Episode 34 — The Duchy of the Venetians

As the Byzantine presence in northern Italy waned, and vanished, the Duchy of the Venetians was the only Byzantine territory left. Outside direct imperial control, the Venetians had to find their own way, and it wasn’t easy. Early Venetian politics was therefore often turbulent, factional, violent and deadly.

Links

Past episodes in the “Early Venice” series.

• Episode 3 — The Roman and Byzantine period
• Episode 27 — Cassiodorus
• Episode 28 — The early sources
• Episode 29 — The Lombard Invasion
• Episode 30 — Venetia Maritima
• Episode 31 — The world of Venetia
• Episode 32 — The first doges of Venice
• Episode 33 — The Demise of the Exarchate

History Walks Venice

• Early Venice
• Main sources for early Venice
• The Istoria Veneticorum by John the Deacon
• The Chronicon Altinate
• The Chronica per extensum descripta by Andrea Dandolo

Transcript

Episode 34 — The Duchy of the Venetians

At some point — probably in the late 720s during the rebellion following the iconoclast edict of emperor Leo III — the Venetians chose their own leader for the first time.

As far as we can deduce from our scarce sources, that first Venetian doge was Ursus in 726.

He reigned for eleven years.

Under his leadership, the Venetians helped the Byzantine exarch recover his capital Ravenna, which the Lombards Hildeprand and Peredeo had taken, probably either in 732 or 735, which are the years most often mentioned in the literature.

Ursus is traditionally attributed the Byzantine title of hypatos, which he might have earned on that occasion.

He was killed in 737, by his own, with bitter jealousy, as John the Deacon wrote.

This is all we know of doge Ursus, and it is all from the Istoria Veneticorum by John the Deacon. He is essentially the only source we have for Venetian internal affairs in the 700s.

Consequently, almost everything in this episode is based on the Istoria Veneticorum, and to a lesser extent on the much later Chronica Extensa by doge Andrea Dandolo, which is from the 1340s.

The magistri militum

After the murder of duke Ursus, something odd happened.

The Duchy of the Venetians ceased to have dukes for five or six years. Instead, the province was governed by a military commander — a magister militum, or master of the soldiers — serving one-year terms.

John the Deacon, starting with the assassination of Ursus, wrote:

Whereupon later the Venetians, killing him with bitter jealousy, wished that for a period of five years they should remain subject only to the masters of the soldiers.

Andrea Dandolo — writing almost six centuries after the facts — elaborated a bit more:

Because the Venetians, upon the death of their duke, were discordant in the promotion of a new duke, they decided to have for themselves a ruler for one year, whom they called master of the soldiers; this dignity, according to the usage of the Greeks, was greater than the tribunate and held authority over them and the entire populace.

This is the traditional Venetian narrative, in which the Venetians decided for themselves how they wanted to be ruled. In this narrative, the tendency is to leave the Byzantines entirely out of the history of Venice. To claim their independence, they refuted to have ever been under the empire.

It is not true, however.

The Duchy of the Venetians was a Byzantine province, under the Exarchate of Ravenna. Byzantium mattered, for better and for worse, and while the Venetians could be part of a rebellion in one situation, in another they would support the empire with all the resources they had.

None of the traditional sources have much to say about the individual magistri militum, besides their names and that they each served one year.

The first two are only known from this context, as are the family names they’re given by some sources. We don’t know whether they were locals or outsiders.

The third was Deusdedit, who was the son of Ursus hypatos, the murdered duke. According to one source, the Chronicon Altinate, he served two terms of one year.

The last two magistri militum were like the first two, otherwise unknown.

The fifth magister militum was deposed by the Venetians before his term was up.

John the Deacon wrote:

in a similar way to the others, he held the command for the space of one year, and his eyes were also gouged out by the Venetians.

And Andrea Dandolo:

Here Johannes, not yet having completed the year honourably, was deposed by the Venetians, and deprived of his sight.

So, for five or six years, the Venetians were governed by a military leader — a magister militum, master of the soldiers — who served for one year, and who are otherwise unknown to our sources.

