The economic and cultural rise enabled cultural-artistic prosperity of Kotor and the Bay of Kotor and offered the possibility of further development and splendor. The first such rise is connected with the role of caravans and ships which the inhabitants of Kotor used, via the main port of Serbia during the rule of the Nemanjić dynasty (1185-1371), in order to create commercial circulation on the vast area of the Balkans and the Mediterranean, near the newly discovered mines of the medieval Bosnia and Raška. That was the time when numerous artisan and artistic workshops, now present in Romance and Gothic face of the town of Kotor and the Bay of Kotor, were found.
The second rise was enabled by small but numerous wooden sailing ships which established commercial links with Greece, Albania, Dalmatia, Italian ports, especially with Venice, and the rest of the Mediterranean. This happened during the period of rule of the Venetian Republic (1420-1797).
Other periods of the foreign rule, Byzantium (476-1185), Hungarian-Croatian (1371-1384), the first Austrian (1797-1806), Russian (1806-1807), French (1807-1814) and the second Austrian rule (1814-1918) generally speaking, meant stagnation or decadence of Kotor and the Bay of Kotor, what can be established from the rich, preserved, archival material.
It is necessary, of course, particularly to stress the relationship of Kotor with other south-Slavic formations through history, like, apart from the above mentioned longer period of the Nemanjić dynasty, the short rule of the Doclean king Mihailo Vojislavljević in the 11th century, Bosnian rule during the reign of the king Tvrtko (1384-1391), temporary rule of the two united provinces of Montenegro and the Bay of Kotor (1813-1814) and the kingdom of Yugoslavia (1918-1941).
The Historical archives Kotor was founded on November 30th 1949 as the first archival institution in Montenegro. Due to the exceptional importance of the archival material that it possesses almost from the very day of foundation, it had the status of the State archives. Today, the Historical archives is a part of the State archives of Montenegro having as its jurisdiction, apart from the municipality of Kotor, the area of municipality of Tivat. With its two departments one for older and the other for contemporary archival material, it evidences and controls, gathers, stores, arranges, processes and offers to users the archive material from the socio-political, economic and cultural life, from the past and present, originating from and being preserved in the area of the Bay of Kotor and other parts of our Country.
Ever since the year 1309, which is the year of the first document of his Archives, up to the present days, the archival material has been grouped within 237 record groups and 40 collections of documents, with the total length of 1300 meters. For the same material an extensive library of approximately 15000 units has been gathered to be at hand to the users of the said material.
Trough the documents from these record groups and collections it is possible to make researches from various fields of human activity within the Bay of Kotor region. Particularly the researchers dealing with town and village administrative structures, legal life, maritime affairs, agriculture, arts, literature, crafts, languages, education, healthcare, some prominent individuals, rebellions, insurrections, wars and so on.
The most precious record group is Legal-notary acts (Acta notarilia). There is the first hand written book from the year 1326 and notary acts up to the year 1944. The continuity of the material of this, as well as of other, record groups provides a prominent place of the Historical archives Kotor in present day Yugoslavia.
In the Historical archives Kotor, from the very day of foundation in 1949, there was that true need for the publication of archival material and for the presentation as many as possible new facts and many centuries long processes with this in mind. Two important streams of activity have been developed.
On one side there was the work of archivists and their collaborators who had the objective to create as many as possible scientific-information means which would enable more effective studies of the archival material. Thus, the Archives, from the first day of its existence and up to the present days, all its scientific and specialized potentials has primarily directed towards the making of scientific-information means and, therefore has made its archival material available to researchers. This work becomes even more important when we known that the archival material in this Archives is not in Serbian language, mostly in foreign languages (Latin, Italian, German, Russian, French), what, of course, is the consequence of tumultuous historical courses in the area of the Bay of Kotor. In such a way now it is possible for the researchers of all kinds, even those who have not got the sufficient knowledge of the said languages, to study the archival material.
On the other side, numerous researchers from the very Archives together with those who worked in it, readily and immediately started with the research work. Thus, on the basis of these sources, hundreds of multi-sided presentation of archival books, articles and essays have appeared.
