Venice appeared as a kind of, but not quite, sovereign polity in the late 700s and 800s. Venetian society, no longer governed by Constantinople, nor really independent, had to survive between the two super-powers of their time, Byzantium and the Carolingian Empire.

The Venetians on their own

When the Lombards conquered Ravenna in 751, they put an end to the Exarchy and to a direct Byzantine presence in north-eastern Italy.

The Venetians in the lagoons were now almost on their own. Constantinople was far away, and communication was slow. They would have to take care of their affairs themselves.

The constraints of life in the lagoons forced the Venetians to seek wealth in trade. The only local produce of importance was salt, which still had to be sold to somebody.

The lagoons were formally still a part of the Byzantine Empire, so trade towards the east didn’t meet major political or economic barriers.

The main problem for the Venetians was piracy. Some of the other peoples living down the Adriatic Sea preyed on the rich Venetian ships sailing up and down the coast.

On the mainland side, the Lombards controlled all the territory north, west and south. The mainland was, to all extents and purposes, another country, with all the problems that created for commerce and interaction in general. To be able to trade safely up the rivers on the mainland, the Venetians needed formal agreements.

In other words, treaties.

The internal political rift, about which of the two relationships was more important, persisted.

Venetian politics

It was established that the Venetian elite now chose their Dux (or doge) themselves, but also that the newly elected doge soon after went to Constantinople to swear allegiance to the emperor. He would then return to the dogado (the duchy), invested with imperial authority and courtly titles.

The communities of the dogado were still Byzantines.

The election of the doge happened in an informal popular assembly called the concio or the arringo.

In such an assembly of the ‘people’, who are the people?

The answer to that question is not always as simple as it seems. For example, in most westerns societies, until fairly recently, women weren’t ‘people’ in the political sense.

Among the Venetians, where long-distance trade had become the main source of wealth, power was concentrated in a group of wealthy merchants. Most of these resided on the islands in the wider area around the Rialto markets, which was already then the economic centre.

The election of the doge was by acclamation, so there would have been a good deal of wrangling going on, before a consensus was reached. In effect, it was a kind of power-sharing system between the dominant dynasties and factions.

The powers of the doges

The chosen doges had all the powers of the Byzantine Dux. That meant both military and civilian authority.

However, the Dux under the Exarchs had a superior, so they could be removed. There was some kind of check on the way they exercised power.

Once the Exarchy was gone, and the Venetians chose their own leader, that was no longer the case.

The doges wielded almost absolute power, they were chosen for life, and there was no procedure for removing them. They were practically elected kings.

Competition for the election was fierce, and some dynasties developed, who between them completely dominated the first centuries of the Venetian state.

Of the first twenty-five locally chosen doges, six were from the Partecipazio clan, five were from the Candiano dynasty, and another three were Orseolo.

Over almost three centuries, more than half the doges, ruling half the period, came from just those three families.

That’s a quite amazing concentration of power, but none of these dynasties managed to hold on to it.

Not for lack of trying, through.

The problem of succession

It soon became common for a newly chosen doge to appoint a son co-ruler. The intent was usually to make the position of doge hereditary — establishing a monarchy. When the father died, the son would already be in a position of authority.

There are several examples of a son following his father as doge in this period, but none of the dynasties managed to hold on to power for long.

Without any formal constitutional order, such power grabs almost inevitably led to physical violence and people killing each other.

Of the same twenty-five early doges, about half were either killed, forcibly deposed, or went into monasteries to avoid getting killed or blinded.

In Constantinople, when an emperor was deposed, rather than killing him outright, it became common procedure to blind him and send him to a monastery. This was also the fate of several deposed Doges of the Venetians. The Venetians were culturally Byzantines, also in their treatment of deposed rulers.

If the way the early Venetian state functioned seems awfully disorganized, it is because it was.

Venetian statehood wasn’t planned. There was no declaration of independence, there was no constitution beyond tradition, and there was no consensus within the elite on how the state should work, or even what its purpose was.

The Franks in Italy

The Frankish empire expanded into northern Italy in the early years of Charlemagne’s reign. In 774, he defeated the last king of the Lombards, and claimed the title for himself.

For the Venetians, it meant that rather than bordering on a regional power on the mainland, they now had an empire there. Furthermore, an empire which soon claimed the entire heritage of the Western Roman Empire in direct competition with Byzantium.

