There is a tradition, better authenticated of the Serbs than the Croats, that these two peoples carried out a migration separate from the general Balkan invasion, invited by Heraklios himself who needed help against the Avars. The centre of dispersion of the Croats was a 'White Croatia' north of the Carpathians - a geographical expression only recorded by Constantine Porphyrogennetos. In course of time both Croats and Serbs became the political nuclei of larger areas in the Balkans, dissolving into the mass of Slav tribes already settled in those parts but imposing their own names.

In these early centuries Croatia may be considered to include the northern half of the Adriatic coast and thence eastwards at least to the River Vrbas and northwards to the river Sava, which was an artery rather than a frontier. The Mesopotamia up to the River Drava was known as Pannonian Croatia; most of this was lost to the Magyars in the tenth century.

All these Slavs arrived in the Balkans as pagans. Their descent on Dalmatia is reflected in some Roman churches: Pope John IV (640-2) had a mosaic executed in the chapel of St Venantius (baptistery of St John Lateran) recording the persecution of Christians in Dalmatia. He was himself a Dalmatian and sent agents to redeem Christian Captives from the inflowing pagans and to save relicss. The latter he deposited in the new chapel. The looting of Dalmatian churches by the Slavs is noted in several sources. By this time they were firmly established along the greater part of the coast; those who settled in the region of the River Neretva (Narentans) were already strong enough in 642 to mount an expedition across the Adriatic to attack the territories of Benevento. The Narentans were peculiar in taking early to the sea and piracy.

The incoming Slavs (often mixed with Avars) were not disposed to destroy, even if they could, the civilised coastal towns. It was to their advantage that they should continue as markets and ports. Many of the towns paid protection money to the new barbarians for immunity from their depredations. Nevertheless such was the disorganisation of the church in Dalmatia, and a fortiori in the hinterland, by the seventh century that probably little sustained evangelical work could be then undertaken.

(a) Italian Durazzo, Slav Drach; Albanian Durres. (b) Italian Zara, Trau, Spalato..

The leading ecclesiastical centres on the coast were now Spalato (replacing Salona) and Dyrrachium(a) in the extreme south, the main point of communication with South Italy. The Emperor Constantine was informed that the conversion of the Croats was attempted soon after their arrival in the seventh century: Heraklios had requested the Pope to organise missions, since the whole Dalmatian coast was still in the Papal diocese of Illyricum. No record remains of any such large-scale attempt at their conversion, though the Imperial author alludes to a bishop and even an archbishop sent from Rome. But some sort of work in those parts went on, as would appear from a reference in a Papal letter of 680. As in Greece, this is eminently the case of a gradual process - the slow effect of contact between the various centres of civilisation and Slav tribes, whose political organisation remained for long at a primitive stage. It is noticeable that those Croats who settled within the immediate radiation of the coastal towns, particularly Zadar, Trogir and Split, (b) were civilised and converted comparatively quickly, known as Pannonian Croatia; most of this was lost to the Magyars in the tenth century.

All these Slavs arrived in the Balkans as pagans. Their descent on Dalmatia is reflected in some Roman churches: Pope John IV (640-2) had a mosaic executed in the chapel of St Venantius (baptistery of St John Lateran) recording the persecution of Christians in Dalmatia. He was himself a Dalmatian and sent agents to redeem Christian Captives from the inflowing pagans and to save relicss. The latter he deposited in the new chapel. The looting of Dalmatian churches by the Slavs is noted in several sources. By this time they were firmly established along the greater part of the coast; those who settled in the region of the River Neretva (Narentans) were already strong enough in 642 to mount an expedition across the Adriatic to attack the territories of Benevento. The Narentans were peculiar in taking early to the sea and piracy.