Apart from numerous indexes and summaries of the documents in Serbian, in 1979 the Archives published "The Guide trough the archival material of the Historical Archives Kotor with the summary inventories of museum and church record groups and Collections" for the whole of its archival material, then the catalogue "Archives and science" in 1980, whiles thematically, two capital collections of documents were published: "Material for the history of Serbian medicine, the documents of the Archives Kotor" (SANU, Belgrade 1964) and "The outlaws in the Bay of Kotor 1648-1718"(CANU, Titograd 1988). Of inestimable importance are the publications of the Yugoslav academy of sciences and art and Montenegrin academy of science and art in which were given transcripts with summaries in Serbian, of all original documents from the first two handwritten books of record group Legal-notary acts (Acta notarilia) written in Latin gothic and comprising the period from 1326 to 1337 ("Kotorski spomenici", Vol ume 1 JAZU, Zagreb 1951, and "Kotorski spomenici", Volume 2 JAZU and CANU, Zagreb 1981). Apart from the said publications, on the basis of the archival documents from this Archives, approximately 700 studies, articles, catalogues and reviews were written. They were published all over Yugoslavia, and some thirty in foreign languages outside the borders of this country. It is interesting that the majority of these were published by the archivists from this Archives alone. If it is known that Kotor today is a town listed on the UNESCO's List of natural and cultural heritage with all its moveable and unmoveable cultural goods, then it is understandable the responsible and serious attitude of all the generations of archivists of this Archives towards this important segment of the historical memory.
From the rich, heterogeneous, offer of the record groups and collections of the Historical Archives we shall present the Statute of the town of Kotor, printed in Venice in 1616 with the first decision from the year 1301, and the first preserved notary-book from 1326. On the basis of the precious archival material contained within these two capital medieval documents of the Historical archives Kotor, the everyday life of the town of Kotor as wall as of the Bay of Kotor in the 14th century can virtually be reconstructed. Besides, these two medieval documents both theoretically and practically complement each other. What had theoretically been prescribed in the Statute as the legal norm, in the notary book was described as practical application of these legal norms in everyday life.
What should be concisely said of the character and importance of the Statute of Kotor? Like all other autonomous towns upon the soil of the ex Byzantine Dalmatia, Kotor, too, had its own town administration which autonomously managed the town.
Parallel with the development of the municipal life, in medieval Kotor were being developed all those institutions necessary for giving certain legal mark to that life. The Minor Council, The Council of the Convinced and The Great Council, on the basis of concrete situations and needs brought their decisions which subsequently became law. At the moment when these laws became so numerous, and when the time spent on looking them up in the verbals of the Councils slowed down the procedure of their application, came the need for their codification. Thus, appeared a collection of legal norms brought by the councils of the town, on the basis of the concrete needs and demands of the citizens, was done following the examples of the other statutes of Dalmatia and the whole of the Mediterranean region. This codification, however, was not done in the happiest of ways.
In the rich, preserved, archival material kept in the Historical Archives Kotor, in the collection of printed things there is just that, precious document, i. e. printed book, with the title "The Statute and laws of the town of Kotor", or as it stands in Latin: "Statuta et leges civitatis Cathari".
There are now only three handwritten copies of the statute, but unfortunately, none is on the territory of this, third, Yugoslavia. One copy is kept in St. Marco's library of Venice, another in the library of the family Kapor on the island of Korčula, and the third in Bogišić's library in Cavtat.
This printed issue of the Statute of Kotor is very valuable since, as we can make a conclusion from the literature consulted and some private sources, apart from the one in the Historical archives Kotor, there are only nine more known copies. As it is said by doctor Ilija Sindik, the 1912 data say that these copies are in the Jovan Stefanović's library, public notary in Kotor, given to Serbian seminar (department for national history) of the University of Belgrade; in the library of Zagreb University; in the library of the Yugoslav academy in Zagreb; in the library of the Court of appeal in Zadar; in the library of Zadar High school; in the library of the ex Lieutenancy in Zadar; in the library of the ex Supreme Court in Vienna; in the library of the Senate in Rome and in the library of the Bishop's archives in Kotor. This means that there are only three copies in Yugoslavia The Venetian handwritten copy and the one from Korčula differ by the number of articles: the Venetian one has 439, and the one from Korčula 408. The one from Bogišić's library differs from the two in that it has four parts, just like the printed one, whilst the previous two have only the articles which in Bogišić's copy are comprised within the first part. There are no essential differences in the texts of the three handwritten copies and the printed edition.