Charlemagne appointed his second son Pepin King of the Lombards in 781. Pepin embarked on a campaign to subdue as much of the peninsula as possible, in particular the surviving Lombard territories, but also the remainders of the Byzantine presence.

In the year 800, Charlemagne had the Pope crown him Emperor of the Romans, which wasn’t perceived well in Constantinople. The Byzantines saw themselves as the only “Romans”, and refused to recognise Charlemagne as an equal.

The Venetians were as always divided into pro-Byzantine and pro-Lombard/Frankish factions. Internal strife between the factions gave Pepin a pretext to try to occupy the lagoons, and he arrived with a navy in 809.

The Franks quickly occupied the Lidos, where they sacked and burned the Doge’s palace at Metamauco.

When the Frankish navy entered the lagoon, the Venetians rallied around the Rialto for a last stand. The Franks didn’t know the lagoon well, and had difficulties navigating the narrow, unmarked canals. The Venetians continuously harassed them, using smaller boats and their knowledge of the lagoon.

The fighting — in an area well within sight of the current Doge’s Palace — was fierce and lasted several months. It was also a very bloody fight, and the lagoon battlefields are still, to this day, called the Canale Orfani — the canal of the orphans.

The Venetians — figuratively fighting with their back against the wall — were saved by a plague. Some kind of contagious disease spread in the Frankish camp, and they were compelled to lift the siege.

Pepin died not long after, in 810, likely of the same disease.

Venetian society survived this attack, but it was close.

The Doge of the Venetians got a new palace, no longer at Metamauco, but on the Rialto archipelago, where the headquarters during the war had been.

A peace treaty was negotiated a few years later, in 812. Not by the Venetians, but between the Carolingian Empire on the one side, and the Byzantine Empire on the other. The Venetians weren’t at the table when empires discussed matters of empire. Among other things, the treaty confirmed the previous de facto border between the two empires, with the lagoons as Byzantine territory, and the mainland as Frankish.

The war with the Franks had several long-lasting effects for the dogado:

Firstly, any pro-Frankish faction within Venetian society was now dead. Nobody would stand up in the assembly of the wealthy merchants, and argue for closer alignment with the Franks on the mainland. The Venetians would now focus on their Byzantine connections.

Secondly, the Venetians had won this war, against an imperial foe, with their own forces. Nobody had come to their aid, if not divine intervention through the plague. Despite the devastation of their lands, it was quite a confidence booster.

Thirdly, with the Doge now settled in the central lagoon, the Rialto area became the undisputed centre of the dogado.

Finally, the peace treaty between the two empires gave the dogado lasting stability on the border between the mainland and the lagoons. The Venetians could concentrate on their business dealings.

Saint Mark the Alexandrian

Not long after the war, in 828, another morale booster lifted the confidence of the Venetians.

This story is shrouded in myths.

Two merchants, Bon da Malamocco and Rustico da Torcello, travelled to Alexandria in Egypt. In the souk of Alexandria, the Venetians bought goods from Egypt, Central Africa and the East African coast. They were well established there, long before the journey of Bon and Rustico.

The two Venetians got hold of the box with the bones of St Mark.

Whether they bought the relics from the Alexandrine monks, got them for safekeeping, or simply stole them in the dead of night, is unclear, but they got them.

The relics of such a saint were worth a fortune, but the two merchants managed to smuggle the treasure through customs by hiding the box in a large chest full of salted pork. The Muslim soldiers, checking the ship before departure, shied away from the chest when they saw the contents.

When the two merchants arrived in Venice with the relics of such an important saint, they were treated as heroes and got a huge reward.

St Mark was immediately declared the patron saint of the Venetians, shunting the previous protector St Theodore to a side. A new chapel dedicated to St Mark, grander than the old chapel of St Theodore, was built besides the new palace of the Doge.

The Procurators of San Marco were initially appointed to oversee the construction of the church, then for its upkeep. This office became one of the very first permanent offices of the nascent Venetian state. Besides the church, they were also charged with the execution of wills, and protecting the property of minors and the mentally infirm. The Procurators, while not politically powerful, ranked just under the Doge, until the end of the Republic.

The acquisition of the relics of St Mark was a major scoop. It is difficult to overstate its importance. It was much, much more than just a religious matter.