The only exception was Deusdedit, who was the son of the slain duke Ursus, and who, according to the Chronicon Altinate, served two years.

Andrea Dandolo, in the Chronica Extensa, wrote that Deusdedit had been exiled by his father’s killers, but was allowed to return by the second magister militum, before serving himself as the third.

Why, oh why?

There are two opposing interpretations of why this happened, and given the scarcity of sources, there is no way to decide which is the more likely.

The first interpretation is that of a Byzantine backlash following the unauthorised rise to power of Ursus during the anti-iconoclast rebellion around 727.

In this model, the Venetians had chosen Ursus as their duke during the rebellion, as the Liber Pontificalis for Gregory II recounted.

Soon after, the patrician and eunuch Eutychius had replaced the slain Paulus as exarch, and set about restoring order to the Exarchate.

However, before he could do something to bring the Venetians, with their illegitimate duke, back in line, Ravenna was attacked and taken by Hildeprand and Peredeo. Eutychius was forced to flee to Venetia, where, with the backing of the pope, he asked the Venetians for help.

The Venetians, led by duke Ursus, successfully provided that assistance, and placed Eutychius back on his throne in the palace of Ravenna.

Being indebted, Eutychius couldn’t force a replacement of Ursus in the Duchy of the Venetians, and instead awarded him the title of hypatos, in an “if you can’t beat them, join them” move.

When Ursus was assassinated — in 737 on the traditional timeline — Eutychius grabbed the opportunity to restore Byzantine order to the duchy, and swiftly appointed a trusted Byzantine commander to head the province, but only for a one-year term, to keep Venetia on a leash, so to say.

In an attempt to placate the unruly locals, the son of duke Ursus was allowed back to the duchy, and given the post of magister militum for one or two terms, but then Eutychius reverted to appointing outsiders.

In the fifth or sixth year of this order, something snapped, and the Venetians rebelled, blinded the fifth magister militum, and chose Deusdedit as their doge, in opposition to the Exarchate, as with his father.

On the traditional timeline, this happened in 742, when the Exarchate was in trouble again. King Liutprand was raiding and pillaging much of the Exarchate, and Eutychius and archbishop John VI had to turn to pope Zachary for help.

Otherwise, …

The other interpretation of the interlude of the magistri militum is that of a local Venetian reaction to Byzantine control and influence over the duchy.

In this reading of events, Ursus became duke on the wave of anti-Byzantine sentiments which rose during the reaction to the iconoclast edicts.

Ursus, however, switched side — or was perceived by parts of Venetian society to have switched side — when Eutychius arrived in Venetia, asking for help against the Lombards. He went with what forces Venetia could muster, succeeded, and was rewarded afterwards by Eutychius.

Consequently, the anti-Byzantine faction within Venetian society rose against Ursus, and he was killed, and his son Deusdedit exiled.

Unable to agree on a successor, the victorious faction compromised by choosing a leader for just one year at a time, and by using another title than that of duke.

Within a few years, Deusdedit was allowed to return from exile, and then to serve as magister militum for one or two years. This reversal could be due to a shift in the internal power balance between the factions, or it could be an attempt at compromise.

In any case, the faction of Deusdedit grew in strength, and two years later, they had the fifth magister militum deposed and blinded, and replaced by Deusdedit as the fourth duke of the Venetians, succeeding his father.

Both John the Deacon and Andrea Dandolo emphasised in their narratives, how the Venetians, before the first doge, had been governed by the tribunes of the individual lagoon settlements, who served one-year terms.

This interpretation of the period of the magistri militum could be seen as a return to such a style of government, but it doesn’t explain why the Venetians chose a very Byzantine title. Dandolo wrote that the Greek title was more prestigious, while John the Deacon ignored the question altogether, just as he, in general, ignored any Byzantine influence on Venetia.

Deusdedit or Teodato

Deusdedit — or Teodato — therefore became the fourth duke of the Venetians, in 742 in the traditional reckoning.

