Rules, Norms, and Instructions for the Venetian rettori in the Subject Dominions: Between Central Authority and Local Communities (Thirteenth to Fifteenth Centuries)

From the 13th century onwards, if not earlier, instructions indicating how Venetian rectors were to govern subject territories were collected in ‘commissions’ drawn up for every new mandate of peripheral administration in the single communities. Over time the Republic drew up formulari (‘formulary registers’) that were used to produce copies for the newly elected officials. The scholars have mainly focused on the principles intended to guide the rector’s government actions, in particular, the key regulations indicating his jurisdictional competences on a case-by-case basis. Light remains to be shed both on the process that led to the formation of documentation and on the updating of ‘commissions’, referring to relations between ‘La Dominante’ and her officials, on the one hand, and the subject territories, on the other. The process of integration of new dominions into the Venetian State was regulated by pacts (pacta deditionis or capitoli) involving reciprocal commitments assumed by both Venice and the representatives of these new dominions. While affirming the primacy and hegemony of Venice over a given area, this system also made it possible to recognize the identity and prerogatives of each community. We should also reflect on the relation between the pacts and the ‘instructions’ for the Venetian rectors, which has so far emerged in particular with regard to the period of redefinition of Venetian-Adriatic relationships (13th-15th centuries). The instructions to the rectors referred back to the pact procedure and included shared options necessary for the government of the communities agreed upon by the Comune Veneciarum together with the sindici of the subjected cities or at the very least regulations that both parties had undertaken to observe. The ‘commissions’ therefore represented the implementing instrument of the pact-based relationship underpinning the new political set-up. The continuous updating of these texts was also affected by the dialectical relationship between centre and periphery. There are documented cases showing that subject communities could request the process of updating and reform of ‘commissions’ by submitting supplicationes or requisitiones to Venice. In these ‘commissions’ to the rectors the communities would find the rationale behind their transition to Venetian rule and the procedures governing the changeover. In time they would have been able to contribute to update them (and receive a response to their petitions). In short, such instructions provide us with a picture of the experience undergone by such communities under Venice and can therefore be considered not just a legislative instrument but also a political tool.