The Historical Context of Boat Processions in Adriatic Maritime Pilgrimages

Abstract

In this article, we argue that the different ritual structures of maritime pilgrimages result from the different historical backgrounds of each site. We have focused on two maritime pilgrimage sites in the Adriatic Sea: Nin, in contemporary Croatia (Northern Dalmatia), and Perast, in contemporary Montenegro (Kotor Bay). We compared these two locations and maritime pilgrimage processions because they have similar historical backgrounds (both were under Venice’s significant influence), and comparable boat processions with similar structural elements. We concluded that multilayered customs, consisting of diverse popular traditions, were fused in these pilgrimages through ecclesiastical (para)liturgical processions. Based on material presented in this article, we concluded that the Nin and Perast elites drew on local traditions and developed maritime pilgrimage boat processions in order to draw out their political, religious, social, and economic potentials.

1. Introduction

Recently, a significant development in academic research on maritime pilgrimages (Katić and McDonald 2020), or sea pilgrimages (Palmowski and Przybylska 2022), has occurred. Maritime pilgrimages can be observed as “ritual practices that include boat travel for persons or icons as part of the actual ritual structure. Translocation of the sacred object and/or people also includes processing towards or over the sea to a location that has historical and/or folkloric connections with the object or the pilgrimage place” (Katić and McDonald 2020, p. 3). Maritime pilgrimages emerged within specific geographical contexts where the population was oriented toward the sea, and the sea provided the basic resources and determinants of local life, economics, culture, and religion. These pilgrimages link to mariners’ religious beliefs and changes in everyday life, tourism, heritage, and migrations, and, in some cases, they combine with national identity, political economy, and the institutionalization and heritagization of practices and sites (Katić and McDonald 2020, p. 3).

While there are many examples of religious rituals and pilgrimages connected to the sea within Europe, including in Ireland (Harbinson 1992), Norway (Mikaelsson and Selberg 2020), Poland (Palmowski and Przybylska 2022), Spain (Gambin 2014, p. 8), Italy (Gambin 2014, p. 8), France (Badone 2008), Greece (Gertwagen 2006), and Croatia and Montenegro (Katić and Blaće 2023), to date, no one has addressed the diversity in the ritual practices linked to these pilgrimages. Although many Mediterranean coastal towns have processions, they differ in form (Gambin 2014, p. 8). At first glance, some appear disorganized, with pilgrims on boats gathering around an island or a church near the sea in an almost spontaneous manner, while in other examples, the pilgrimage practice has a strictly defined structure, and the pilgrims approach the sacred place or object in a procession of their boats. In this article, we argue that the different ritual structures of the pilgrimages result from the different historical backgrounds of each site. We will focus on two maritime pilgrimage sites in the Adriatic Sea: Nin, in contemporary Croatia (Northern Dalmatia), and Perast, in contemporary Montenegro (Kotor Bay). We want to compare these two locations and maritime pilgrimage processions because they have similar historical backgrounds (both were under Venice’s significant influence), and comparable boat processions with similar structural elements. Of course, they developed differently over history, and this explains the differences in their pilgrimage and maritime boat processions.

According to the local oral traditions, the pilgrimages in Nin and Perast were established in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, respectively. Yet, evidence of organized processions was confirmed only in the seventeenth century, which links their origins and formal establishment to a particular historical context. During that period, these locations were part of the Venetian Commonwealth, which dominated the Adriatic for centuries. Venice, as a city ruling over the most iconic example of a maritime empire, enacted many secular and religious rituals all year round within its lagoon. The form of many such rituals was institutionally transferred to Venice’s conquered cities and ports throughout the Mediterranean. Many of these rituals were linked to saints, and the Venetian elite performed them as processions across the Venetian lagoon. Venice’s religious and secular ceremonies and processions—with a special emphasis on the ritual blessing of the Adriatic—later on developed into desponsatio, which here refers to a matrimonial covenant between the Doge of Venice and the sea (Muir 1981, p. 119). Our working hypothesis is that this may have played a role in the development of a ritual procession in the Venetian Adriatic, such as those in Nin and Perast.1 This hypothesis will be tested through considering a historical contextualization of the two processions’ origins.

A procession can be defined here as a social and religious ritual practice (typical for the Mediterranean) that combines magical and religious elements. It is an act of praying and presenting gratitude, which is organized mainly as a walk from one sacred place to another. Processions demonstrated a city’s integrity and unity, both spiritually and politically, in both a territorial and a social sense (Brajović 2006, p. 275). Performing a procession entails ritually protecting the city. The procession, as a circular movement, on a symbolic level, represents the circumscription of the city borders; it delineates a border between good and evil, the civilized and wild, the safe and dangerous (Brajović 2006, p. 276). In communities marked by a maritime way of life, processions are even adapted to combine walking around parts of the city with boat processions within the city’s bay, lagoon, or similar. Processions may journey from a sacred place, such as an island or islet, to the city, and back.

In the next section, we will present the Perast boat procession as analyzed and interpreted by Saša Brajović. She has linked the Perast boat procession of the Madonna of the Reef directly with Venetian boat processions that may have served as a role model. We will then discuss the potential origins of the Nin processions and analyze the oldest description of the boat procession in Nin. Finally, we will present the Venetian boat processions and try to contextualize them as a possible model for Nin and Perast.

