User:Kiksam/CWS

Background
Demetrius Zvonimir died in 1089 without leaving an heir from his posterity, as his son Radovan predeceased him. Stephen II, was taken from his secluded life in the Church of Saint Stephen Beneath the Pines near Split and crowned. His reign, however, was short and inneffectual, and he likewise left no heir to suceed him. This plunged the kingdom into a period of anarchy and instability, where "there there came to be great conflict among all the nobles of the kingdom. ...there arose countless acts of pillage, robbery and murder, and the breeding grounds of every crime. Day after day people attacked, hunted down and murdered each other without respite". The Dalmatian cities were then siezed by Venice, a Byzantine ally.

Prelude and causes
Historical sources disagree on the actual causes of the war. One source narrates that Zvonimir's widow Helen, after suffering many injustices at the hands of her husbands' enemies, requested her brother Ladislaus I of Hungary to intervene on her behalf. It is stated that the country was returned to her as a result of his campaign. After her death, Ladislaus subjected it directly to his authority, basing his claim as the legal successor to Zvonimir. Others state that a number of disgruntled Slavonian nobles approached him at his court, and told him to sieze the kingdom for himself, as the throne was vacant, so there was noone to guard and protect it. Some hint at later legend, such as the Polish-Hungarian Chronicle, which hints at the theory of Zvonimir's assassination, in which Ladislaus is referenced as his avenger, after he crossed the border to invade. The claim to the throne of Croatia, which the Arpads had laid was likely based on the Byzantine tradition of primogeniture.

First phase
Ladislaus invaded the country in 1091 by crossing the river Drava and from there he proceeded southward. He encountered no opposition until reaching a point called variously the "Iron Alps" or Gvozd (Gozdia in Latin). At that point he engaged in warfare with the local clans and nobility, against whom he won many victories. In a letter to Oderizius, the Abbot of Montecassino in Italy, he stressed to him that he had "acquired nearly all of Sclavonia". Byzantine Empire, fearing for its interests in Dalmatia, instigated the Cumans to invade Hungary from the east. This promted Ladislaus to withdraw from his campaign. He gave the siezed territories to his nephew Almos, installing him ineffectively as king. He was never crowned. At the same time, he founded the bishopric in Zagreb, where he brought a Czech called Duh as its first bishop. The bishopric was subjected to the Archbishop of Esztergom, with the intent of integrating Slavonia into Hungary. These actions brought him into conflict with pope Urban II. The pope wrote to Ladislaus during this time, demanding him to recognize Croatia as a papal fief, which the latter rejected.

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Ladislaus died in 1095, and was suceeded by Coloman as King of Hungary.

Crusaders' account
In 1096, the army of Raymond IV, Count of Toulouse during the First Crusade passed through the country and left a report of the state (called Sclavonia) during their visit on their way to the Holy Land. Croatia was described as desolate and swampy, stating that they hadn't seen a bird or wildlife for days. They described the local people as ignorant and barbarous and that were constantly attacking and harrasing the army. The account further states that, after the natives' harrassment grew unbearable, they ordered six of them to be captured and then mutilated and dismembered. They then left for Byzantine territory of Durazzo.

Second phase
Coloman launched a second campaign against the country in 1097. A number of nobles, opposing Coloman's claim, elected a certain Peter as their new king. According to older historiography, he was surnamed Svačić or Snačić, and had previously held the office of Ban of Croatia under king Zvonimir.

In 1097, Peter left his capital Knin and went north to meet the Hungarians in battle, culminating in a clash situated in Gvozd mountains in April or May during the same year. The battle resulted in the victory for Colloman, in which Peter was killed. In the aftermath of his victory, Coloman sent an army under ispan Mercurius numbering several thousand to occupy the city of Biograd on the Adriatic coast. There the Norman princess Felicia disembarked from her voyage to marry Coloman.

Threatened by the advance of Coloman's army, the citizens of the towns of Trogir and Split swore fidelity to the Doge of Venice, Vitale Michiel, who had sailed to Dalmatia. Having no fleet, Coloman sent envoys with a letter to the doge to "remove all the former misunderstandings concerning what is due to one of us or the other by right of our predecessors". Their agreement of 1098—the so-called Conventio Amicitiae—determined the spheres of interest of each party by allotting the coastal regions of Croatia to Coloman and Dalmatia to the Republic of Venice. The Doges of Venice started styling themselves as "dukes of Dalmatia and Croatia" for the first time during this period and continued to do so until the time of Louis I of Hungary, when they were forced to relinquish such titles as part of the Treaty of Zadar in 1355.