Given how terse and scarce our sources are, here are all John the Deacon has to say of the thirteen years of rule of Deusdedit, and the one-year rule of his successor Galla.

At the same time, the Venetians, abhorring the esteemed dignity of the prefects, again, as before, chose a duke for themselves, namely Deusdedit, the son of Ursus the hypatos, on the island of Metamauco; his rule lasted for a period of 13 years.

He himself, after this, for the sake of honour and reputation, wished to build a fortress called Brondolo, not in its current location, but beyond the present bank of the river, and there, by a certain unfaithful man named Galla, his eyes were put out and his duchy was taken, and he [Galla] was the possessor of the position for one year.

Over him then, the Venetians, attacking and conspiring together with one mind, likewise plucked out his eyes.

Even though the text is short, there’s quite a bit to unpack.

Firstly, we have now seen three successive rulers of the Venetians being blinded and deposed, but in neither case do our sources state that the person was killed.

Blinding and deposing a ruler, but not killing them, was a very Byzantine way of doing a palace coup, and it is one of those situations where the Byzantine-ness of the early Venetians show clearly.

Even if the chronicles don’t say so explicitly, blinding an enemy by gouging their eyes out or burning them with an incandescent poker, was in effect almost a death sentence. Such wounds were very likely to get infected, and medieval medicine generally wasn’t up to the task of treating them. While some survived for longer, most victims perished after a few months, if not sooner.

The deposition and mutilation of three successive rulers is also a clear sign that Venetian politics was deeply factional, and very violent. Whatever their concerns and priorities, interests and feelings ran strong enough to have them resort to extreme violence to obtain power.

Secondly, John the Deacon specified that the appointment of Deusdedit happened at Metamauco, not at Heraclia.

Since around 640, when the Lombards took Opitergium on the mainland, the government of Venetia had been based at Heraclia in the estuary of the river Piave, on an island in a lagoon which has since silted up, so the modern location of Heraclia is on the mainland, north of the current lagoon.

Duke Ursus and the magistri militum, including Deusdedit, ruled from Heraclia. At least, we have no sources indicating that they didn’t, and Heraclia was the capital of the Duchy of the Venetians. It is very likely, that both Ursus and Deusdedit came from Heraclia, and that it was in Heraclia Ursus was assassinated and the fifth magister militum blinded.

However, the assembly which chose Deusdedit, met at Metamauco, which was somewhere around where Malamocco is today, on the southern part of the Lido di Venezia, or on a lost island nearby. In the early Middle Ages, the river Meduacus, which passed Padua on the mainland, had its estuary in this area. It is therefore quite common in ancient texts, to see Metamauco associated with refugees from Padua.

Not only was Deusdedit appointed at Metamauco, he also placed the seat of government there, relegating Heraclia to a secondary role.

The tension between families from Heraclia and from Metamauco was one of the fault lines within Venetian society, and while none of our sources explain why this move happened, it might be related to the violence which often broke out between various Venetian factions.

Other sources, such as the Chronicon Altinate, recount several episodes of almost civil war between the residents of Heraclia and the residents of Equilio (Jesolo), allied with the people of Metamauco. The two settlements were geographically very close, and both were bishoprics, and, apparently, they hated each other.

Finally, Deusdedit was deposed, while he was at the southern end of the dogado, at Brondolo, which was on the river Brenta, overseeing the construction of a fortification.

This is the first time any source tell us of Venetians acting on their own behalf in the defence of the dogado. Such defences would earlier have been the responsibility of the Exarchate.

According to the traditional chronology, Deusdedit ruled until 755. The Lombard king Aistulf definitively defeated and occupied the Exarchate in the years 750–752. Consequently, such a fortification at the southern end of the dogado could only be to protect the dogado from the Lombards. The Byzantines weren’t around any more, and the Franks hadn’t arrived yet.

The Largitio Astolfina — in which king Aistulf re-confirmed an older agreement which defined the borders between the dogado and the Lombard territories — might have been issued to reassure the Venetians that the Lombards had no ill intentions. We do not, however, have a precise date for the largitio, beyond the years of Aistulf’s rule as duke and king, that is, between 745 and 756.