The incoming Slavs (often mixed with Avars) were not disposed to destroy, even if they could, the civilised coastal towns. It was to their advantage that they should continue as markets and ports. Many of the towns paid protection money to the new barbarians for immunity from their depredations. Nevertheless such was the disorganisation of the church in Dalmatia, and a fortiori in the hinterland, by the seventh century that probably little sustained evangelical work could be then undertaken. The leading ecclesiastical centres on the coast were now Spalato (replacing Salona) and Dyrrachiuma in the extreme south, the main point of communication with South Italy. The Emperor Constantine was informed that the conversion of the Croats was attempted soon after their arrival in the seventh century: Heraklios had requested the Pope to organise missions, since the whole Dalmatian coast was still in the Papal diocese of Illyricum. No record remains of any such large-scale attempt at their conversion, though the Imperial author alludes to a bishop and even an archbishop sent from Rome. But some sort of work in those parts went on, as would appear from a reference in a Papal letter of 680. As in Greece, this is eminently the case of a gradual process - the slow effect of contact between the various centres of civilisation and Slav tribes, whose political organisation remained for long at a primitive stage. It is noticeable that those Croats who settled within the immediate radiation of the coastal towns, particularly Zadar, Trogir and Split, (b) were civilised and converted comparatively quickly, whereas the Narentans, who had no large town or bishopric on their coast (between the Rivers Cetina and Neretva), were among the last, perhaps not fully till after 900. The earliest new purely Slav ports probably date from the mid-tenth century, notably Biograd (sometimes referred to as Zara Vecchia), and were in that favourable part of Dalmatian Croatia which the Romance-speaking population had evacuated in the seventh century, taking refuge on the Quarnero islands.(a)

(a) The Dalmatian islands (some 50 large and 500 small) remained for the most part   outside Slav settlement until c.950. On the Croatian coast settlement probably started   with Pag. Further south, Hvar, Korchula, Mljet and Brach (italice Lesina, Curzola, Meleda, Brazza) were among the earliest to become Slav, some as Narentan lairs. In   particular Hvar was probably, with Brach, ruled by a Slav chieftain as early as the first   half of the ninth century. Slav colonies (Narentan?) are even known from the Gargano   region across the Adriatic in the tenth-eleventh centuries but they must have rapidly lost their language and identity.

The eighth century remains a dark age. There is an occasional allusion to some individual missionary enterprise, such as the work of a certain Ursus on the Dalmatian coast towards the end of the century. With the loss of Ravenna (751) and Emperor Leo's transference of Sicily, South Italy and the Western parts of the Balkan peninsula to the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Constantinopleb the whole Dalmatian coast became for a short time a Byzantine responsibility. But Ursus must have come from North Italy or from even farther afield in the Frankish dominions. It was not till the early years of the ninth century that the political scene became sufficiently reshaped for conversion of the barbarians to become a matter of urgency in the policy of all the interested states. The Franks had by then succeeded in extending their political control round the head of the Adriatic after breaking the power of the Avars in the 790s. They had occupied Istria as early as 788 and made their first attack on the Avars from this direction, that is, probably with Croat help. Byzantine interests extended all up and down the Dalmatian coast and embraced Venice. Constantinople attempted also to maintain what control she could over the inland Slavs; in this she was now more and more to find a rival in Bulgaria.

Frankish suzerainty over Pannonian Croatia dates from c.795, when the Croat chieftain Vojnomir accepted it (being baptised not long after), and over Dalmatian Croatia from c.803.

