Original scientific paper
Ecclesiastical Institutions of the Town Of Bar in the Wills of Croatian Immigrants in Venice
Lovorka Čoralić
Abstract
Immigrants from the town of Bar in today’s Montenegro (Barani) constituted a sizable portion of the Croatian diaspora in late medieval and early modern Venice. The majority arrived between the mid-fifteenth and mid-sixteenth century, when Bar was under Venetian rule, and concentrated in the eastern city area of Castello. Their occupations were generally related to seafaring and crafts, but among the migrants from Bar there was a large number of ecclesiastics (priests) who resumed their service in Venice and in the broader Veneto area. Judging by the wills, Barani were closely connected to ecclesiastical institutions and the clergy of Venice and Bar, testifying most directly to the important role of the Catholic Church in their spiritual and social life. The author traced original sources from the Venetian archives (notarial acts of the State Archives of Venice and will transcripts filed in the Cattastico book at the Archives of SS George and Tryphon Confraternity) from the period 1390- 1556. The article first addresses some of the general features of this immigrant group (time frame of their emigration and life in Venice, occupations and economic status, residence, kinship ties and relations with other Croatians in Venice, etc.). The second section of the article focuses on the data on ecclesiastical institutions (churches, monasteries) and clerics provided by the wills. In sum, thirteen church institutions have been mentioned, as illustrated 240 Anali Dubrovnik 44 (2006) in the Appendix, some of which unknown to historiography to date. The article thus attempts to highlight an obscure and due to the scarcity of archival sources neglected segment of Bar’s past and, at the same time, to show that the study of the history of Bar of the pre-Ottoman period entails research of documents dispersed in the archives of the Adriatic and Mediterranean centers.
Keywords
Hrčak ID:
7760
URI
Publication date:
23.5.2006.
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