2. Perast and the Pilgrimage to the Madonna of the Reef

According to oral tradition, the story about the miraculous painting of the Madonna, which later became known as the Madonna of the Reef, originated in 1452, when two brothers, fishermen from the Martešić family, saw something one night on the reef in the sea by their town of Perast. When they approached the reef, they realized that it was a painting of the Madonna with two candles surrounding her. They took the painting to their local church to venerate it; however, as in so many stories about sacred objects, the painting miraculously returned to the reef. After the brothers took it back to the church on three occasions, the locals finally realized that the Madonna obviously wanted to stay on the reef. To appease the painting, they expanded the reef into an island big enough to hold a church, which would become the painting’s new home. While it is not clear from the story where the painting was kept during the church’s construction, the story describes how, over the next few centuries, the people from Perast sank their old sailing ships—and ships captured during battles—full of stones, around the rock, in order to create an islet. Erecting the church on the islet of the Madonna of the Reef was a political act. Perast’s noblemen wanted to affirm their power in the bay and their right over another nearby islet, named St. George, which led them into a confrontation with Kotor, the other important city in Kotor Bay (Brajović 2006, p. 198).

Another historical event, however, is even more important for the ritual procession in Perast. In 1654, Perast was attacked by an Ottoman army from both land and sea. Ottomans approaching from Risan attacked Perast; they burned some houses and entered the city, while the population hid in fortified houses and the city fortress. At the same time, the town was attacked from the sea, and even the Madonna of the Reef islet was bombarded. Nevertheless, the defenders transferred the miraculous painting from the islet to the fortress just in time. The miraculous painting actively participated in the city’s defense and, according to oral tradition, the Madonna (or as the story says, a lady in white) appeared on the city walls and blinded the attackers, causing them to lose the battle. To commemorate this victory won with the help of their maritime protector, Perast decided to dedicate May 15 to their Madonna of the Reef.

When the Perast ceremonial procession first began, it seems that one bishop, Vicko Zmajević (1670–1745), and one archbishop, Andrija Zmajević (1628–1694), both from Perast, played important roles. The late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century bishop Vicko Zmajević had a significant influence on Kotor Bay’s sanctuaries, cults, and pilgrimages. His work and his preserved library suggest that he actively advocated the Madonna cult (Brajović 2006, p. 111). Saša Brajović has also argued that the archbishop Andrija Zmajević, as a Roman student and a commissioner of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples (Congregatio de propaganda fide), designed and introduced a procession with which to commemorate the day of the Perast battle. According to Brajović, the miraculous painting of the Madonna of the Reef and her pilgrimage was central to Zmajević’s restoration and the formation of the Madonna cult (Brajović 2006, p. 280). Moreover, the integration of the Madonna of the Reef and the Lion of Venice, which Saša Brajović claims expresses the political authority of Perast and the stability of the Venice administration, is presented on every May 15, as is the arrival of contade—guests from the surrounding settlements that were under Perast’s rule. They brought gifts, such as an ear of wheat, an olive branch, or a grapevine, and asked for permission to remain under the protection of St. Mark and Madonna of the Reef (Brajović 2006, p. 210).

Two main sources discuss the pilgrimage procession to the Madonna of the Reef: one from the late nineteenth century (Vulović 1887), and one from the early twentieth century (Butorac 1928). But the information about the May 15 celebration originates from the Book of Ceremonies of Perast, published in 1743. It is a combination of prayers and hymns, and it includes a very detailed description of the ceremonial celebration. There is a section titled “Modo di leuare l’ Immaginne della Beata Vergine di Schrpello (per trasportala) a Perasto per la processione del uoto, che si fa alli 15 di Maggio”. From this section, we can see that there was a strictly defined ritual that included moving the miraculous painting from the islet to the city and completing a procession around the city (Brajović 2006, p. 267). The island church’s campaniles would signal that the miraculous painting was being taken off of the altar. The incoming boats would line up in a semicircle, tied to one another with rope. A priest would bring the painting and load it on the Madonna boat, which was decorated for the occasion. The priest would place the painting on the boat’s prow, and two priests would stand by the painting, touching it, while other dignitaries, such as the city count, were positioned on the stern alongside lighted candles. The Madonna boat had a special stern frame, owned by the Perast municipality. This frame was used during the ceremony of the transfer of Madonna’s miraculous painting. The frame was decorated with a woodcut of the city coat of arms on a golden field, and women crowned with Madonna’s monogram (Brajović 2006, p. 210). During the ritual, when the boat left the islet, the city captain signaled with a white scarf to mark the start of the ceremonial firing of guns from boats, the islet, and the city. This was repeated four times during the procession (Brajović 2006, p. 267). The procession slowly moved toward the city; the Madonna boat was always positioned on the inner side of the semicircle of boats, and was thus symbolically protected from a potential Ottoman attack approaching from the direction of Veriga. When the Madonna boat approached Perast, the city fortress opened with ceremonial gunfire, and the parish church rang its bell (Brajović 2006, p. 268).

Saša Brajović defined the most important Perast processions—that is, the transfer of the miraculous painting from the islet to the city on May 15, and the painting’s return on June 29—as unique urban–sea rituals (Brajović 2006, p. 278). The transfer of the miraculous painting of the Madonna expressed, among other things, Perast’s domination over sea routes, which were the source of life and freedom. From this perspective, this city ritual was tied to the sea and sailors, and it expressed political and economic benefits (Brajović 2006, p. 282).