Nevertheless, the fact that the Venetians were actively fortifying their territory is a clear sign that they didn’t expect any kind of help from Byzantium any more.

Galla

Galla, the successor of Deusdedit on the ducal throne, was the fifth doge of the Venetians.

We do not, however, know more about him that what John the Deacon wrote, which I quoted earlier.

Galla deposed and blinded Deusdedit, usurped the title of duke, but was in turn deposed and blinded by the “Venetians”, “with one mind”, after little more than one year.

It is a bit amusing, how John the Deacon tried to give the impression that the Venetians acted in unison, as one, in harmony, all the while they were ferociously killing and mutilating each others.

Galla ruled from 755 to 756.

Domenico Monegario

The sixth doge was Domenico Monegario.

John the Deacon awards him one paragraph, but with a few interesting points.

In his place, Dominicus, surnamed Monegarius of Metamauco, was made their duke and, as is the custom of the common people, who never persist in any given intention, but, driven by a certain superstitious folly, invent one idea after another, in the first year of his duchy they appointed for themselves two tribunes, who would serve under the ducal decree. This they also tried to carry out every year of the aforementioned duke’s life. Then the aforementioned Venetians, having made a conspiracy, plucked out the eyes of the same duke Dominicus, and the years of his duchy amounted to eight.

Firstly, the seat of the duchy was still at Metamauco. Domenico was the third successive doge ruling from Metamauco.

Second, there appears to have been an attempt at curbing the power of the duke, by flanking him with two tribunes, serving one-year terms.

There was clearly a realisation, that having all power invested in one man alone, was not necessarily the best way, and the solution they chose was based on how local government in the duchy had always worked, with tribunes for one year terms.

John the Deacon dismissed this idea as the folly of the uneducated lower classes, but I think that is entirely on him. He lived in a time when Venetian politics were slightly less volatile, and fewer doges were mutilated and killed, so he might not have seen the purpose of such tribunes, or he might have believed so firmly in the almost autocratic rule of an enlightened aristocratic doge, that such checks and balances were to him an abomination.

Nevertheless, despite the attempts at limiting the power of the duke, something went wrong.

As before, the Venetians, all united harmoniously, as of one mind, deposed their duke and blinded him.

Domenico consequently ruled from 756 to 764.

Mauricius Galbaio

The seventh duke of the Venetians was Mauricius (or Maurice, or Maurizio), who has later been given the family name of Galbaio. His son, John (or Johannes, or Giovanni), was later made co-ruler, and then succeeded his father as the eighth duke. Between the two, they ruled until the end of the century.

This is the first time there is any semblance of stability in Venetian politics, at least for a few decades.

Let’s follow John the Deacon as before. He is, after all, the earliest source we have, and the source of most of the other chronicles.

After the aforementioned [deposition of Domenico], during which the entire attendance of the Venetians was gathered, a certain citizen of the city of Heraclia, named Mauricius, very skilled in secular matters, was elevated to the honour of the duchy on the island of Metamauco.

So the new duke Mauricius, an able politician, was from Heraclia, but was elected at Metamauco.

It is not entirely clear where he established the seat of government, as none of our sources go into any detail of the matter. Did he move it back to his native Heraclia, or did he move to Metamauco to rule from there?

We cannot really know, but both John the Deacon and Andrea Dandolo hint that his son John, who succeeded Mauricius, was acclaimed at Metamauco. That points in the direction of Metamauco as the capital of the duchy, even for two doges who were natives of Heraclia.

Mauricius did, however, try to reduce the importance of Metamauco within the duchy.

While he wisely and honourably managed the affairs of the Venetians in all matters, in the eleventh year of his duchy he decreed, by apostolic authority, that a new bishopric should be established on the island of Olivolo, in which he ordained a certain cleric, named Obelliebatus, as bishop.