St Mark was a somebody in the world of saints. He had travelled with St Peter to Rome. St Peter later sent him to Africa to found a Christian church there, the African Orthodox Church, of which he became the first patriarch. Due to this role, he is sometimes referred to as the thirteenth apostle. He is also traditionally considered the author of the Gospel of Mark.

The relics of such important religious figures were generally kept in major religious or political centres. The relics of many of the apostles were collected in various churches in Constantinople, and, of course, the important saints Peter and Paul were buried in Rome.

Hosting the relics of the founder of a major church, the author of one of the gospels, and a long-time companion of St Peter himself, lifted the dogado to a new level of importance.

Besides the religious and political aspects, there’s also the economic.

Travel was dangerous in the Middle Ages, and people generally only went travelling for either war, trade or for the salvation of their soul. Medieval tourism was therefore mostly religious, and important sanctuaries had a steady flow of pilgrims — and of the pilgrims’ money.

Relics were big business.

The city of Venice

Before the early 800s, there wasn’t any Venice yet. There were, at most, some scattered settlements in the area.

The entire area, where Venice now is, was an archipelago of marsh islands, divided in two by the winding Meduacus — one of the main rivers traversing the lagoon.

In the earliest times, there were several settlements in the area, especially around the Rialto, on the Olivolo island, around two twin islands in Castello, whose exact location has been lost, and in Dorsoduro.

The Rialto marketplace was the defining feature of the area. There was a marketplace at Rialto even in Roman times, before the migrations into the lagoons. That bit of marsh had always been an important crossroads.

The name Rialto was used for both the Rialto marketplaces, as it is today, and for the entire archipelago, where the city of Venice is today.

Rialto comes from the Latin rivus altus, which can mean two things. Either it means a deep canal, referring to the Grand Canal, where ships of all sizes could moor safely.

Alternatively, it means a high brink. In that case, it indicates that these marsh islands were higher, and therefore drier, which would make them a good place for people to meet and barter their goods and produce, no matter the level of the tide.

If the marketplace was always there, the Church arrived in 774 when the Olivolo island became an episcopal see. The Olivolo island is located in at the easternmost part of modern Venice, and is usually called San Pietro today, after the church of the bishop and later patriarch.

The elevation of the Olivolo to a bishopric is a testimony to the economic importance of the central lagoon, and a sign that there was a sizeable population.

With the presence of a bishop, the wider Rialto area became a religious centre, too.

After the war with the Franks, in 811, the doge of the Venetians moved to Rialto, to the area which is today called St Mark’s. There, a new palace was built, surrounded by earth mounds, palisades, and a moat. Nearby, a chapel for St Theodore — the first patron saint of the Venetians — was erected.

Finally, the relics of St Mark arrived, to be placed, not with the Bishop of Olivolo, but near the residence of the Doge. St Mark became the new patron saint of the Venetians, and a new, larger, church was erected besides the chapel of St Theodore.

This made the wider Rialto area a combined economic, religious and political centre, and from the mid-800s it was the undisputed centre of the dogado. It was where the major decisions were taken, and where most major events took place.

As Venice grew into a real city, it needed infrastructure and maintenance. Another of the very early offices of the nascent Venetian state were the Provveditori di Comun — literally, the Superintendents of the Commons. The commons were all the spaces and facilities in the city which nobody owned, but everybody used, such as streets, bridges, public wells, and quay-sides.

In ancient sources, Venice is hardly ever referred to by that name. During the Middle Ages it was most often just Rialto, and later also la dominante (meaning the dominant one) or simply la città (the city).

The terminology was, in short, that the people were the Venetians, their state was the Dogado (the Duchy of the Venetians), and the city was Rialto or the city.

The importance of trade

The arrival of St Mark in Venice was a side effect of what was by necessity the main vocation of the Venetians: trade by sea and river.

The peace treaty of 812 confined the Venetians to the lagoons between Grado in the north and the estuary of the River Po in the south. There were few other options for accumulating wealth than trade.

Fortunately, that same treaty also gave the Venetians a long period of peace on the mainland side, allowing them to develop that trade over the next few centuries.

Venetian ships headed down the Adriatic Sea, and ventured as far as the Levant, Constantinople and around the Black Sea.

The Eastern Mediterranean was a major trade hub in the medieval world.

Tropical hardwoods, ivory and black slaves arrived in Alexandria along the Nile. Spices from Madagascar and timber from Ethiopia arrived there too, by the Red Sea.