Saša Brajović has convincingly argued that the Perast maritime procession linked to the Madonna of the Reef was modeled on the Venetian boat ceremonies linked to spring celebrations. In the rest of this article, our primary aim is to explore whether similar conclusions can be made about a maritime procession in another former Venetian city: Nin. Next, we will historically contextualize the Madonna of Zečevo church and both land and maritime processions in Nin.

3. Nin and the Pilgrimage to the Madonna of Zečevo

The maritime pilgrimage in Nin relates to a small island now called Zečevo (early modern sources refer to it as Leporine) that lies within Nin’s lagoon. According to the local oral tradition, on this island, a widow named Jelena had an apparition in 1516, during which the Madonna statue miraculously cried (Jelić 1900). This miraculous event was the main motivation behind establishing the pilgrimage to the island (Jelić 1900). We don’t know what the pilgrimage or ritual practices looked like during its first years; however, the tradition mentions fishermen who came with boats after they heard about the miraculous events. Since Ottoman incursions devastated this region between the end of the fifteenth and the late seventeenth centuries, and Nin itself was attacked and burned several times, it seems that the procession officially started around the end of the seventeenth century, which was a time when Venice pushed the Ottoman Empire away from the coast and deeper into the hinterland. Our point of departure in this research was that a bishop of Nin, Francesco de Grassi (1667–1677), who had started to revive his diocese, appeared to play an important role in establishing the procession. Having the most important Northern Dalmatia pilgrimage site was very helpful for his cause (Čoralić 1995; Katić 2023).

The church and the statue existed on the island before these miraculous events. According to art historians, the statue has Gothic characteristics (Petricioli 1969, p. 484), and the church is mentioned in several sources from the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries (Kolanović 1969, p. 504). It is hard to believe that there was a processional pilgrimage to the Madonna of Zečevo with a statue, and especially with boats, before the end of the seventeenth century. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Nin was razed on several occasions and abandoned. The population lived in fear, all religious festivities were cancelled, the churches were in ruins, and most members of the population were refugees. Bishop Priuli’s visit in 1603 revealed that the Zečevo church was in ruins, and the locals visited the church only on August 5, which was the Feast of Our Lady of the Snow (Katić 2023). Pope Clement IX named Francesco de Grassi a bishop of Nin in 1667. During his term, he renewed the diocese, and the cathedral church, and he probably returned the miraculous statue of the Madonna from Zečevo. It is therefore unsurprising that the nineteenth-century Nin historian, Luka Jelić, argued that the processional transfer of the statue to the island originated during the time of de Grassi (de Grassis 1675; Jelić 1900, p. 651). This seems highly probable, since the region around Nin was not under direct Ottoman threat; everyday life, including religious life, was returning to normal, and some new practices were introduced. Bishop de Grassi faced a twofold challenge in renewing his diocese, as both the infrastructure and population were in a bad state. Within this context, the Madonna of Zečevo played a significant role, not only as a site of vernacular practices, but also as the site of a cult that held regional importance (Katić 2023). While the pilgrimage ritual may have been established during de Grassi’s time (cf. Katić 2023), here we would like to take the additional step of reconstructing the procession’s origins.

As already noted, the pilgrimage ritual was described in detail for the first time by the priest and archaeologist Luka Jelić in the late nineteenth century, and this description was published in 1900. Technically, the oldest description of the pilgrimage rituals and the boat procession were written in the mid-nineteenth century, yet this description was rather schematic (Bianchi 2011). Although the religious rituals connected to the Madonna of Zečevo are numerous and very dense, in this article, we will focus only on the section that refers to the boat procession and the maritime aspect of the pilgrimage.

The maritime character of the Madonna of Zečevo is present when the miraculous statue of the Madonna is carried from the church in Nin (where it is kept) through city streets in a procession toward the dock, where the Madonna is placed on a boat. The statue was carried from the church by four priests, while the pilgrims sing Zdravo morska zviezdo (Hail, Star of the Sea), known in Latin as Ave stella maris (Jelić 1900, p. 642). While some pilgrims arrived on foot from the surrounding villages, most came from more distant locations and arrived on their boats, with two or three sails, decorated with flags, while men in the harbor fired their guns to welcome the boats and greet the Madonna statue. The statue was brought to the sea and transferred to a type of boat known as the Vinjerac trabakul,2 and then the pilgrims went into the sea to ritually wash, especially their eyes. Thirty or more sailing cruisers (krstarica), firing their guns (Jelić 1900, p. 646), followed the decorated trabakul with the statue of the Madonna. When the boat procession left Nin’s harbor, they spread into what Jelić described as a battle formation, with the trabakul sailing in the middle, and the other boats sailing in a formation that protected the Madonna. While sailing toward the Zečevo islet, the boats competed in their sailing techniques, but without losing their formation. Their approach to the island was welcomed by more honorary shots from both the island and the boats (Jelić 1900, p. 648). Later on, the miraculous Madonna statue was returned to Nin in a similar ceremonial context.

