The Croats were to be much more prominent in the Middle Ages. They did
not, it is true, always manage to hold their heads above water; but
they can now look back with more gratification than regret on the
interminable conflicts which they had to sustain against the
Hungarians on the one hand, the Venetians on the other. The Hungarian
monarch, anxious to have an outlet on the Adriatic, attempted to
cajole the Croats into electing him as their king, on the score of his
being the brother of the wife of a late Croatian ruler. He secured by
force what his pleadings had not gained him, and subsequently the link
between Croatia and Hungary was more than once broken and reunited
within the space of a few years; at last it was arranged that there
was to be a purely personal union under the vigorous King Kolomon, and
so it continued, with varying interference on the part of the
Hungarians, until the dynasty of Arpad became extinct in 1301. The
functionary who represented the central power in Croatia--there being
for part of this period a similar official for Slavonia, the adjoining
province--had the title of Ban. He was at the head of the Croatian
army, he pronounced sentences in the name of the king and had other
functions, so that the office came to be regarded with profound
respect by the Croats, and many of its holders tried to deserve this
sentiment.... Among the duties assumed by King Kolomon was that of
recovering from the Venetians those coastal towns and islands which
had fallen to them, owing to the chaos in Croatia. For more than two
hundred years--that is, until the middle of the fourteenth
century--this warfare between the Hungaro-Croatian kings and Venice
raged without interruption; apparently the Dalmatian towns and islands
were most unwilling to come under the sway of Venice. We read
everywhere of how they themselves put up a strenuous resistance. At
Zadar, the capital, where Pope Alexander III. had in the year 1177
been welcomed by the people with rejoicings and Croatian songs, a
chain was drawn across the harbour in 1202, for the people hoped in
this way to keep out the Venetians, who, with a number of Frenchmen,
were starting out on the famous Fourth Crusade--that enterprise which
ended, on the outward journey, underneath the walls of Constantinople.
The Venetians forced their way into Zadar, plundered and devastated
it; and in order to mollify the Pope, who was indignant at Crusaders
having behaved in this fashion against a Christian town, they
subscribed towards the building of the cathedral, but retained
possession of the place--this time for over a hundred and fifty years.
Yet the holding of Zadar did not imply that of other Dalmatian towns:
during this period when Venice clung to the chief place there were a
good many changes in the not-distant town of [vS]ibenik, which was now
under the Hungarians, now under Paul Subi[vc], Prince of Bribir, now
under the Ban Mladen II., now an autonomous town under Venice.