The oldest record of Kanfanar: a philological and diplomatic analysis of the alleged charter of Patriarch Ulrich I to Gastald Vedellus of Dvigrad (Kanfanar, 1096)

Abstract

In the paper the authors analyse the alleged document which provides the oldest written record of Kanfanar dating back to 1096. The document has been preserved only in the form of a regesta, drawn up by the humanist and notary Antonio Belloni from Udine at the beginning of the 16th century. According to the document, the Patriarch of Aquileia gives in concession the area named Montesellum and the Port of Lim Bay, together with the Church of St. Lawrence, to his gastald. The paper presents the text based, for the first time, on the oldest preserved manuscript, including an appropriate critical apparatus and a translation into Croatian. The philological part of the analysis showed numerous shortcomings of the text, confirming that a scientific and satisfactory solution to the etymology of the toponym Kanfanar has yet to be found. The diplomatic part of the analysis considered all available relevant sources of Aquileian and Istrian provenance, which led to the conclusion that the regesta suffers from numerous diplomatic and content defects and that the document was compiled on the basis of at least two documents, one from the chancellery of the Poreč bishops and the other issued by the Aquileian Patriarch Ulrich I of Eppenstein. The results showed that the document in which Kanfanar was mentioned for the first time was a historical forgery created in the office of the Aquileian Patriarch Raimondo della Torre in the last quarter of the 13th century, aiming at refuting the jurisdictional pretensions of the Poreč bishops towards Dvigrad. The authors conclude that the document outlines one of the episodes of the centuries-old conflict between the Bishop of Poreč and the Patriarch of Aquileia over the rights to rule the area in the triangle between Rovinj, Dvigrad and Bale.