As already noted, the pilgrimage, as recorded by Bianchi and Jelić, may indeed have started in the late seventeenth century (or even later), yet our research suggests it may have originated much earlier. It is, of course, a pity that Nin—instead of its apostolic visitors—was not visited by a contemporary observer like Marin Sanudo (1466–1536), who was “Venice’s most famous and the most prolific memorialist.” He left a detailed description of diverse customs and rituals, on both the city of Venice and its rural territories, like the Friulian highlands and the Istrian hinterland (Muir 2013, p. 489). In the case of Nin, we are left instead with rather dry accounts by Venetian agents reporting on the technical problems of maintaining the defense and survival of Serenissima’s town on the Ottoman borderland (cf. Novak-Sambrailo 1969; Traljić 1969, and the sources cited there). No less formal and dry are the apostolic visitors’ meticulous descriptions of ecclesiastical life in the areas bordering the “lands of the schismatics and infidels.”3 To these, one should add other types of evidence, which are, unfortunately, not only fragmentary, but also largely dispersed in the local archives, making them a subject of still-ongoing research. In an attempt to contextualize the origins, we shall consider the origins of the cult, describe its historical context, and offer a new interpretation of its possible predecessors.

3.1. The Origins of the Cult of the Blessed Virgin of Zečevo

As we have discussed elsewhere (Vedriš 2023, p. 244), the medieval liturgical tradition of Nin has been erased, as the books were lost and the clergy dispersed during centuries of Ottoman warfare. For this reason, there is no evidence of either liturgical or paraliturgical processions before the early modern period. Even that is somewhat doubtful, as the earliest piece of evidence, which we were able to trace in the local archives, refers to the liturgical celebration of dates from the eighteenth century only. The liturgical calendar from Nin, Calendario della Chiesa di Nona,4 included instructions for the liturgical celebration of the two feasts connected to the Madonna of Zečevo, which are (i) The Apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary (“Apparitio BMV ad Leporinas”) on May 5, and (ii) Our Lady of the Snow (“Dedicatio S. Mariae ad nives”) on August 5. Interestingly, this otherwise canonically unconfirmed festivity was celebrated in Nin, yet the calendar provides no data on the procession, let alone the maritime pilgrimage. Nevertheless, it is instructive that the Calendario prescribes the service to be held in May and the service for the canonically established feast in August.

We note the seemingly curious case of the processions taking place on two different dates, and we shall now discuss the (possible) origin of both feasts. First and foremost, these feast dates are significant, as both seem to derive from a sixteenth-century tradition, which indicates a Tridentine origin (that is, the implementation of the Council of Trent’s decisions). The date in May, as we have seen, seems to refer to a local event, and it is not known whether it was officially recognized by the Universal Church. The date in August refers to the Roman feast that gained universal prominence in the second half of the sixteenth century. Indeed, a feast originally restricted to the Roman Church of Santa Maria Maggiore was extended to all churches in Rome in the fourteenth century and was made universal only by the post-Tridentine popes of the late sixteenth century.5 In brief, while the first, local layer of the feast—even according to the local oral tradition—does not precede the sixteenth century, the universal feast day has a confirmed, clearly post-Tridentine origin.

The veneration of the Blessed Virgin of Zečevo undoubtedly dates back to the medieval period. There is no doubt that a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary was on the islet by the fourteenth century, if not earlier. The place was populated by hermits, and it is highly likely (or at least possible) that the statue later used in processions was originally connected to that church. In the early modern period, the chapel in the cathedral of Nin came to be dedicated to S. Maria de Leporinis, yet it is unclear when the formal dedication took place.

The earliest postmedieval reference was in the construction of a chapel by Bishop Juraj Divnić (1510–1530). The bishop built a chapel in 1528 and was also buried there, as confirmed by epigraphic evidence (Bianchi 2011, pp. 223–23; Petricioli 1969, p. 314). The problem with using this as evidence is that no contemporary confirmation of the chapel’s dedication exists. For this reason, some authors considered the chapel to have been originally dedicated to other patron saints of Nin, either to St. Anselm (Bianchi 2011, p. 224) or St. Marcela (Jelić 1900, p. 650; Strika 2007, p. 141). That it was unclear to whom the chapel was dedicated was confirmed in the visitations of 1579 and 1603, which both referred to the chapel of St. Ambrose (“apud ecclesiam cathedralem, prope et extra ecclesiam cathedralem”).6

One later report, that of Bishop Bernardo Domenico Leoni (dated 23 April 1723), mentioned, among other relics from Nin, an “ancient silver gilded chalice with the inscription calexe da Sancta M(aria) de Leporine.”7 What this report does not add is that the inscription also bears the initials ID, as well as the year XXXIII. These are likely the initials of Bishop Jakov Divnić (1530–1556), a nephew of the previous bishop, named Juraj. It is impossible to say whether the chalice was originally intended for the church on the islet, or for the newly built chapel of the same name in the cathedral. What we can confirm is the interest of the two bishops from the Divnić family in promoting the cult (cf. Jelić 1900, p. 651; Katić 2023, pp. 429–30). It was no coincidence that their episcopate existed during a period when a destructive wave of the Ottoman invasion reached Nin, and this fact allows us to consider the symbolic role of the cult of the Virgin Mary during this period.

3.2. Two Marian Feasts: Our Lady of Victory and Our Virgin of the Snow

The historical clash between the Christian West and the Islamic Ottoman Empire had a clear spiritual dimension in the eyes of contemporaries. Assistance from the saints, and most significantly, for both Catholics and Orthodox believers, from the Mother of God, played an important role in the spiritual battle. As already noted, it was the Blessed Virgin who became a universal and effective protector during the period of the Ottoman threat (cf. Novak 2011, p. 13). Pope Pius V originally established the Feast of Our Lady of Victory to commemorate the Christian fleet’s victory at the battle of Lepanto on 7 October 1571. Later, his successor, Pope Gregory XIII, changed the name to the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary—thus liturgically establishing a direct link between the victory, the perceived intercession of the Blessed Virgin, and common pious practice. It was widely believed at the time that the Christian army’s victory over the “Turks” was due to the Blessed Virgin’s intercession. Yet, as noted, the feast was not the only Marian feast linked to the Virgin’s anti-Ottoman activities. Pope St. Pius V himself prayed for victory in front of the late antique icon known as the Salus Populi Romani, which is kept in the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore. All these events confirmed a symbolic link between the Roman Church (and its feasts) and dramatic contemporary events.