Both the handwritten copies and the printed edition of the Statute of Kotor are in Latin. The Statute of the town of Kotor was printed in Venice in 1616. Its redactors were the noblemen from Kotor Marin Buća (Marianus Bucchia) and Frano Bolica (Franciscus Bolica). It consists of four parts.
The first 50 pages of the Statute are not numbered, so the numbering was in pencil later on from 01-050. Then follows 440 originally numbered pages of the Statute and 6 subsequently marked pages (440/1-440/6). Thus, we can show the contents of the Statute as follows:
The first part of the statute does not have a title , but it has a general title "Statute et leges civitatis Cathari" since on the tops of the pages of this, first part, there is the said title as the heading. It contains 440 chapters. After 50 unnumbered pages on which , among other things there is the alphabetical index of individual chapters, the first numbered page begins with the first article "Regarding the nomination of the judges of the town of Kotor" ("De constitutione iudicum civitatis Cathari"). The last chapter of this, first part of the Statute is not a law, but the Italian translation of the famous forged charter of the emperor Dušan. Most of the chapters in this first part are not dated, but on the basis of those that are it can be assumed that the chronological order was disturbed probably because the above-mentioned redactors of this printed edition had tried to systematize the laws of Kotor. From the dated chapters, and there are 90 undated, it can be concluded that the laws of this first part were being brought all through the 14th and the first quarter of the 15th century. The oldest chapter "De cartis et povellis adductis a Dominatione contra consuetudinem Civitatis", article 349 (and "De facto Ragusinorum, articli 381"), from 1301, speaks in favor of the fact that the municipality of Kotor represented a separate , completely autonomous, jurisdiction on the territory of the state of the Nemanjićs. Apart from the legislation Kotor had completely autonomous system of justice, all of what speaks of its great autonomy. Meddling of Serbian rulers in the matters of justice, or the attempts of influencing the judges not to conform to the statutory decisions were specifically prohibited. It is exactly in this, chronologically the first chapter, that the municipality energetically stands against its citizens who would, agreeing with the king or on the basic of his Charter, do anything against a citizen of Kotor, thus, causing the opposite side to be punished. The youngest dated chapter in this first part of the statute is from January 23rd 1425.
The second part of the Statute "Partes captae in consiliis Catharinorum, quo tempore suis legibus et institutis regebantur" represents, just like the laws from the first part, the decisions of the Council of Kotor: the Great and the Minor, having the power of laws. The laws were brought at the time when Kotor was under the authority of the Bosnian king Tvrtko I and completely autonomous (from 1383 to 1420).
The third part of the Statute "Sequuntur ea quae temporis successu evenere inter serenissimam Venetorum Rempublicam et Magnificam Civitatem et Communitatem Cathari" speaks of the surrender of Kotor to Venice. The citizens of Kotor, namely, believed that, by inserting of the terms under which Kotor had surrendered to Venice in the codex of the laws of Kotor, they would acquire firmer guarantee of permanent respect of these terms by Venice.
The fourth part of the Statute "Partes captae in consiliis Civitatis Cathari, ordinatis tempore serenissimi et Excellentissimi Ducalis Domini Venetiarum" comprises the laws brought under the Venetian rule, i. e. after the years 1420. The first decision in this part is from 1421. and the last from 1444. There is also a decision of the Council of the Convinced from 1582, which was made public in 1584 , as well as an extract from a doge's act from 1446. and the act of the doge Andrea Griti from 1532. which is both in Latin and Italian.
