Croatia in the Middle Ages
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The history of Croatia in the Middle Ages begins with the conquest of South Slavic tribes in the 7th century and ends with the Battle of Mohács (1526) . A significant section is the independent Croatian Kingdom (925–1102).
Croatian principalities (7th century to 925)
From the 7th century, today's Croatia was populated by South Slavic tribes (Croats). There were Croatian principalities in the area of the so-called Pannonian Croatia and Dalmatian Croatia . Prince Trpimir (845–864) ruled over Dalmatian Croatia and parts of Pannonia .
Croatian Kingdom (925–1102)
Foundation under Tomislav
Trpimir's grandson Tomislav was crowned the first king of Croatia by the legate of Pope John X in Tomislavgrad in 925 (reign 910–928). The land acquisition of the Magyars in the Pannonian Basin during his reign led to the division of the Slavs into northern and eastern Slavs on the one hand and southern Slavs on the other, which played an important role in the further development of European history.
King Tomislav was able to successfully defend his country - consisting of central Croatia, Slavonia and parts of Dalmatia and Bosnia - against the Hungarians. But he had even broader goals. He built up an army which, according to Constantine VII , comprised 100,000 foot soldiers, 60,000 horsemen and 180 warships. The Byzantines needed the Croats as allies against the Bulgarians . The Bulgarians, for their part, had subjugated the Serbs , who were not yet united in a principality , which led to the first Serbian mass exodus (as later before the Turks) to Croatia. Through the alliance with Byzantium, Croatia also got the Adriatic islands and the cities of Spalato / Split , Traù / Trogir and Zara / Zadar , which until then had been formally under Byzantine rule. This state thus included all of today's Croatian areas except for Istria . Originally this country was called " Chorbatia ".
Christianization of the Croatians
The Croatians were Christianized as early as the 7th century. This is confirmed by a letter from Pope John X from 925 to Tomislav, King of the Croats ("Rex Croatorum") . The Pope says that the Dalmatian Slavs are their "specialissimi filii" because of their long membership in the Holy Roman Church. He therefore calls on the real sons of Rome to celebrate Mass not in the Slavonic but in the Latin language. King Tomislav fulfilled the Pope's central wish and enabled the restoration of the Dalmatian diocese with its seat in Split (under the direction of Rome), but he could not / did not want to prevent the use of the Croatian Church Slavonic in mass . (In the 13th century, the Glagolitic-Croatian liturgy was recognized again by papal resolutions.)
The linguistically related Serbs, on the other hand, who were part of the Bulgarian Empire, soon turned to Orthodox Christianity. The final separation between Eastern and Western Churches took place in the 11th century with the Oriental Schism .
In addition to the Rome-controlled Slavic Mission of Aquileia and the influence of the long-established Christians of the coastal cities, the Slav apostles Cyril and Method also made an important contribution to the Christianization of the Croats. Glagoliza , a special Slavic script, which survived regionally on the northern Adriatic until the 19th century, also comes from them .
Time after Tomislav
In 928 King Tomislav disappeared without a trace. Croatia's position of power was weakened under his successors. Favored by internal disputes, the coastal towns that remained Romanesque during the Migration Period made themselves independent and sought contact with Venice , which thereby achieved its sovereignty in the Adriatic. Only Ragusa ( Dubrovnik ) remained independent and was able to survive as a city republic until the Napoleonic era through skillful taring with the great powers Venice, later Austria and the Ottoman Empire .
Under King Stefan Držislav (Dirzislaiv) (969–997), Byzantium reassigned Croatia to sovereignty over Dalmatia after a new alliance . In 994 Držislav recognized the Greek emperor as his overlord. At this time the Croatian national coat of arms, which is still in use today, appeared for the first time : a red and white checkerboard pattern, the Šahovnica . In today's version it is adorned with a crown made up of five regional coats of arms.
