Social circumstances and a daily life in the city of Zadar in the background of the War of Crete

Novosel, Filip. (2018). Social circumstances and a daily life in the city of Zadar in the background of the War of Crete. PhD Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of History.
(Poslijediplomski doktorski studij ranog novog vijeka) [mentor Čoralić, Lovorka].

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Abstract

Among intensive changes resulting from the significant developments of modern historiography during the previous century, urban history emerged as a distinctive and legitimate sub-discipline. From its recognition until today, urban history has yielded many results which have contributed to a better understanding of urban areas in the past. Taking into account its wide range of interest in the geographical and chronological sense, analyzed through political, social, military, cultural and many other fields belonging to the sphere of humanities and social sciences, urban history did not neglect the city in the early modern age focusing on specific geographic areas, naturally including the European area. In that regard, as one with the longest tradition and of great vitality, the Mediterranean region should definitely be singled out. Furthermore, as a part of the larger Mediterranean space, the Adriatic basin undoubtedly reflects many characteristics of the Mediterranean as a whole, including those of the urban nature. After all, Venice, as one of the biggest cities of the premodern world is situated at its northmost point, so in that sense, the eastern Adriatic coast is no exception, and one can follow a rather dense route of urban settlements from Venice to the Strait of Otranto. During the early modern period the largest and most important towns and cities of the Eastern Adriatic were governed by the Republic of Venice, and the very fact that they were a part of this prominent sea power also made them a part of a wider Mediterranean world. Therefore, the research presented here will focus on some urban matters of the Eastern Adriatic Coast under the rule of the Serenissima, through a case study of the city of Zadar. During almost 400 years of Venetian governance in Dalmatia, the city of Zadar was the administrative, economic, trade, transit, ecclesiastical, military and cultural capital of the province. Consequently, together with the residents and locals from the city district, its urban area was a meeting point for all kinds of people of various professions and social statuses from all over Europe. Both high and low representatives of the military and the Church, rich and petty merchants, artisans, mariners, suspicious vagabonds, all of them reached Zadar, some of them never to leave it again, and some just passing through. In order to reveal this rather dynamic urban scenery, the focus of the topic proposed here will be on the urban society in the city of Zadar and the daily life of its protagonists during one of the many Ottoman-Venetian conflicts – the War of Crete (1645–1669). Regarding the aforementioned period of war, it should be stressed that, despite the fact that the urban space of Zadar was not directly threatened by Ottoman attacks, the city definitely lived in the shadow of military operations taking place in its wider area. Needless to say, to a certain extent that fact inevitably affected the life of its citizens as well. Thus, together with the analysis of urban social structures and everyday activities in the city, all deviations caused by the war will be taken into account as well. The research itself is based primarily on the the notarial acts kept in the State Archives in Zadar. Just browsing through this sort of archival material, one can instantly see how no social class or profession that generally existed in an early modern Eastern Adriatic coastal town is missing, which undoubtedly makes it an ideal source for the proposed topic. Furthermore, combining archival research with theoretical and methodological approaches to urban history as a distinctive sub-discipline in historiography, the urban society of the city of Zadar will be set within the wider context of the Adriatic basin and the Mediterranean as a whole. Therefore, on the basis of both archival research and tools of modern historiography, the primary goal of this dissertation is to examine the urban space of one of the most prominent eastern Adriatic cities in order to contribute to a better understanding of historical processes that shaped the picture of the whole early modern urban Mediterranean world.

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