The news of the victory at Lepanto, however, probably brought little consolation to the dispersed population of Nin. During the War of Cyprus (1570–1573), Ottoman troops finally conquered Nin. The town was ruined (Venetians themselves tore down many prominent buildings before leaving the place) and was then deserted for almost two years. The first citizens returned only after the end of the war. As the apostolic visitor Agostino Valier reported, after his visit to Nin in the spring of 1579, the town was in a rather miserable state. The population and the clergy were scattered, and the majority of the churches lay in ruins.8

Unfortunately, the Church of the Madonna of Zečevo was not even mentioned. The first reference featured in a report by the next visitor, Michele Priuli, who arrived in Nin in 1603. Unlike his predecessor, Priuli was able to send a somewhat more optimistic report to Rome.9 The churches he visited also included S. Maria de Leporinis, which was described as “lying in ruins, without a roof, doors, and wall, with only a chapel above the altar.” (Filipi 1969, p. 570; Glavan 2014, pp. 93–94). Additionally, Priuli noted that the liturgy is celebrated “only during the Rogation Days and the Feast of Our Lady of the Snow.” The reference to Rogation Days has not received due interest, and we shall return to it soon.

The mention of Maria ad Nives is, as we have seen, telling, and it comes as no surprise that the majority of the newly built or re-erected churches in the aftermath of the Ottoman wars were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin. The earliest testimony on this process is in Priuli’s report. One of the local churches (Krneza, in the Ražanac parish) was already dedicated to Maria ad Nives.10 At the time of his visit, the parish church in neighboring Ražanac was still dedicated to St. Jerome, yet it was only twenty years later that it appeared in the visitations as Sanctae Mariae in villa Rasanze.11 Later sources confirmed that the church was (re)dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary, and linked to another Tridentine Marian feast. All in all, it is indeed significant that, by 1625, the majority of the (rural) churches in the area had been (re)dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.12 This observation confirmed the dedication of local bishops in implementing the decisions of the Council of Trent at the turn of the century. Also, on the local level, with the population actively engaged in warfare against the Ottomans, it would be surprising not to expect the acceptance of such a strong anti-Ottoman symbol as the Blessed Virgin. Before returning to the activities of the bishops of Nin throughout the seventeenth century, let us now consider the relevance of another reference by Priuli to the church on the islet of Zečevo.

3.3. Possible Roots in (Pre)medieval Customs?

Priuli’s reference to Rogation Days, as one of two occasions on which mass was celebrated in the chapel of Our Lady of Leporine, has not been explored so far. This hint, however, could provide a clue crucial to explaining the origin of the feast celebration in May. Thus, aside from the events connected to Marian visions reported as occurring in 1516, we would like to clarify the earlier possible roots of the May procession. The main feast of the season (between Easter and the Pentecost) is the Ascension, which marks the fortieth day after Easter. In the Dalmatian hinterland, the feast was called Križi, Križevo (based on the plural form of the Croatian word križ, which means cross), or Spasovo. The same name was confirmed among Catholics in Bosnia by Fr. Matija Divković in 1616. In the Adriatic area, the name Sensa or Sensovo (derived from the Latin word ascensio) is known (Dragić 2009, p. 307). While Croatian translators of Priuli’s report referred to Križevo, it is obvious that the visitor did not mean the Feast of the Ascension itself, but rather the Rogation Days.

The processional feast, commonly known as Rogationtide, links to this important Church feast. Rogationtide was one of the common celebrations (along with Candlemas and Palm Sunday) when “whole communities were also drawn into processions … through the fields marking the parish boundaries.” (Senn 2012, p. 26). The term, broadly speaking, refers to the Major or Greater Litany (litaniae maiores), a feast celebrated on April 25, and the Lesser Litanies (litaniae minores) or the Rogation Days, a feast usually celebrated on the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Thursday. Both were characterized “by acts of penance and a fixed (and lengthy) penitential litany that was sung while a citywide procession marked out the boundaries of the city or stopped at notable places” (Larson-Miller 2011, p. 26; Hill 2000). The Rogation Days were solemn processions that played an important role in the liturgical calendar of the Latin Christian West throughout the Middle Ages. Aside from their theological dimension (invoking God’s mercy and Christ’s Ascension as a form of His mediation between God the Father and the faithful on Earth), they also corresponded to the transitional period of nature’s spring awakening, as processions “went through the fields singing psalms and litanies … at a time in the spring of the year when the seeds in the fields were springing to life” (Senn 2012, p. 143). Moreover, the fact that the major Rogation Day is celebrated on April 25 (and is considered to have been established by Pope St. Gregory the Great) may suggest “its pagan roots, perhaps in the ancient Roman festival of the Robigalia, a ritual involving prayer and sacrifice for crops” (Senn 2012, p. 143). The fact that the feast coincides with St. Mark’s Day (but is not formally connected to it) is, as we shall see, not without interest in the case of Nin.

