind and investments, sometimes very evidently: Santa Maria de or another between Venice and places from Capodistria to l’isola di Tremiti, for example, acquired property on both Ragusa in the mid 14th century,20 the Adriatic became the 7 G. TABACCO, L’italie médievale, Chambéry, 2005, p.