The king briefly withdrew back to Hungary to deal with conspirators led by duke Almos, with whom he reconcilliated and returned later that year.

Coloman was crowned King of Dalmatia and Croatia in Biograd na Moru during 1102. His new title was attested thereafter in contemporary monuments and writing as "King of Hungary, Dalmatia and Croatia". According to the 14th century document called Pacta Conventa, his status was achieved only after an agreement with the 12 Croatian clans. Althouth the documents' authenticity has been disputed, historians like John Antwerp Fine and Pal Engels state that the document corresponds with the rule in Croatia that was created in 1102. Furthermore, it is accepted that there was atleast a non written agreement between the nobility and the king, which is supported by archaeological evidence such as the discovery of abundant amount of coins, around 2000 denars, minted by Coloman in Podgrađe, or Lepuri in today's name, and on the island of Vir near Zadar.

Coloman spent the following three years consolidating his holdings and negotiating with the Dalmatian cities for the recognition of his rule. The city of Split initially refused to submit to him, which was followed by laying waste to the city's surrounding by his followers and making camp in the near vicinity. He eventually secured fealty from the citizens of Split through mediation by Archbishop Cresentius and placed a certain captain with a retinue of soldiers on the eastern tower of the city walls, who was the royal tax collector for the whole of Croatia. He then went to Trogir and was said that he had nearly destroyed the city, but was diverted by its bishop, Saint John of Trogir. The town was given various privledges by the king, for surrendering to him willfully. The king then departed for Zadar, where he made a donation towards construction of the belltower for the monastery of Saint Mary in Zadar.

Finally, he left Croatia for Hungary in 1105.

Historiography
The precise terms of the union between the two realms became a matter of dispute in the 19th century.[20] The two kingdoms were united under the Árpád dynasty either by the choice of the Croatian nobility or by Hungarian force.[21] Croatian historians hold that the union was a personal one in the form of a shared king, a view also accepted by a number of Hungarian historians,[12][16][22][23][24][25] while Hungarian nationalist historians preferred to see it as a form of annexation.[20][26][27] The claim of a Hungarian occupation was made in the 19th century during the Hungarian national reawakening.[27] Today, Hungarian legal historians hold that the relationship of Hungary with the area of Croatia and Dalmatia in the period till 1526 and the death of Louis II was most similar to a personal union,[25][29] resembling the relationship of Scotland to England.[30][31]

Hungarian culture permeated northern Croatia, the Croatian-Hungarian border shifted often, and at times Hungary treated Croatia as a vassal state. Croatia had its own local governor, or Ban; a privileged landowning nobility; and an assembly of nobles, the Sabor.[33] According to some historians, Croatia became part of Hungary in the late 11th and early 12th century,[34] yet the actual nature of the relationship is difficult to define.[27] Sometimes Croatia acted as an independent agent and at other times as a vassal of Hungary.[27] However, Croatia retained a large degree of internal independence.[27] The degree of Croatian autonomy fluctuated throughout the centuries as did its borders.[35]

Geography and administrative organization
Croatia was ruled by a deputy for the king, a governor called a ban. After the succession of Emeric in 1196, his younger brother Andrew II became Duke of Croatia and Dalmatia in 1198. Thus from 1198 Croatia and Slavonia were under the Dukes of Croatia, who ran their duchy, still known as the Kingdom of Croatia, as semi-independent rulers. Under the duke there also stood a ban who was usually a major nobleman, sometimes of Croatian origin and sometimes of Hungarian. A single ban governed all Croatian provinces until 1225 when the territory under ban's rule was divided between two bans: the Ban of Croatia and Dalmatia and the Ban of Slavonia. The positions were intermittently held by the same person after 1345, and officially merged back into one by 1476. The territory of Croatia was divided into counties (Croatian: županije), each under a count (župan). The Croatian counts were local nobles in hereditary succession ruling as they had before 1102, under the customary law of Croatia.[38] In Church affairs, Croatia south of the Gvozd mountain was under the jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Split, while Slavonia was under the Archbishop of Kalocsa.[40]