In the following time, Croatia got more and more distressed by Venice in the west and Hungary in the east. Byzantine politics turned more to relations with Venice, and Croatia, weakened by quarrels for the throne, was left to its own devices. The Byzantine Emperor Basil II transferred the administration of Dalmatia, a former Eastern Roman theme , to Venice. In May 1000, a Venetian navy defeated Croatia; Zadar , Trogir and Split were placed under Venetian administration and a treaty was signed with Dubrovnik. King Krešimir III. lifted Venice's already formal obligation to pay tribute , recognized the Venetian doge Peter Orseolo as Prince of Dalmatia and had to hand over his son as a hostage.
Petar Krešimir , one of the greatest Croatian national heroes, enlarged his empire on land and sea and also called himself "King of Dalmatia" (1050), which his successor Dmitar Zvonimir (1075-1089) did.
But the battle for Dalmatia was not over. Dmitar Zvonimir, the last king of Croatian descent, managed to penetrate the coast and the capital was moved to Biograd . After Zvonimir, who was married to a Hungarian princess, died childless, Hungary made inheritance claims on Croatia. With Stephan (Držislav) II. , The nephew of Krešimir II., Who came to the throne for a short time in 1089, the branch of the old Croatian kings expired .
Loss of independence through connection with Hungary
After Stephen's death in 1091, Hungary's King Ladislaus , brother of his widow, marched without major resistance to Biograd na moru, the royal residence on the Dalmatian coast. But because of a Kuman incursion in Hungary, he had to return home quickly. On the way back he founded the diocese of Zagreb , which was subordinated to the Hungarian church province of Kalocsa. He appointed his nephew Álmos to be the Croatian king, but he could not prevail. In 1093 Petar Svačić was elected king. Petar died in 1097 in the Battle of Gvozd , when he wanted to prevent a troop of the Hungarian King Koloman from passing through to Biograd. King Ladislaus I and his successor Koloman defeated anti-Hungarian alliances of the local nobility. In the “ Pacta conventa ” , however, Koloman limited himself to a personal union instead of being incorporated . The administration took over a local representative, the " Ban ". The Hungarian kings assumed the title of "King of Hungary, Croatia and Dalmatia" , although Dalmatia was almost completely under Venetian control from 1202 at the latest. Koloman was followed by his son Stephan II , who in turn was followed by Béla II as King of Hungary (as Béla I in Croatia). He married Helena , the daughter of the Serbian Prince Urosch I.
It was not until the 13th century that Croatia had its own princes again, who, however, were princes of the Hungarian royal family. Since the end of the 15th century there have been frequent Turkish invasions. With the battle on the Krbava field in 1493 and the defeat of the Croats and Hungarians in the Battle of Mohács (1526) , northwestern Croatia became part of the Habsburg empire around Agram , the rest of Croatia with Hungary became a sanjak of the Ottoman Empire .
See also
literature
- Ferdinand von Šišić : History of the Croats: Part One (to 1102) . Zagreb 1917.
- Ferdinand von Šišić: Povijest Hrvata u vrijeme narodnih vladara . Zagreb 1925.
- Stanko Guldescu: History of Medieval Croatia (= Studies in European history . No. 1 ). The Hague 1964.
- Nada Klaić: Povijest Hrvata u ranom srednjem vijeku . Zagreb 1971.
- Janko Belošević: Croats and Croatia . In: Joachim Herrmann (Hrsg.): World of the Slavs: History, Society, Culture . Leipzig / Jena / Berlin 1986, p. 88-100 .
- John Van Antwerp Fine: The Early Medieval Balkans: A Critical Survey from the Sixth to the Late Twelfth Century . The University of Michigan Press, 1991, ISBN 0-472-08149-7 , Croatia and Dalmatia, pp. 248-291 .
- Danijel Dzino: Becoming Slav, Becoming Croat: Identity Transformations in Post-Roman and Early Medieval Dalmatia . Brill, Leiden / Boston 2010 ( archive.org [PDF]).
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Gerhard Herm : The Balkans. The powder keg of Europe . Econ Verlag GmbH, Düsseldorf / Vienna / New York / Moscow, 1993, p. 283, ISBN 978-3-430-14445-2
- ↑ Katičić, Literarum Studia, Zagreb, 1998, 402–403