7 THE STATUTE OF DUBROVNIK OF 1272: BETWEEN LEGAL CODE AND POLITICAL SYMBOL Nella Lonza To a modern reader, accustomed to the dizzy dynamics of present-day legislative, the medieval statutes, valid for centuries, may seem a peculiar genre. In the case of Dubrovnik, actually, in a half millennium between its compilation in 1272 and the fall of the Ragusan Republic in 1808, only few of its chapters have ever been abrogated. Certainly, the Statute acquired some scars in decisive historical moments, such as at the end of the Venetian rule in 1358, but its original thirteenth-century physiognomy has been preserved, and the text continued to be copied times after times for public and private purposes, as long as the Ragusan state lasted. However, the static image of the Ragusan legal system based on the Statute turns out to be a sort of trompe l’oeil. Behind its monolithic appearance is hidden a slow genesis and a series of changes, hardly discernible on the surface, yet profound. Something about that topic should be said, not only because it is a convention for an edition of a medieval text to have an introductory note, but above all because it is an intriguing story about the forming of a myth of immutable legal tradition, the inventive power of legal practice and a gradual transformation of the Statute from a strictly legal text to more of a symbol of collective identity. Pre-Statutory Regulation The early period of local legislation is vague mainly because of the lack of documents. The oldest preserved Ragusan ‘law’ dates from 1190 and regulates the safe-conduct of debtors (salvus conductus ) around the feast day of the City’s patron, St Blaise (3 February). 1 The parchment is damaged, but the part of the document which is readable clearly shows that it originates from a proclamation ( bandum), which on the occasion was made perpetual and written down in the form ( capitulare). It is a very interesting piece of evidence to a certain level of articulation of legal concepts—probably to be attributed to the skills of the notary of the commune, deacon Marin Camas, a member of the local elite. It was certainly not the first Ragusan law ever written, but one among others which did not survive. However, we should bear in mind that the legal area was still regulated by customs transmitted by oral tradition, and that the transition to the ‘written standard’ was a very slow process which elsewhere in Europe stretched to several centuries. 2 The charter from 1190, as well as the following charters from the first half of the thirteenth century, witness to an early stage of the development of the communal institutions, when the participation of lay and Church authorities at the gathering of the City citizens were gradually replaced by the bodies of permanent character and defined authority. 3 It is not surprising that the legal provisions of the time often 1 Codex diplomaticus Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, vol. II, ed. T. Smičiklas. Zagreb: JAZU, 1904: doc. 227, p. 242; Liber statutorum civitatis Ragusii compositus anno 1272, ed. V. Bogišić and C. Jireček. [Monumenta historico-juridica Slavorum Meridionalium, vol. IX]. Zagreb: JAZU, 1904: p. LXII. 2 See Hagan Keller, »Gli statuti dell’Italia settentrionale come testimonianza e fonte per il processo di affermazione della scrittura nei secoli XII e XIII«, in: Le scritture del comune: Amministrazione e memoria nelle città dei secoli XII e XIII, ed. Giuliana Albini. Torino: Scriptorium, 1998 (on-line: http://centri.univr.it/rm/biblioteca/volumi/albini/Keller.zip, accessed on 13 March 2012). 3 Zdenka Janeković Römer, Okvir slobode: dubrovačka vlastela između srednjovjekovlja i humanizma. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Dubrovniku, 1999: pp. 56-61; Nenad Vekarić, Vlastela grada Dubrovnika, I - Korijeni, struktura i razvoj dubrovačkog plemstva. Zagreb-Dubrovnik: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU, 2011: pp. 205-224. For an overview of the history of Dubrovnik in English, see Robin Harris, Dubrovnik: A History. London: Saqi, 2003.