(d) The name Aquileia can be ambiguous. As a result of the Lombard invasion of 568   North-east Italy became ecclesiastically divided between the Byzantine end the Lombard (later Frankish) churches. Paulinus of Aquileia took refuge from the Lombards on the lagoon island of Grado (Aquilegia nova). A large part of Northern Italy had broken off relations with Rome in the middle of the sixth century (the Schism of the Three Chapters). Grado, still Byzantine throughout the seventh century, ended this schism in 607; the Lombard see of Aquileia (finally located at Cividale) did not. Further, the schism had emboldened Aquileia, supposedly founded and evangelised by St Mark, to call itself a Patriarchate in rivalry to Rome. After the split both Aquileias - Grado and Cividale - used this title. The coastal province of Grado remained of importance to Constantinople; Heraklios presented the see with St Mark's reputed episcopal throne. The bringing of this and other reliec to Venice in 829 started the process by which the patronage of St Mark and the patriarchal title (still in use) were transferred to the increasingly important political centre of Venice, finally and permanently in 1156. Meanwhile Cividale (Old Aquileia) became Frankish with the extinction of the Lombard kingdom in 774 and detached Istria, with its leading sees of Trieste, Parenzo and Pola, from Byzantine Grade. When the peninsula passed into Frankish hands (788- 98), Grado, and then Venice, continued to dispute this loss but never regained Istria for long. In view of all these fluctuations it is impossible to be certain whether 'Aquileian' clergy working in Istria and Croatian Dalmatia in the ninth century are from Cividale or Grade. But generally speaking Grade was of minor importance and wealth compared with the Frankish see and with Venice, which developed its own bishoprics from the later ninth century. In default of precision Aquileia will be taken to mean Old Aquileia.

The Frankish secular authority was the Markgraf of Friuli (Forum Julii); the ecclesiastical authority was Aquileia (Cividale).(d) By 811 it had become necessary for the Byzantine and Frankish Empires to make a general settlement defining their respective spheres of interest in the North-west Balkans (Treaty of Air). The dividing-line was drawn at the River Cetina, a short way south of Split. But Constantinople retained a theoretical suzerainty over all the offshore islands and over the coastal settlements from Grade to Venice. Thus both the Pannonian and Dalmatian Croats came more and more under Frankish influence in the ninth century. Borna of the Dalmatian and Ljudevit of the Pannonian Croats (with residence at Sisak) reaffirmed their loyalty to Louis the Pious in 814. Less directly affected by Frankish pressure, Borna remained loyal and even paid homage to Louis in person at Air in 820. Ljudevit was more troublesome. After his removal about 823, Pannonian Croatia became for many years a bone of contention between the Franks and Bulgars. Its importance as a geographical link between Moravia and Pannonia on the one hand and the North Balkans on the other is clear enough despite lack of information for the rest of the ninth century.

Venice, though scarcely yet ranking as a separate power, was already vitally interested in the free navigation of the Adriatic and paid 'tribute' to the coastal Slavs, particularly the Narentans, to safeguard this. It was paid occasionally till as late as 996. Venice herself continued to be for a long time a Latin-Byzantine hybrid. The same duality was imposed on the life of the Dalmatian ports, especially Zadar and Split, and thence came to affect many coastal Slavs as well. A curious example is afforded by the Evangeliarium spalatense, written in Dalmatia - almost certainly at Split - at the end of the eighth century, three pages of which are the Greek text of the opening of St John's Gospel transcribed in the Latin alphabet. Again, the earliest Croat forms of the popular names John Joseph, Stephen and others are clearly based on spoken Greek forms and were only later reformed on Latin models.

The gradual advance southwards of the Frankish sphere of influence as far as the River Cetina brought in its train an increasing interest or the part of the Patriarchate of Aquileia. Until the fall of Ravenna in July 751 Dalmatia had been a part of the Exarchate and her ecclesiastical affairs came within the competence of Rome. Thereafter Zadar, local administrative centre since the abandonment of Salona, stepped inte Ravenna's shoes but the Bishop of Split had long been the highest ecclesiastical authority.(a)

(a) It is not known when Split became a Metropolitan archbishopric - perhaps a early as 615. The tradition that John of Ravenna, as Papal legate in Croatia, became it first archbishop in 640, is probably without foundation in fact.

Split was now the custodian of Salona's relier of SS Domnius and Anastasius.

Thus on the one hand the transference of Illyricum to the Patriarchate of Constantinople introduced a theoretical rather than a practical change: the Greek language and Byzantine religious practices found little extension outside the Greek population of the ports; Latin was the main liturgical and Dalmatian the main vernacular language.(b)

(b) The interpenetration of all these languages is refected in the local Slav religios vocabulary. Thus, kaludjer or kalujer (monk), from Greek kalojeros, is still widely used even in Catholic Croatia, while kriz (cross), current in Orthodox parts, demands prototype *croge[m] from Dalmatian or North Italian (Aquileian?) Romance, pamlle to Venetian doge < duce[m]. In early times both manastir from Greek and klostar from the Latin world were in general use.

