Kotor in the early middle ages: authority of tradition or mists of history?

Abstract

The medieval dossier of Kotor (Montenegro) comprises of two written documents, from a considerably later period, on the grounds of which both the historical and the traditional perception of the early medieval town is constructed, Instrumentum corporis nostri gloriosi Confalonis Sancti Tryphonis, more often called "The 'charter' of Andreaci on the construction of the church of Saint Tryphon", and Lezenda de Misser Confalon et Protector della Cittade de Catharo, i.e. "The legend of Saint Tryphon" 1996: 17-31). Based on a new reading of the sources, this text attempts to establish the most significant currents of the town's early medieval past which was previously presented in historiography solely according to the tradition and not according to historical sources. The second document has been identified as a segment of a considerably longer text, which had probably originally served as Bile Mihajlov's (a nobleman from Kotor and a member of the traders guild) portativc "reminder" on professional ethics (PROATEIT -PAV 2011: 29-64, 2012: 231-236). It has been concluded that the "Legend" contains certain names from the town's history or the central event of the already mythologized past of Kotor, given in a later redaction, but it certainly lacks indications of phenomena characteristic of the early medieval history of the town. The situation with the text of the "Charter" is entirely different. Although no final and definitive conclusion can be made, it is reasonable to suppose that the nucleus of this document comprised of at least two diplomatic documents mentioning two churches, the existence of which has been archaeologically proven. Also, based on their contents and fragments of a sculpture found in the town, it can be concluded that at the beginning of the IX century, each January 13th, for some reason Kotor organized a church festival which involved the entire community, and that it had already had at that time a defined class of noblemen economically capable of funding their own private churches. The lack of any indications of the ceremony of adventus of Saint Tryphon in this document, however, offered ground for judging the authenticity of later data provided by the chapter 29 of DAI of Constantine Porphyrogenitus, in which there is a mention of Ban's destruction of the Bay of Kotor by the Saracens. Among other issues, this event resulted in a forced transfer of native population of Roman origin to slavery. In the end, this text poses various questions related to the particular historically confirmed individuals from the early medieval town and the place of the town's bishopric within the order established in Nicaea in AD 787, as well as to the military, administrative. political and general position of Kotor and its surrounding in the early Middle Ages, as a centuries old cultural liminal space and, at the same time, one of the strategically most significant points in the network of Byzantine strongholds in the area of the Adriatic.