The Duchy of Croatia (Modern Croatian: Kneževina Hrvatska; also Duchy of the Croats, Modern Croatian: Kneževina Hrvata; Latin: Ducatus Chroatorum; Greek: Χρωβατία) was a medieval state that was established by White Croats who migrated into the area of the former Roman province of Dalmatia c. 7th century AD. Throughout its existence the Duchy had several seats – namely, Klis, Solin, Knin, Bijaći and Nin. It comprised the littoral – the coastal part of today's Croatia – except Istria, and included a large part of the mountainous hinterland as well.
The Croats settled in Dalmatia after defeating the Pannonian Avars, during the time of Byzantine emperor Heraclius I. The Duchy was in the center of competition between the Byzantine Empire and the Carolingian Empire for rule over the area. Croatian rivalry with Venice emerged in the first decades of the 9th century and would continue through the following centuries. Croatia also waged battles with the Bulgarian Empire (founded c. 681; Bulgar-Croatian relations improved greatly afterwards) and with the Arabs; it also sought to extend its control over important coastal city-states under the rule of Byzantium. Croatia experienced periods of vassalage to the Franks or to the Byzantines and of de facto independence until 879, when Duke Branimir was recognized as an independent ruler by Pope John VIII. The Duchy was ruled by the Trpimirović and Domagojević dynasties from 845 to 1091. Around 925, during the rule of Tomislav, Croatia became a kingdom.
Nomenclature
"Dalmatian Croatia" (Dalmatinska Hrvatska) and "Littoral Croatia" (Primorska Hrvatska) are modern appellations amongst historians for the Duchy. The state is sometimes called a principality, i.e. the "Principality of Croatia". The first recorded name for the Duchy was "Land of the Croats" (Latin: regnum Croatorum) in 852. Croatia was not yet a kingdom at the time and the term regnum is used in terms of a country in general. In Byzantine sources the entity was usually called just "Croatia" (Greek: Χρωβατία).
The first known duke, Borna, was named "Duke of Dalmatia" (Latin: Dux Dalmatiae) and later "Duke of Dalmatia and Liburnia" (Latin: Dux Dalmatiae atque Liburniae) in the Annales regni Francorum. The Croatian name is recorded in contemporary charters of Croatian dukes from the second half of the 9th century. Trpimir I was named "Duke of the Croats" (Latin: Dux Chroatorum) in a Latin charter issued in 852, while Branimir was defined as "Duke of the Croats" (Latin: Dux Cruatorvm) on a preserved inscription from Šopot near Benkovac.
Geography
Within the area of the Roman province of Dalmatia, various tribal groupings, which were called sclaviniae by the Byzantines, were settled along the Adriatic coast. Croatia in the early Middle Ages was an area bounded by the Eastern Adriatic hinterland on one side, then extended to a part of western Herzegovina, western and central Bosnia, then into Lika, Gacka and Krbava, and North-West to Vinodol and Labin in the Croatian Littoral area. Several coastal Dalmatian city-states were under the rule of the Byzantines, including Split, Zadar, Kotor and Dubrovnik, as well as islands of Hvar and Krk. To the south Croatia bordered with the land of the Narentines, which stretched from the rivers Cetina to Neretva, and had the islands of Brač, Hvar, Korčula, Mljet, Vis and Lastovo in its possession. In the southern part of Dalmatia, there was Zahumlje (Zachumlia), Travunia and Dioclea (today Montenegro). North of Croatia there was the Duchy of Lower Pannonia. Croatia, as well as other early medieval states, didn't have a permanent capital and Croatian dukes resided in various places on their courts. The first important center of Croatia was Klis near Split, where Duke Trpimir I resided. Other dukes ruled from the towns of Solin, Knin, Biaći and Nin.
History
Background
The Roman provinces and native populations in Southeastern Europe, including the province of Dalmatia and other parts of the Praetorian prefecture of Illyricum, were attacked and conquered by the Huns and Goths with the latter Ostrogoths forming Ostrogothic Kingdom (493–553). The archaeological findings of fibulae and other artifacts confirm the presence of Ostrogoths and Gepids in Northern Dalmatia, and Pannonia.
Although the Byzantine Empire managed to reconquest the territory (albeit the Plague of Justinian and Late Antique Little Ice Age), since the mid-6th century followed even more devastating intrusions and migrations of the early Slavs. Most of the Roman province by the 7th century were pressured by Avar Khaganate, a nomadic confederacy led by the Pannonian Avars who subjugated surrounding Slavic tribes. In c. 614 the Avars and Slavs sacked and decisively destroyed the capital of the province of Dalmatia, Salona, and retained direct control of the region.
According to the De Administrando Imperio, the White Croats were either invited into province of Dalmatia by the Byzantine Emperor Heraclius (r. 610–641) and allowed to settle there after defeating the Avars, or prevailing the Avars after the lengthy war the Croats migrated across the Sava from Pannonia Savia and settled Dalmatia on their own. According to the same source, the Croats were led by five brothers (Kloukas, Lobelos, Kosentzis, Mouchlo, Chrobatos) and two sister (Touga, Bouga), their first archon during the Avar wars and settlement was unnamed father of Porga, and first Christianization happened during the rule of Porga himself (both contemporaries of Heraclius, as per source). However, the accounts have been variously interpreted by historians, that the Croatian war against the Avars possibly was a revolt after the Croats already settled in Dalmatia, were supported diplomatically by the Byzantine Empire after the unsuccessful Siege of Constantinople (626), or was a reference to the late 8th and early 9th century Frankish-Avar Wars (rejected). Although the Christianization of Croats began right after their arrival to Dalmatia, in the early 9th century a part of the Croats were still pagan, being a gradual process which continued in the 8th until mid-9th century.