The Rogation Days’ origin can be traced to Gaul, where it emerged in the fifth century AD (Palazzo and Beaumont 1998, p. 45) and was later introduced in Rome, probably at the beginning of the ninth century AD (Pfaff 2009, p. 36). The Rogation Days are considered “specifically Gallican practices” as they are first attested in Frankish or Carolingian liturgical manuscripts (Larson-Miller 2011, p. 41). If the early medieval tradition was confirmed in Nin, the Carolingian connection would be worthy of further inquiry, as the Frankish role in the Christianization of the area was confirmed and well-documented between the late eighth and early ninth century AD (cf. Ančić 2016; Dzino et al. 2018; Milošević 2000). The introduction of the Rogations in Rome, however, proved to be of crucial importance for the dissemination of the custom throughout Latin Christendom.

As noted, the “days of prayer at the time of the spring planting asking for God’s blessing of a bountiful harvest probably predate Christianity in Europe.” This supports the conclusion that “the Rogation processions reflect an agricultural and rural origin” (Senn 2012, p. 201). Moreover, in some parts of Europe, movement around one’s livestock emerged as one of the features of medieval rogation processions (Ciaran 2018, p. 154). Their inclusion, however, in the Roman Rite meant that the procession’s form underwent formalization and Romanization. In the late medieval—and particularly the post-Tridentine—context, this undoubtedly implied an attempt (even a prescription) to emulate the Roman Liturgy in local contexts. As attested to in practice, the highly formal “liturgical dimension” of the procession must have always been blended with (acceptable) local customs and accommodated for local spatial realities.

Practically, this entailed that, in addition to the processions in the Roman Rite being stational as a rule, the ecclesiastical dimension introduced several prescribed elements, such as the singing of particular psalms and litanies (in the Roman Rite, this was the litany of the saints) (Senn 2012, p. 201). Combined with the “local realities,” these prescribed features gave the processions a recognizable Roman flavor. Technically, one of the purposes of the Rogation processions “was to walk and mark out the parish boundaries, often repairing boundary markers as the procession made its way—with the procession terminating in the parish church where the mass was celebrated” (Senn 2012, p. 201). While this description of an ideal late medieval procession may not seem to fit with evidence for the procession, it should be noted that “the popular character of the Rogation procession was evident in all the parochial variations found in local uses” (Senn 2012, p. 201), and researchers should also consider the transformations of the custom over a few centuries in these particular historical and cultural settings.

In the case of Nin, the procession in the period before the Ottoman invasion must have been similar to those in other Mediterranean semi-rural communal communities. Unfortunately, very little was left of these traditions after centuries of warfare and desolation. The reformer bishops of the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries had to rebuild the traditions, and they leaned on reliable and universal Roman liturgical customs in order to do so. Their flock, however, now consisted of mixed groups of newcomers, many of them not even (formally) Catholics.

3.4. The Ecumenical Dimension

As the military operations and war atrocities in the region pushed groups of Christians to leave Turkish territories, the bishops of Nin worked out plans to bring them all to the Catholic faith and within the jurisdiction of the Roman Church. One example of this is Bishop Franjo Andronik de Andreis (1653–1666), who reported his plans to the Roman Curia in 1660. Soon afterward, he “gathered all the newly arrived Morlaks (Catholic and Orthodox) in the parishes of Ražanac and Posedarje where he soon introduced religious education for young believers—with even two priests of the Byzantine rite attending.” (Strika 2007, p. 141).

The situation on the ground became clearer after the end of the Cretan War (1645–1669), and especially after that of the Morean War (1684–1699), when precise numbers in the ratio between Catholic and Orthodox under the Nin bishopric’s jurisdiction emerged during the mandate of Bishop Gregory III Parčić (1690–1703). At that time, a map preserved in the Vatican referred to 7052 Catholics and 6276 Orthodox believers (Strika 2007, p. 143, after Bogović 1993, p. 108). In his ad limina report on 13 April 1692, Bishop Parčić spoke of 5486 Roman Catholics and as many as 7363 believers of the Greek Rite. While the bishop later boasted of “translating all the Greek schismatics,” his vicar-general reported that almost all the believers of the Byzantine Rite were in fact still schismatics (Strika 2007, p. 143). Leaving aside a discussion over the criteria and methodology of identifying Catholics and schismatics, it is clear that the bishops of Nin in the second half of the seventeenth century found themselves in charge of a diocese in which Catholics totaled no more than half of their flock. In light of this, one fact stressed by nineteenth- and twentieth-century authors is that the procession to Zečevo attracts an almost equal number of Orthodox believers and Catholics. The Tridentine bishops must have been aware of the integrative power of processional rituals, which were obviously impregnated (as is obvious from the description of Jelić) with elements of popular culture and folk beliefs.

4. Venice and Processional Ceremonies

Patricia Fortini Brown analyzed ceremonies and rituals in three Venetian colonies: Crete, Cyprus, and Corfu. She explored how the mother city provided a model for ceremonies, with the aim of securing the local population’s loyalty and a sense of common purpose (Fortini Brown 2016, p. 43). On each mentioned island, Venice encountered a local ceremonial program, which they modified by introducing their own festive calendar or religious feast (Fortini Brown 2016, p. 45). According to Fortini Brown, ritual actions in public spaces were organized to reaffirm the political and social hierarchy. They incorporated local traditions and acknowledged distinctive urban spaces (Fortini Brown 2016, p. 64). As Saša Brajović wrote, to be a part of the Republic of Venice was to completely accept and identify with all its symbols: Saint Mark, the lion, the state flag, and the Doge. It entailed adopting all of Venice’s complex ceremonies and festivities (Brajović 2006, p. 35).

