Remarks on Government of Dalmatia in the Twelfth Century

A Terminological Analysis

Abstract

Because of the rare and very heterogenous sources, reconstructions of medieval governmental systems in ‘frontier zones’ such as twelfth-century Dalmatia can only often be based on the titles of governing officials, and on terms used for denominating the ruled territories. In this paper the author – after the examination of terms used in Venetian, Byzantine, and Hungarian official writings referring to Dalmatia - concludes that if we can contextualize these terms by taking into consideration of regional origins and local contexts of their meanings and their usage, structural differences and similarities lying behind the superficialy identical terminology can be revealed.