The island of Olivolo is at the easternmost end of modern-day Venice, where the church of San Pietro in Castello stands.

The diocese of Olivolo was established in 774, with permission of the pope in Rome, but subject to the Patriarch of Grado, who was the head of the Venetian church.

John the Deacon didn’t say which areas became part of the new diocese, but Andrea Dandolo, in his Chronica Extensa, was quite explicit that the territory was taken from the bishopric of Metamauco, and that it included the islands of Gemini, Rivoalto, Luprio, and Dorsoduro. Together with Olivolo, these ancient settlements were all in the lagoon area, which is now the city of Venice.

Well in line with his anti-Byzantine sentiments, John the Deacon also omitted another detail, which he almost certainly knew. Fortunately, we do have the letter.

Sometimes between 768 and 772, Giovanni I, the patriarch of Grado, wrote to pope Stephen III to denounce Lombard harassments of the dioceses of Istria. In this very longer letter, we have:

Mauricius, consul and imperial duke of this Venetian province,

That wording can only mean that Venetia was still considered a part of the Byzantine Empire.

Here, consul means the Byzantine title of hypatos, which Ursus had too. The words “imperial duke” could sound like the empire had appointed Mauricius, but given that he was a local, and that the empire had no real presence in the area any more, it is not very likely.

It is far more probable, that Mauricius was appointed locally, and that the empire had recognised the appointment to keep up appearances.

Such a partly fictitious belonging to the empire would make sense for both sides.

If the empire ever wanted to launch a counter-offensive to take back the lands of the former Exarchate, the lagoons in Venetia would be a perfect staging area. For the Venetians, nominally belonging to the empire could be a deterrent for the Lombards, and later the Franks, in case they should get ideas.

Both sides therefore had an interest in keeping up appearances.

Finally, John the Deacon omitted another detail, which Andrea Dandolo didn’t fail to mention.

From the Chronica Extensa:

Mauricius was proclaimed duke in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 764. He, born in Heraclea, noble by birth, and more noble for his illustrious deeds, was now made duke at Metamauco: who, exercising just rule, reconciled discordant citizens, and from the Italian disturbances imminent in his time, preserved the Venetian homeland unharmed.

The discordant citizens are no doubt a reference to the factionalism, and subsequent violence. Mauricius managed to keep the peace within the duchy, to reconcile the various factions.

Those Italian disturbances, on the other hand, was the Frankish conquest of the Kingdom of the Lombards. After 774, the Venetians no longer had to worry about being the neighbour to a regional power in the Kingdom of the Lombards. Venetia now bordered on a power which was an order of magnitude larger than the Lombards, which, within a generation, would become the Carolingian Empire and later the Holy Roman Empire.

Returning to the account of John the Deacon, he continued:

Then, when he had held the ducal dignity for thirty-one years, already advanced in age, at the people’s urging, he was pleased to have his son John share in his honour; two years later, with his son, he thus ended his final day in peace.

Andrea Dandolo only gave Mauricius a reign of 23 years, but they agree that he wasn’t deposed and he wasn’t blinded. He lived peacefully to the end of his days.

Another novelty, which was introduced here for the first time, was to have two dukes simultaneously, father and son, to ensure the succession.

Andrea Dandolo, writing with ample hindsight, commented:

and thus they began to have two dukes at the same time, leaving to the successors a disastrous outcome of affairs.

In fact, having one family entrenched in a position of power, didn’t play well with the factionalism of Venetian politics, and as dynastic succession became common, political violence followed.

What is evident, however, is that Mauricius was held in such high esteem for his management of the duchy, that his request to be helped, and then succeeded, by his son, was accepted.

Giovanni Galbaio

John the Deacon continued:

Moreover, in the year of our Lord 823, John, the aforementioned son of Mauricius, assumed the peak of honour in governing the same island; we have discovered neither in writing nor in report that he managed the affairs of his country well.

Indeed, he had a son, named Mauricius, to whom in the eighteenth year of his duchy he granted the partnership of the same dignity.