Although the cities of Boka Bay had their ceremonies before they became a part of the Venetian Empire, after they were integrated into the empire, during the Renaissance and the baroque periods, their ceremonies were altered along Venetian lines. More than any state of that time, Venice used its natural environment—the lagoon, islets, and the sea—to build its visual style and create a myth of Venice. Boka Bay cities tried to do the same (Brajović 2006, p. 274).

Because of its structure, Brajović asserted that the Perast procession in May is reminiscent of the Venetian processions. Most of the Venetian processions, especially those in the baroque period, were dedicated to the most sacred protector of the city, Madonna Nicopeia. This work, which had a golden frame and was decorated with a chain of gems, was actually taken from Constantinople during the Fourth Crusade in 1204. In 1630, during the plague epidemics of the seventeenth century, the Venetian Senate decided to erect a church dedicated to Madonna the protector of good health, and the painting of Madonna Nicopeia traveled in a procession around the piazza, over the Grand Canal on the bridge made of gondolas, to the site of the cornerstone of the future Church of Santa Maria della Salute. A ceremonial firing announced the painting’s crossing of the Grand Canal, and a hymn and psalms were sung. By the fourteenth century, Venice was already celebrating the Festa delle Marie with small boats and gondolas on the Grand Canal. But the most famous celebration and processional ritual was Sensa (Christ’s resurrection), or Sposalizio del Mare. On that occasion, the Doge was married to the Adriatic Sea with a golden ring that he threw from his ceremonial barge, named the bucentaur. Saša Brajović believes that some of these Venetian ceremonies served as role models for Perast’s processional rituals, and that the bucentaur was undoubtedly a model for the decorated ceremonial Madonna boat of Perast (Brajović 2006, p. 279). Similarly, we argue that the Nin procession had the same role model, and that the decorated Vinjerac trabakul, which carried the miraculous Madonna statue, played the role of bucentaur.

A ritual blessing of the Adriatic probably dates from Doge Pietro II Orseolo’s time, around the year AD 1000. When he set sail on Ascension Day, commencing a victorious expedition to Dalmatia, he inspired one of Venice’s most important ceremonies, the blessing of the sea, known as benedictio. The introduction of benedictio as an official Venetian ritual occurred at the same time as the adoption of the saints’ banners in warfare. By 1267, the desponsatio ceremony had been grafted onto the benedictio, which resulted in a composite ritual or Sensa festival (Muir 1981, p. 119). The Ascension Rites came to be a frame for the spring festival, a fifteen-day fair visited by many people from outside of Venice, and by the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, it inaugurated the theater season, which lasted until July (Muir 1981, p. 120).

In the sixteenth century, the marriage of the sea developed into a carefully orchestrated ritual of state liturgy. At dawn on Ascension Day, the cavalier in charge of the ceremony determined that the sea was calm enough for the boat procession. If his decision was affirmative, he obtained a ceremonial ring from the officials and announced the beginning of the Sensa. After mass, the Doge, along with other dignitaries, officials, and guests, boarded the bucentaur, which was decorated with the Republic of Venice’s insignia. As they entered the lagoon, the San Marco chapel choir sang motets, and the church and monastery bells rang out. The procession was joined by thousands of different boats, such as galleys, gondolas, pilot boats, etc. (Muir 1981, p. 121). The religious rite of benediction took place on the patriarch of Castello’s flatboat. After introductory prayers and songs, the patriarch’s boat circled the bucentaur, and the patriarch blessed the Doge with holy water, using an olive branch. The actual marriage ceremony took place at the mouth of the lagoon, in the place where Venice opened up to the Adriatic. On the Doge’s signal, the patriarch emptied an ampulla of holy water into the sea, and the Doge dropped his gold ring overboard saying: “We espouse thee, o sea, as a sign of true and perpetual dominion.” After the ceremony, the Doge and his guests stopped at San Nicolo on Lido for a banquet that lasted until the evening (Muir 1981, p. 122). According to Edward Muir, by marrying the sea, the Doge established his legitimate rights of dominion over the trade routes and lands of the republic (Muir 1981, p. 124).

In the late sixteenth century, two interpretations of the Sensa, based on the formal division of the ceremony into desponsatio and benedictio, emerged. One was to reaffirm Venetian authority within the traditional Venetian sphere of interest, and the other, in line with post-Tridentine principles, was to reaffirm the city’s religious orthodoxy (Muir 1981, p. 130). The marriage of the sea was a spring fertility festival, which was supposed to ensure the safety of sailors at sea, express Venice’s political and commercial hegemony, establish a trade fair for the crowds, and secure continued prosperity (Muir 1981, p. 131). The ceremony seems to copy a miniature expedition abroad. The Doge and the Captain of Venice sailed from the secure context of the city center to the periphery of Venetian communal space on the lagoon’s border, and they met the unknown and unpredictable waves of the sea. The water procession described the axis of the Venetian economic and imperial world, and, according to Muir, it “affirmed that what lay beyond the lagoon was subject to those who came from within it” (Muir 1981, p. 132). Muir believed that the Sensa deprived the sea of its frightening demeanor by feminizing it. Through the Sensa, natural forces can be comprehended by personifying them, and by understanding these forces, people could better control them. The marriage at the beginning of the sailing season deprived the sea of its mystery. By looking at the Sensa spatially, Muir concluded that the opening by the Lido islands held symbolic importance. There, the Venetian and non-Venetian worlds met. Venice was most vulnerable there, but the outer world was the world most subjected to Venetian influence. It was the entrance to Venice and the exit to the sea (Muir 1981, p. 133).