On the other hand Aquileia's entry on to the scene, beginning in the Last decades of the eighth century, was as much at the expense of Rome and Constantinople; for example, as early as 817 Split had to submit to a curtailment of its interests in the now Frankish territories to its north.

The first successful work of considerable scale among the Dalmatian Croats appears to be due principally to missions from Frankish Aquileia whose control of Istria gave access alike to Carniola and to Croatia. Her initiative was confirmed by the general agreement on spheres of influence between Charlemagne and Constantinople made in 811/12. Aquileia was better placed than Salona (and then Split) to gather up the disjecta membra of barbarised Illyricum. Borna (c.810-c.812) and hir successor Vladislav (c.821-c.835) were at least nominal Christians.

Indeed we should probably put the date of a Christian dynasty back to Godeslav and his successor Visheslav to judge by the edifices at their capital of Nin (Latin Nona). These include a baptistery and a funerary chapel dedicated to the Holy Cross. On the lintel of the chapel door is preserved the inscription GODES[L]AV IUPPANO [...] ISTO DOMO COSTRUXIT.  Neither palaeographical nor other considerations preclude a date between 788, when the Franks occupied Istria, and 800 which is the probable date of the slightly later baptistery with its font bearing a Latin inscription of Vigeslav. Such unsophisticated and diminutive buildings were presumably the work of local craftsmen copying what was to hand in Zadar, the environs of Salona and elsewhere. The closest extant parallels to the two buildings at Nin are however to be found at Grade and Pola. It is not safe to conclude the establishment of a bishopric for the Dalmatian Croats as early as the beginning of the ninth century, though the presence of a missionary bishop at the prince's court would be (as we have seen elsewhere) likely first step. The fact that from about 835 the Croatian princes more often than not resided at other places than Nin - in particular Klis above Split and Bihac on the route to Trogir - would not preclude a missionary bishopric with Nin as its working centre. The acts of the Synod of Split (928),. though biassed, may well have described the earliest cleric appointed to Nin  correctly as archypresbyter sub ditione episcopi. Whether the cleric, whatever his rank, was attached directly to Rome as is widely believed, or to Aquileia, cannot yet be certainly resolved.  According to one local legend Nin and its environs were evangelised 'in apostolic times' by a Bishop Anselm and his deacon Ambrose, who brought relies of St Marcella from Francia. Such a legend might well grow up about the first missionary bishop actually appointed from  Aquileia - by his name patently a Frank. The cult of St Marcella is also authenticated in North-east Italy.

It is of course improbable that Aquileia was solely responsible for the evangelical work which led to the new bishopric. We should look also to Byzantine Zadar and to Split. But when the Curia finally took a hand in the affairs of Nin it was only to connections with Aquileia to which it objected.

Throughout much of the ninth century Nin looked alternately more towards Frankish Aquileia or towards Byzantine Split as politics determined.Vigeslav, Borna and Vladislav belonged to one house; Mislav was of a different line. He and his powerful successor Trpimir (c.845-64) now resided at Klis and understandably favoured closer relations with Split and through Split with Constantinople. These were close enough for Archbishop Peter of Split to stand godfather to Trpimir's son. But a transference of jurisdiction is improbable: both Trpimir and Mislav are known to have accepted the Frankish obligation to pay the tithe. Trpimir also founded the first Benedictine monastery in these parts, at Riznice near his castle of Klis.

