Historical Journal, Vol. 37 , 1984.
Original scientific paper
»CONSILIUM GENERALE« AND THE SYSTEM OF RULING IN SPLIT IN THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY
Tomislav Raukar
Abstract
In this article the author analyses the records of conferences at Split Council (Libri consiliorum) from 1352 to 1354 and from 1357 to 1359. According to their given informations he considers some questions about the doing of the council and above all about the number of the councillors and about their rank structure. He further confirms that the number of councillors present to the conferences was always less than hundred as it was determined by Split Statute. The number of the present councillors was varied according to the importance of the disputing case.
In the fourteenth century the rank structure of the council was gradually changed. According to the prescript from 1334 there were only noblemen (nobiles) in Split council but all of them had not equally influenced upon the urban management. There were great distinctions among them according to the volume and the importance of the urban duties. First of all the group of those doing the various duties in the curia (curia) was separated. Between 1352 and 1354 seventy-three names are noted and between 1357 and 1359 eighty-two members of the curia are registered. Among the mentioned group the judges (judices) were prominent; there were twenty of them between 1352 and 1354, twenty-one from 1357 to 1359 meaning that the greatest power belonged to the minor group, to one fourth of til the members in the curia (between 1352 and 1354 27,40% and from 1357 to 1359 25,61%) or to one fifth of all the members in the council. In the middle of the fourteenth century the above mentioned group of noblemen was ruling in Split. Libri consiliorum give opportunities to even more detailed analyses about the influence of the individuals to the doing of the council for example. The author analyses the activities of the two prominent noblemen Camurtius Francisci and Franciscus Damiani; they were persons with the essential different characteristics. Based on the material from Libri consiliorum the author intends to make clear the report of Paulus de Paulo, the chronicler saying that the rebellion in Split in 1398 was the conflict »inter nobiles et eos qui non potuerunt eligi ad officium iudicatus«. He leans towards Grga Novak’s opinion that it was the conflict between the two ranks of the noblemen; the plebeians joined in the rebellion to those noblemen who hadn’t had the rights to the judicial honour.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
324355
URI
Publication date:
1.5.1985.
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