These questions of the Statute of Kotor were thoroughly dealt with by various legal experts. Let's mention the academical Ilija Sindik, Ante Marinović and Slavko Mijušković. In the book "Municipal arrangement of Kotor" (Belgrade, 1950.) Ilija Sindik, among other things, deals with the chapters of the Statute which in any way speaks of marine affairs. He points out that, in Statute, as a general term for ships words: navis, navigum, lignum are used, and that apart from these, there are special expressions like: scaba, londrum, gondola (article 377), barcha (article 378) and zola (article 379). In Boka there were two big shipyards, in Kotor and Perast, and there were smaller ones in other coastal settlements. The inhabitants of Kotor suffered losses that since their enemies could build and repair their ships in these shipyards. Because of this the municipality of Kotor prohibited the building of ships everywhere expect in Kotor. In Perast, it was possible only to repair fishing boats (londrum) (article 377). Of persons participating in the marine trade (article 378 and 379) in the Statute of Kotor there are mentionings of patronus, naulizator and mercator.
It is necessary to stress the enormous historical importance of the Statute as a solid legal base of the medieval municipality of Kotor. In such a way all the 15 rules over Kotor could have passed, with various political and economic programs or heavy historical catastrophes like wars, earthquakes, famine and diseases, had there not been a cohesive power which held the town together, with the continuity of domestic town authority and sound legal base. That base is the Statute, which, apart from all difficult class and other conflicts and troubles, preserved the town from falling apart and its destruction and gave it some objective strength to exert itself and to recover.
And what to say of the public notarial office of Kotor and the first public - notary book of the Historical Archives Kotor.
The public notarial office, as a medieval institution, in all the European countries of the Italian origin had the task, not only to make, but to keep the documents. It developed very fast from the 9th century, and in the 12th and 13th century it exists mostly on the east of the Adriatic sea. The introduction of the public notarial service in the coastal towns was the cultural need originating from the development of the municipal arrangement and the change of social circumstances.
The preserved public - notary books of the Historical Archives Kotor give us the right to conclude that municipality (Communitatis Catharensis) had very well arranged public - notarial office.
According to the legal sanctions of the State we can come to the conclusion that the public - notarial service had mostly been done by the priests. The duties of a public - notary are very clear since they are exactly specified by the Statute. In the Statute, namely, it is said that he should attend the meeting of the councils, to keep the verbal and sing it. In court, during discussion he sits with judges, reads the lows relating to the discussion keeps the verbal and writes all other acts "testamenta, cartas, instrumenta, sententias et alia acta iudiciaaria". Apart from the work in court, he keeps in his office the protocol "letterae missae et receptae" and writes and keeps in order "privilegia Communitatis". All the documents coning to and out of the office he copies "in libris cancelarie" or "quaterni Curiae" which were being checked every six months. Exactly these books were preserved to the present day. In them of purely notarial acts, there are receipts, documents of pledge and repurchase, wills, commercial contracts, purchase and sale contracts, of various unmoveable property, marriage contracts, dowry inventories, maritime loan documents, contracts regarding the construction and repair of ships, insurance contracts especially of ships and ship cargo, contracts regarding the making of various artisanal objects, tools, arms, as well as silver and cold jewelry, icons, frescoes and so on. There are verbals of conducting of civil cases with corresponding verdicts of the higher (Curia major) and lower (Curia minor) court, then verbals and verdicts of arbitral courts, "conciliatory" courts dealing with blood revenges. There are, in transcripts, even discussions with corresponding verdicts of the courts of appeal. Upon the verdicts of the higher court of Kotor, which consisted of the count, later rector, and three judges elected for the period of one year from the noblemen of Kotor, dissatisfied party could complain to the legal colleges of Rome, Bologna, Perugia and Padova up to the Year 1433, and after that, and all to the fall of the Venetian Republic in 1797. , to the legal colleges of Padova, Vicenza, Verona and Treviso Since in the appealable material, very often, there are citations of various paragraphs from the Statute of Kotor from the times before its printing, in these appeals before the year 1616 these citations can be used with the objective of checking the correctness of transcripts of the statutory decisions in the printed edition. There is also new legal material not included in the codification.