The chronology of John the Deacon is totally off, and so is the year he gave here. According to Andrea Dandolo, John Galbaio became duke in his own right in 787 when his father died.

John the Deacon rarely wrote in the first person, but he did here, and in its understated-ness, his judgement of the reign of John Galbaio is scathing.

we have discovered neither in writing nor in report that he managed the affairs of his country well.

Andrea Dandolo, with his customary hindsight, wrote:

Duke John, held the duchy alone in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 787. After the death of his father, he held the sceptre alone at Metamauco, but, unlike his father in word and deed, did not manage the affairs of the country well and undertook ruinous endeavours.

Those ruinous endeavours will be the beginning of a later series of events, so I’m going to interrupt this narrative of the early doges of Venice here, for now.

John Galbaio ruled until 804, so we’ve been through about half a century of early Venetian politics.

Competition for power

As a polity, a nascent state, this was how Venice started.

There was no plan, no declaration of independence, there might not even have been a desire for independence, and no assembly debating what kind of society they wanted.

Over a few decades, the Exarchate waned and vanished, and the Venetians were left on their own, and had to make the best of it, whether they liked it or not.

They had a territory of roughly 130 by 15km, from Grado to Cavarzere, of defensible, but not very productive land.

The mainland was entirely dominated by the Kingdom of the Lombards, and after 774, by the Frankish Kingdom of Italy.

The only institutions were those the retreating Byzantine Empire had left behind.

There was a duchy, but no established way of choosing a duke.

The Venetians also had a tradition for local tribunes serving one-year terms. Each lagoon settlement therefore had a local elite of a number of established families, which supplied those tribunes throughout these centuries.

There was a church organisation, separate from the church on the mainland, with a patriarch in Grado, and half a dozen bishops across the lagoon islands.

Chroniclers like John the Deacon and Andrea Dandolo liked to paint an image of a united people with a single purpose, but it is also evident from their accounts, that the reality was very different.

The Chronicon Altinate contains many stories of these families, their home towns, and the tensions, conflicts and fights between them. Unfortunately, many of these stories are of dubious veracity, and some are verifiably wrong, which is why the Altinate is such an unloved source.

From what we can gather, the families, which traditionally had supplied the local tribunes, and especially those from Heraclia, Equilio and Metamauco, competed for primacy within the duchy.

The dukes came from those families, and they managed to rule for as long as they could either dominate the other factions, or somehow placate them. When they failed, violence ensued.

Power was largely invested in the person of the duke, and the only way for an opposition to remove a duke was physical violence: mutilation or murder.

Early Venetian society was dominated by rampant factionalism, along fault lines which are not clear to us, due to the scarcity and brevity of our sources. There was fierce competition for power, with vicious infighting and horrifying violence, but most often, we’re left guessing which tensions between which groups developed into conflict and bloodshed.

Later Venice, the Serenissima, grew out of this mess.

Notes on the continuation of the series

Before we close, a few notes on where I want to take this series of episodes on the early period of the history of Venice.

We’re more than halfway, but there’s still some road to be covered.

Venice had its own church, with a patriarch in Grado, and we need to catch up on how the Venetian church developed and what it came to mean. The semi-independent Venetian church was an important element of the Republic of Venice until the very end in 1797.

The relationship with the Franks on the mainland soon turned very complicated indeed, and there was a war, and a peace, and the Byzantines returned to play an important role in all this. We need to talk about war and peace with the Franks.

Then St Mark arrived by ship from Alexandria, and we cannot talk about Venice in the early Middle Ages, and not talk about St Mark.

Finally, we need to talk about the ideology behind many of the Venetian chronicles. Most countries — and Venice became a country — have a national narrative, which usually contains an origin story. However, national narratives and origin stories don’t have to be historically correct, and the Venetian national narrative was no different. Besides the historical facts, as we have uncovered them, there is a multitude of myths and legends, which the Venetians told and retold for a thousand years.

So, at least four more episodes on the origins of Venice, or five or six, who knows.

Hopefully, you find it as interesting as I do.