1251_RC

Combined with other contemporary narrative accounts, mainly the History of the Bishops of Salona and Split by Archdeacon Thomas (ed. Damir Karbić et al. Budapest-New York 2006), the itinerary of Conrad IV’s movement across the Eastern Adriatic shore can be surmised as follows:

Either from the March of Ancona (as per Annales Ianuenses) or, what seems more probable, from the port of Latisana (as hinted in the Liber certarum historiarum of John of Viktring, ed. Fedor Schneider, vol. 1, (Hannover-Leipzig 1909), p. 132), the king journeyed to the north of Istria where he was assembling his fleet. From Piran, where he issued two charters to the Commune of Koper in December of 1251 (see them edited here and here), he journeyed south to Pula, possibly stopping along in Poreč (as he issued a privilege to the Commune of Poreč in Pula in the same December of 1251, see it edited here). From Istria, Conrad IV journeyed along the eastern coast of the Adriatic, visiting Dalmatian cities along the way (the partes Sclavonie of Annales Ianuenses) and reaching Split (as narrated by Archdeacon Thomas, the contemporary to the events, ed. Karbić et al., pp. 362-365). From Dalmatia, he finally sailed to Apulia.

This itinerary is important because it alone dates the chronological sequence of regal privileges issued to Istrian communes in December of 1251. Namely, only one of the three charters has a full date, 14^th of December, 1251, and that is the charter calling for the citizens of Koper to remain faithful to the Empire and to reject the authority of the newly appointed Aquileian patriarch, the Guelph Gregory of Montelongo. As per this itinerary, the charter issued in Pula, in the same December of the same year, could only be issued after the two charters issued in Piran to the Commune of Koper.