From India, spices and gemstones travelled up the Persian Gulf, the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and then past Palmyra to the coast of Syria.

The Silk Road from China, which also transported cotton from Central Asia, led to the Caspian Sea. Across there, up the Volga River to Volgograd, down the Don River to the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

From the Baltic area, goods travelled down the Dnieper River, past Kyiv, to the Black Sea.

The Black Sea, with large populations of non-Christians, was also a source of slaves for the Byzantine, Arab and Western European slave markets. The connection is such that the English word ‘slave’ derives from the word ‘Slav’, through Arab and Byzantine Greek.

Closer to home, both the Byzantine and the Arab dominions had interesting products of their own. From the Greek lands, the Venetians imported cheeses and wine, and the Dalmatian coast supplied meat, fresh and salted, to the Venetians.

Therefore, in the harbours of the Eastern Mediterranean and around the Black Sea, the Venetians — and their competitors from Genoa — could buy goods from almost all the known world.

Being, formally at least, still a part of the Byzantine world, facilitated this trade.

Several settlements in the lagoons developed into important commercial centres. Naturally, the Rialto, but also Torcello further north, which in the early Middle Ages could compete with Rialto in importance.

The products, which the Venetians imported or made from imported raw materials, had to be sold somewhere. Much went up the rivers on the mainland, towards the rest of Western Europe.

The importance of this trade, not just for the Venetians, but also for their trading partners, is evident from some of the agreements made in the 900s.

The Byzantine emperor issued a Golden Bull in 992, which exempted the Venetian merchants from all customs in Constantinople. Clearly, the empire in the east needed the Venetian trade as much as the Venetians.

Towards the west, in a treaty from 983, the Holy Roman Empire formally recognized Venice as an independent state, and another treaty from 992 regulated Venetian trade on the mainland.

Piracy and war in the Adriatic Sea

The Venetian economy flourished, but even if the Venetians had managed to create long-term working relationships with the two major empires, all was not well.

The Venetian ships sailing up and down the Adriatic Sea soon became targets of predators.

The people living around the Naretva river (in modern-day Croatia) caused the Venetians much grief, and the Venetians mounted campaigns against them in 830, 839, 864, 887 and 948.

In either 932 or 944, pirates — from Trieste or from the Naretva — attacked the bishop’s church on the Olivolo and abducted all the Venetian brides for the weddings of that year. The Venetians set after them and reclaimed the girls and their dowries in a story that would become legendary.

Likewise, the Saracens, who had conquered parts of Southern Italy, posed a threat to Venetian navigation, and to the Byzantine Empire. The Venetians fought the Saracens — on behalf of Constantinople or on their own account — in 827, 840, and 867.

The Venetians weren’t always acting in defence. In 932 and in 951, the Venetians attacked Comacchio, another city of merchants in a lagoon south of the Po estuary, and thereby eliminated one of their competitors.

Finally, in the 990s, Venice took control of the Istrian peninsula and the Dalmatian coast — both in modern Croatia — and the “Doge of the Venetians” became the “Doge of the Venetians and of the Dalmatians.”

Statehood

When did the society of the Venetians develop into a Venetian state? What does it even mean to be a state?

Both are good questions, which naturally implies that they have no simple answers.

Did the dogado become a state with the election of Dux Orso in 726, against the will of Constantinople? The answer is No because the Byzantines returned and imposed their rulers on the lagoons again.

Was it a state in 742, when Teodato was elected doge? All later doges were chosen locally, but they kept publicly declaring their allegiance to Constantinople. That doesn’t sound like independence.

Did they acquire statehood in 809 when they fought off the Franks? Not quite, since the following peace treaty was negotiated between the Carolingian and Byzantine empires, in Aachen, without any participation of the Venetians.

During the 800s, the Venetians created positions and roles — which we would most likely consider offices or institutions of a state — such as the Procurators of San Marco and the Provveditori di Comun.

Then, in 841, the Venetians entered into an international treaty, negotiated directly with Holy Roman Emperor Lothar I.

Modern definitions of sovereignty usually include elements like self-rule with an institutionalized system of government, and the ability to make treaties with other sovereigns.

The Venetians got there, but slowly, step by step, over more than a century.

Venetian statehood wasn’t an event. It was a process — a very long process.