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The Bishopric of Nin in 1692 - Mapping the Ethno- confesional changes

Almost 30 years of war in the territory of the bishopric of Nin resulted in heavy devastation and demographic turbulences, which from the 15th to the 17th centuries completely changed the situation of the population of the bishopric. At the beginning of 15th century the population from Dalmatia, Lika and Bosnia, which were already under the Turk’ s attack, started to move to the Nin bishopric’ s territory. This was a beginning of a long term changing process, not only in the distribution of the population, even in the ethno-confessional structure of the population. In the 16th century the Turks also plundered the territory of the bishopric of Nin, which caused further changes especially related to the depopulation and abandoning old settlements within the Nin bishopric. The devastation culminated during the Cyprus and Candia (Crete) War when major parts of settlements, including the centre of bishopric – Nin, were devastated. In 1579 the bishopric of Nin had only seven parishes, one of which was under the Habsburg’ s government, three under the Ottomans and three under the Venetian government. Periodical devastation continued during the 17th century when the Turks were formally pushed away from this bishopric. During the 17th century a two-way process occurred here – the depopulation and abandoning of some of the old settlements and at the same time, colonisation of new, firstly by the Morlachs who occupied abandoned settlements or established new settlements. The colonisation was especially intensive after Morosini’ s agrarian reform in 1672 which regulated the colonisation of abandoned areas. After the establishment of the Nin area cadastre in 1675, the systematic colonisation was conducted by investitures. This colonisation definitely and irreversible changed the picture of population in the bishopric of Nin. As a part of a report about the status of believers of the bishopric of Nin, a map was created in 1692. It shows the territory of the bishopric, its settlements and ethno- confessional structure of its population. This map is an extremely important source because it was created in a crucial moment when a part of the old settlements were disappearing and were covered with the layer of new settlements established during the waves of colonisation. The map of the bishopric of Nin from 1672 contains new colonised settlements as well as those old which can not be found in maps of this region drawn-up in the 18th century. Therefore this map presents a semi-phase in the population and ethno-confessional relationships of the bishopric of Nin, between the status of feudal settlements populated here before the Turks’ invasions and a completely new picture which was created after the systematic colonisations at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th centuries.

the bishopric of Nin ; ethno-confessional changes ; Venetian-Ottoman wars ; cartographic sources

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