Trpimir's death only intensified the dynastic rivalry. Domagoj, of the line of Vladislav and pro-Frankish, seized power and held it between about 864 and 876. Then Trpimir's sons Zdeslav, who had fled to Constantinople, and Mutimir regained the ascendancy with Byzantine help. Zdeslav sent for Greek priests from Constantinople. Finally Branimir, Domagoj's son or nephew, succeeded in evicting them (879) and returned to Frankish allegiance with virtual independence. Rome was quick to take advantage of this by entering into close relations with Branimir: the re-establishment of Eastern ecclesiastical inftuence in Northern Dalmatia would have undermined the whole policy of the 870s designed to secure to the Papacy the various provinces of former Illyricum. A trial of strength with the Frankish church here took second place.

It was Domagoj, sclavorum pessimus dux to the Venetians, who made the first move to change the status of Nin. Either it was a matter of disengaging himself ecclesiastically from Split and Aquileia and achieving a relative independence directly under the Holy See, or (more probably) the see still needed formal establishment and this again had now better be taken to Rome.

(c) The Byzantine fleet raised the siege of Ragusa by a Saracen fleet in late 867. Bar was invested and finally recaptured from the Saracens in early 871. Byzantine administration then remained in South Dalmatia (now reorganised as a Theme to meet the military situation) and was gradually reimposed in South Italy, partly as a protectorate of local Lombard princelings. Neither Constantinople nor Venice would tolerate a power (now the Saracens, later the Normans) which might control the exit of the Adriatic by holding at the same time both South Italy and the lower Datmatian or Albanian coast.

For there had almost certainly been a Bishop of Nin in the reign of Trpimir. The shadowy archpriests or bishops of Nin up to this time cannot even be given names. Pope Nicholas I, however took no steps. We could judge the situation better if we knew exactly in what year during the period 864-7 Domagoj's request reached him, for these were the years of Nicholas's preoccupation with events in Bulgaria and of awakening interest in the work of SS Cyril and Methodios in Moravia. Perhaps Nicholas or his successor felt unable to take the matter up since the years 867-71 saw unusually close cooperation of the Franks and Greeks to the advantage of the Papacy against the Saracens in South Italy and on the Dalmatian coast.(c)Thus Byzantine prestige was exceptionally high along the coast and the Slavs were taking employment in the Byzantine as well as in the Frankish forces.

Domagoj nevertheless caused a new bishop of Nin to be elected, to which irregular act approval was only obtained from Hadrian II about 870. This date may therefore be taken as the final establishment of the see. The bishop of Nin was recognised as episcoplus nonensis or  episcopus chroatorum. The first bishop known by name is Theodosius consecrated in 879 on the advice of the Papal legate John, who returned from his mission to Moravia by way of Dalmatia and is thought to have visited Nin. It is clear that Pope John VIII now desired that the  Bishop of Nin should be consecrated by himself, so as to counter and  further Byzantine influence by subordinating what was virtually still a missionary bishopric directly to Rome. Nevertheless it is not certain whether Theodosius was consecrated in Rome or Aquileia. Since a later Pope, probably Stephen V (885-91), reprimanded the Patriarch of Aquileia, Walpert (fungebatur 874-900), for consecrating a bishop at Split ultra vires, it may well be that Theodosius's consecration was alsoAquielian. Precisely in the years 879-80 - the climax of the battle over Bulgaria - Patriarch Photios saw to the strengthening of the ecclesiastical organisation of Split but at the same time recognised and even agreed to an extension of the powers of Frankish Aquileia on the coast: Rome was still the interloper. Yet on 7 June 879 the Pope wrote to the new ruler Branimir in terms implying that Croatia was now a Papal concern. The letter was perhaps hopeful rather than actual. On the same date he exhorted Theodosius to receive consecration nowhere but at Rome. A few days later he appealed to the Byzantine hierarchs of Dalmatia, and once more to Boris of Bulgaria, to return to the Roman fold. There was no reply in either case. In 881, after Theodosius had had consultations with him in Rome, the Pope again wrote to Branimir as if Croatia had accepted Roman jurisdiction. Branimir presumably favoured this policy; it remains doubtful whether Theodosius did. Moreover, the Archbishop of Split considered that he had rights, to which he was not slow to give voice. The discussions in Rome evidently bore on this involved three-cornered problem. Even if...

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