Apart from the documents with notarial and judicial character, in public-notary books we encounter the data regarding the organization and functioning of the municipality of Kotor when dealing with administrative, social, economic, combat, sanitation, construction, education and cultural affairs on the territory of the Bay of Kotor. There are the verbals of the Great Council, the Minor (Secret) council and the Council of the Convinced. Then there are the mentionings of the rules from the Nemanjić dynasty and of the noblemen from Kotor in their service, Vuk Branković, Balšići, Serbian despots and their lieutenants in Zeta , the Hranićs, the Crnojevićs, bishop princes of Cetinje from various tribes and from the house of the Petrovićs, Montenegrin governors and various chiefs : Montenegrin, from Brda, from Njeguši, later on from Perast, the Zmajević and others. Since Kotor enjoyed wide autonomy in the medieval Serbia, like no other town, the inhabitants of Kotor had special commercial privileges in the state of the Nemanjićs. They were a serious competitor to those from Dubrovnik. Because of this, public - notary books are an indispensable source for the history of commerce and traffic on the Balkan Peninsula. During the times of the Balšićs' rule, these books are also important for the questions of the political history.
The importance of this record group relates also to peasants rebellions as well as to class conflicts between the nobility and the civil class, then to craftsmanship, urbanism, construction, education, forging of money, to various types of ships, ship and naval terminology, to various types of ships, ship and naval terminology, to trade and re-purchase of slaves, to the Jews in Kotor, to foreign merchants and commercial intermediaries and also, commercial consuls in Kotor, to custom duties on wine, oil, cattle, especially horses which were exported to southern Italy, fish, wood. salt, shoes etc.
Precious are the data of this record group dealing with the bishops of Zeta, later metropolitans, on Prevlaka, then with the relationship between Venice and Montenegrin tribes and those from Brda during the time of fighting with the Turks, then with migrations, union of churches, with churches having two altars (orthodox and catholic) with the shipyards in Kotor and Perast, with salterns in Boka, with smuggling. We specifically point out the data telling about class and religions fraternities of Kotor, like those of the seamen, blacksmiths, carpenters, shipbuilders, shoemakers, butchers and so on. Since health service was very developed in Kotor, this record group is full of the data regarding the election of doctors and chemists, then regarding the members of the Health magistracy as well as of the functioning of all these institutions. We find here the mentionings of the hospitals, hospices, foundling hospital, quarantines, contagious diseases and so on. There are numerous data, in this record group, dealing with fishing since it was very developed in Boka, particularly because of the fact that there were such settlements, like Muo, where fishing was the only source of life.
Notary acts represent such a unique written testimony of the history of the town of Kotor and the Bay of Kotor, as well as of Montenegro, Dubrovnik, Dalmatia, Herzegovina, Serbia and her commercial centers and mines, Bosnia, Macedonia, Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, North African region, Great Britain with which the ancient Bokelians had had maritime, commercial and cultural relationships. Ilija Sindik, ph. d. Nenad Fejić, Antun Meyer and others dealt with the questions of the documents written the first legal notary book with relation to the page numbers is as follows:
1326. from page 001-068 of the original document
1327. from page 069-127 of the original document
1329. from page 137,143,128 of the original document
1331. from page 148, 162-228 of the original document
1330. from page 128-147, 149-161 of the original document
1332. from page 228-269 of the original document
1333. from page 270-293 of the original document
1335. from page 294-338 of the original document
The oldest preserved handwritten book in the Archives of Kotor was bound at the end of the 18th century with the covers made of dirty white cardboard folded at the inside. The back and a half of the first and last cover are made of parchment. On the back is written "Tempore Catarinorum 1326" in humanistic script. The book is made of 8 mutually joined fascicles of uneven sizes, wrapped in grey paper. The joining of the fascicles by means of rope was done in such a way that every fascicle was pierced on five places along the middle and through these holes rope was threaded. The joining of fascicles with one another was done by means of rope through the first and the last stitch, and the joining with the covers by means of a leather band through the second, third and fourth stitch. The book was written in Latin gothic.
The first known public - notary lad in Kotor was Junius presbyter from the year 1200. In the first preserved public - notary book, comprising the period from 1326. to 1335, we find four public - notary lads alternatively: Filip from Osim with the signature "Ego Phylippus quondam Mathei de Auximo, imperiali auctoritate et nunc communis Cathari iuratus notarius", Petar Vitov who according to Milka Ivković, did not write the summaries of the documents (imbreviature) in this notary book by himself but that it was exclusively his son Marko who even signed them by Marko the son of Petar Vitov with the signature "Ego Marcus condam Petri, communis Catari iuratus notarius de mandato iudicum scripsi" and, finally, Petar Savinjanin with the signature "Ego Petrus de Savignanis imperial auctoritate notarius et nunc communis Catari abreviator".