5. Discussion and Concluding Thoughts

Although we have no direct line of proof that can link the maritime boat processions of Nin and Perast with Venice’s ceremonial processions, we believe that enough arguments have been presented to conclude the existence of a Venetian influence on these two pilgrimage processions. Both cities were under Venice’s rule and significant influence. Venice was the political, social, and cultural role model for all cities within the empire. It seems that the maritime pilgrimage processions in both Nin and Perast emerged much later, after the first mention of the Madonna’s miraculous appearances. On both occasions, the local bishops played important roles and may have been the designers of the processions. In Perast, the procession started as a commemoration of a victorious battle won against the Ottomans. In Nin, the procession started during Nin’s and the diocese’s restorations. In the same period, the Venetian lagoon ceremonies peaked, with the Sensa being one of the most important and prominent. On the symbolic level, the political and religious motives behind Venice’s processual rituals can easily be adapted to both the Nin and Perast cases. It does not seem too difficult to imagine local Church dignitaries, well-educated and well-traveled, hoping to strengthen their diocese and their cities, using their positions as local religious authorities to do so. They thus became figures who inaugurated and designed ritualistic processions, based on local traditions, that served this purpose.

It is to be expected that we have much more information, and more detailed descriptions, of the ceremonial procession in Venice. If we presume that processions in Venice were role models for other Venetian cities, we can use these descriptions and their interpretations to better understand the processions that took place in other cities. We are lucky that Perast has kept their Book of Ceremonies, in which we can find detailed rules of conduct pertaining to the Perast procession. Based on that source, and descriptions of processions in practice dating from the nineteenth century, we can see how similar the Perast ceremony’s elements were to those of the Venetian ceremonies. Unfortunately, we do not have equally relevant historical sources for the Nin pilgrimage procession. Nevertheless, the nineteenth-century description clearly evoked elements already seen both in the Venetian and Perast examples. We can presume, on the basis of the material presented so far, that the Nin and Perast elites drew on local traditions and developed a ritualistic maritime pilgrimage boat procession to draw out their political, religious, social, and economic potential.

While, at first glance, the constellation of available evidence suggests a rather precise historical period for the establishment of the procession in Nin—namely, the revitalization of ecclesiastical life in Nin after the destruction wrought in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—researchers should not exclude the possibility of earlier forms of processions or similar practices at this particular site. The evidence for the continuity of communal life in Nin, however, is rather weak, and the question of the possible survival of these earlier customs—while not improbable—is hard to confirm in the existing sources. Yet, the fact that the cult of the Virgin existed at the islet in the medieval period, and the site’s obvious place in processions connected to the Rogation Days, suggests “deeper roots” to the customs linked to the procession over the following centuries.

Multilayered customs, consisting of diverse popular traditions, were fused here with ecclesiastical (para)liturgical processions. To what extent elements of pre-Christian traditions played a role in the amalgamation is hard to decipher. It should be confirmed, however, that along with the Christian “theological” stratum, springtime was a strong time of year for both agrarian and pastoral populations, even before the introduction of Catholic processional customs. It should also be noted that similar customs were common among populations who only moved into the area during the early modern period because of Ottoman invasions—for instance, those from Bosnia and further east. Diverse rural processions common in this area were sometimes interpreted as remnants of pastoral ceremonies, but also of former Rogation processions that the Church abandoned over time. Traditional connections between the Feast of the Ascension and the pastoral handling of sheep were preserved in many locations, such as Poljica in Dalmatia (for instance, in the proverb “Križi, koze striži!” which literally translates as “Crosses, shear the goats!”) (Dragić 2009, p. 322). The connection between the Ascension or the Rogationtide processions and the blessing of the fields and crops is even more obvious in diverse Dalmatian customs (cf. Dragić 2009, pp. 322–24). While most of these processions took place on foot, some examples included transporting the participants by boat—such as the procession held on the island of Murter (Dragić 2009, p. 322).

In conclusion, the maritime procession to the Lady of Zečevo obviously incorporated diverse elements characteristic of various springtime processions—mostly those linked to the Rogationtide. It is also possible that the maritime procession that began at some point, probably under instructions from the local bishop, was inspired by Venetian ceremonies. This is evident when reading the nineteenth-century description of the maritime procession, which has similar structural elements to processions in Venice and Perast.

The origin of these processions, and the customs connected to them, is an issue too complex to be dealt with here. Nevertheless, establishing a connection between these traditions and the historical circumstances behind the emergence of the procession to Zečevo in written sources (including the appearance of the Virgin in 1516, the broader historical context of the Ottoman threat, and, finally, the activities of the post-Tridentine bishops of Nin) opens new directions for research and new interpretations of its particular elements. To date, we have detected elements of medieval tradition (whether early medieval Carolingian, or common late medieval Catholic practices), an element of post-Tridentine ecclesiastical regulations (from the Marian devotion to the introduction of Roman liturgical practices), and, finally, elements of diverse folk customs introduced by the pastoral populations who settled in the area during the Ottoman wars. Between the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, under the watchful eyes of the bishops of Nin, all these elements combined to constitute the procession as we now know it from the late nineteenth-century records.