Patriarch Marquard of Randeck invests Domnius of Rijeka, a vassal of the Church of Aquileia, with two villages in the Margraviate of Istria: Jasenovik by Kožljak and Letaj, situated between Kožljak and Vranja, under the condition that he restitutes the said villages to the patriarch’s successors upon their potential request.
<Investitio nobilis viri Doymi de Sancto Vito in Istria>a
Dictis millesimo et inditione,b die VIIIIoc maii.
Ipse dominus patriarchad investivit, usque ad vitam suam, nobilem virum Doymum de Sancto Vito de Flumine, vassalume ecclesie, de duabus villis Aquilegensis ecclesie, videlicet: Iasinimbichf, que iacet prope castrum de Coseglach, et Latayg, que situata est inter dictum castrum Coseglachi et Bray, Marchionatus Istrie, cum hoc: quod dictas villas post obitum ipsiush domini patriarche suis successoribus ad omnem ipsorum requisitionem restituere absque difficultate qualibet ipse Doymus teneatur.
a) add. in marg. B. b) dictis millesimo et indicione] MCCCLXVII em. Bianchi. c) seq. mensis add. Bianchi. d) Ipse dominus patriarcha] Dominus patriarcha Marquardus em. Bianchi. e) seq. Aquilegensis add. Bianchi. f) Jascimbich ed. Bianchi. g) Latoy ed. Bianchi. h) dicti ed. Bianchi.
“<Iasenubich, Lathais, Marchionatus Carniolę vel Istrię>
In 1367, die 9 maii – concessio ad vitam duarum villarum domino Doymo de Sancto Vito, videlicet: Iasenubich prope castrum de Coseglach, et Lathaii, quę situata est inter castrum Coseglach et Bran, cum omnibus affictibus, domibus, iuribus, pratis, campis, pascuis, et manu ser Iohannis de Susana notarii vel potius ser Iohannis Gubertini notarii.” – Monumenta patrie Foriulii, early 16th-century codex, fol. 86r (or 71r according to old pagination), currently inedited, conserved in Udine, Archivio di Stato di Udine, Patriarcato di Aquileia, ms. Monumenta Patriae Forii Iulii, digitized and available online here.
Little is known regarding this Domnius of Rijeka other than the fact that he served both the lords of Duino and the patriarchs of Aquileia.
The toponyms mentioned in the regestum pose some problems: Coseglach and Iasinimbich / Iascimbich / Iasenubich are easily identified as Kožljak and Jasenovik; Latay / Latoy / Lathaii is without doubt Letaj to the north of Jasenovik. Bray is problematic: for Camillo de Franceschi it is Belaj in the near vicinity and to the north of Letaj; Peter Štih, on the other hand, prefers the reading Bran as featured in the later Monumenta Patrie Foriiulii and connects it with Vranja, also to the north of Letaj.
Based on this regestum and the accompanying note on the margin, Mladen Ančić (“Gradu kmeti or iobagiones castri as an Element of the Social Structure of Croatian Kingdom,” Miscellanea Hadriatica et Mediterranea 6 (2019): p. 69 fn. 88) argued that in the Late Middle Ages the concept of Istria as a region could be extended so far to the east to include Rijeka in its semantical confines. The editor finds this argument invalid as the part “in Istria” in the marginal note does not refer to Rijeka but to the possessions bestowed upon Domnius, the villages that are located in the Margraviate of Istria, both of them to the west of the Učka mountain range. The microregion between the Učka and the river Rječina was called Meran(ia), Croatia, Liburnia but never Istria, at least not in the Middle Ages – see more on that here.
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The editor has subsequently inserted a red line simply to denote the exact part of the manuscript that is hereby edited.
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