As it was stressed before, the application of the legal norms prescribed by the Statute on the concrete life of the town of Kotor can be seen as early as in the first preserved legal notary book. It is evident through the data provided by the same regarding church relationships, social relationship, land relationships, crafts, commerce, services, navigation and traffic, fishing, regulation regarding prices and measures. Then, there are data regarding the relationships of Kotor and the inhabitants of Kotor with Dubrovnik, Zadar, Venice, Florence, Milan. Most precious are these data for the studying of the ethnic past of the town, its Slavisation, where it can be seen which neighboring places did people move from and inhabit Kotor. There are purely Slavic names of that people who would came to town, whether as servants or to study crafts. The application of the Statute of Kotor in this book can been seen through the data dealing with crafts, master - craftsmen and appre ntices, wherefrom it becomes clear that in Kotor there were craftsmen from abroad (from Dubrovnik, Trogir, Brskovo, Drač, Bazel, Čedad and from German towns) apart from those native ones. The craftsmen mentioned in the Statute and notary books were: blacksmiths (ferarius, faber), coopers (bottarius), shoemakers (caligarius), carpenters (marangonus), woman-baker (clibonaria) goldsmiths (aurifex), barbers (barberius, barbitonsor), millers (molendinarius), candle-makers (coqquens ceram), forger (cecharius), tile-maker (magister cupporum) stonecutter (petrarius), sword-maker (spatarius), tailor (sartor), painter (pictores), skinner, hat-maker, builder, furrier and so on. The names of the above-mentioned craftsmen from the first notary book tell us that it was the Slavic element that mostly participated in the crafts. Thus, there are mentionings of three goldsmiths Radoje, Miloslav and Milko, builders Bogoje and Bogdan, tailor Marin Ivanov, stonecutter Branoje, blacksmith Mihoje, furrier Mato and others. Town nobility, however, lived mostly on the rent of the land, commerce, financing of various commercial deals and lending money. Regulations quoted in the Statute, which found their use in the first notary book, relate to commercial links and traffic of Kotor with other towns and countries. Apart from Venice and Dubrovnik, there were: Ancona, Apulia, Bulgaria, Drač, Milan, Otranto, Osim, Pistoia, Rome, Furlania, Firmo, Čedad and Florence. Dalmatia is mentioned through Zadar, Ston, Cavtat and the islands of Dubrovnik. In this notary book it is clear that in Serbian state Kotor had links with Bar, Budva, Brskovo, Kosovo, Podgorica, Trebinje, Peć, Rudnik, Skoplje, Skadar, Trepča and Ulcinj.
And, now, on the threshold of the 21st century, the atmosphere of the medieval town of Kotor can be experienced thanks to the electronic science, on all the continents of the world. By scanning of these important documents of the Historical Archives Kotor, of the rare printed edition of the Statute of Kotor and of the first handwritten legal-notary book, and through their presentation by means of electronic media, their contents become accessible to a wide range of scientific researches in the shape of a conventional phototypic edition. The quality of the pictures of the electronic edition becomes a lot higher than of any classical phototypic standard, and the scanned pages can be enlarged several times. This is very important for the paleographic reading of medieval documents written with many ligatures and abbreviations, thus, the possibility of multiple enlargement becomes indispensable. Such a detailed transfer of information from the paper to the electronic medium has for the objective permanent preservation of these books from further physical destruction. Every future user researcher of these documents, as well as of the Statute itself, will not need am thing else but this electronic version, what will reduce the physical manipulation to minimum, and with it the possibility of their physical destruction. Taking into consideration the age of these documents, 672 years since the first document in the first handwritten legal - notary book and 382 years since the printing of the Statute, the advantages of the electronic presentation become more and more important. This means of presentation and preserving of cultural - historical heritage is widespread in the world nowadays, thus, this CD-ROM represents the inclusion of the Historical Archives Kotor in already rich offer of the national cultural heritage accessible on the optoelectronic media.