Political Expressions of Pragmatic Literacy in Thirteenth-Century Trogir

Abstract

The author analyses the crucial factors in the development of pragmatic literacy in thirteenth-century Trogir, which is associated with significant transformations of the communal political and social order, primarily the increasing power of the municipal government at the expense of episcopal authority. Accumulation of power in the hands of not so many urban families resulted in the growing need to (re)define the position of communal institutions in relation to the external (the king, the Croatian nobility, Venice) and internal (the bishop, the contending factions) centres of power and other members of the local community. Greater reliance of the local political elite on the written word as a means to shape and maintain a desirable social order was becoming increasingly pronounced in this context. Hence, the paper regards the development of pragmatic literacy in thirteenth-century Trogir as one of the major pillars in configuring new government institutions and power relations, which is then associated with the creation of the first city statute, professionalization of the chancery, and transition from charters to notarial, court, council, and other communal registers.