By the early 9th century, Croatia emerged as a political entity with a duke as head of the state, territorially in the basins of the rivers Cetina, Krka and Zrmanja. It was administered in 11 counties (županija):
From that time they remained independent and autonomous, and they requested holy baptism from Rome, and bishops were sent and baptized them in the time of their Archon Porinos. Their land was divided in eleven zupanias, which are: Hlebiana, Tzenzena, Emota, Pleba, Pesenta, Parathalassia, Brebere, Nona, Tnena, Sidraga, Nina, and their ban has Kribasan, Litzan, Goutzeska.
Archaeology
The evidence for the 7th century arrival of new Slavic(-Croatian) population are cremation burials, Prague culture pottery, fibulae and other artifacts found near them, which are atypical for a Roman and Christian population at the time, as well destruction of inhabitations and churches, and changes of native's lifestyle. In case of early Croats, the inhumation was also done making a burial chamber with wooden or stone structure, which "was a tradition brought from the original homeland of the Croats in the north, and had no parallels in the native regional cultures". However, although material culture proves migration of the Slavs, it is practically impossible to differentiate with early Slavic material culture the Slavic tribal ethnic identities from the general mass of Slavs.
Christianization possibly began to be more widely accepted since the 8th century. The cremation burials in the early 8th century were followed by cemeteries in rows with pagan burial practices until mid-9th century, then cemeteries in rows with pagan and Christian burial practices and cemeteries in rows with exclusively Christian burial practices until second-half of the 11th century, and cemeteries next to churches with burials from the 9th to 11th centuries, with mandatory burials next to churches since second-third of the 11th century.
In the Pannonian part of Croatia both Early and Late Avar artefacts were found, while in the Littoral part of Croatia the findings of Avar origin are rare and only date to the Late Avar and post-Avar period. In Dalmatia they most probably were war booty from the Frankish-Avar Wars (788–803), or Battle of Kupa (819). Croats from the late-8th and in the 9th century have high concentration of Carolingian-Viking swords (over 24, mostly of K-type but also 1-type and H-type, post-Carolingian emerge R-type and X-type), and other war equipment (including a long knife, long spear, and arrows, as well boots with spurs, belt trappings and else of Carolingian influence), some considered as evidence of Croatian participation in the Frankish-Avar Wars in the late 8th and early 9th century (although Frankish sources do not mention Croatian ethnonym between early 7th and late 9th century), and being part of the Central-European and Carolingian political and cultural world of influence at least since duke Borna (c. 810–821). However, the distribution and concentration of K-type swords in Europe does not correspond with the hypothesis they were official armament of the Frankish army. They are neither evidence of a late 8th-early 9th century migration of Croats, as some scholars have argued, but as Frankish gifts of loyalty, were influential to the consolidation of the Croatian elite identity and ethnogenesis at the time. The distribution of post-Carolingian weapons and cavalry equipment in present-day Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina, found near old roads and often with gold coins of Constantine V (741–775) which were still in use, is within the borders and corresponding historical events related to the Duchy of Croatia and Kingdom of Croatia.
Recent archaeological findings from Brekinjova Kosa at Bojna near Glina in Lower Pannonia, including rich burial (golden spurs with mounting set, pendant with rock crystal, gold coin of Constantine V, clothing woven with gold threads) belonging to a local duke at Bojna, which have very similar analogies in Biskupija near Knin and Morpolača near Stankovci in Dalmatia, indicate it belonged to the Croats who spread control to the area around Sisak.
Female dress earrings (grape-like made of precious metals) and else include "examples of the craftsmanship of Byzantine goldsmiths, presumably imported through one of the cities in Dalmatia which was under Byzantine rule", but "are known to have been found in Western Pannonia". Simpler jewellery of silver and bronze are S-type (typical of Sclaveni) and pseudo-S-type earrings, omega-type and star-shaped pendants of Byzantine origin, and many rings and necklaces. Rare containers made of antlers and engraved with iconography (two horned animals facing the tree of life between them) were also found only in Western Pannonia (Sopron and Zalavar, Hungary). Artifacts made of bone, alongside other mentioned, suddenly disappear with the introduction of the Christian burial since the mid-9th century, as well were abandoned pagan necropolises (nearby which emerge graveyards of Christian ritual), but there was no destruction, which indicate that the "adoption of Christianity by the Croats was effected without great social upheavals". Several archaeological findings and inscriptions dating to the late 8th and first half of the 9th century in the territory of early medieval Croatia show missionary activity of the Patriarchate of Aquileia.
Some of the findings "are a characteristic of Croatian production". Since the mid-9th century flourished a distinctive Croatian-type production of jewellery (most notable being large bead shaped earrings with "no contemporary European parallel", while statistically by order earrings, pendants, rings, buttons, necklaces). The workshops probably were located in Solin and Knin in Dalmatia, and Sisak in the continental part. Archaeologists recognize and distinguish two cultural variants of the "Old-Croatian" archaeological period (7/9th-11th century), a proper Old-Croatian or Croatian-Dalmatian/Littoral culture, and Pannonian-Bijelo Brdo culture (since mid-10th century), which were contemporary to Carinthian-Köttlach culture in the west. Findings of the Croatian-Dalmatian variant were found from Istria down to Dubrovnik, in the hinterland near rivers Neretva, Vrbas and Bosna and into southwestern Pannonia, while the second variant was mostly present between Sava–Drava region in Croatia and in northern Bosnia and Herzegovina with some findings in Adriatic coast and hinterland. The archaeological findings of Croatian-Dalmatian culture in Lower Pannonia and northwestern Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well in Istria and eastern parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina, can be attributed to influence and trade, but also expansion of the early medieval Croatia.