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Alaric the Goth lays waste to Venetia, refugees innundate the lagoon, Alaric sacks rome in 410.
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Hun invasion destroys nearby cities and prompts more refugees for the lagoon.
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Settlements of the lagoon send tribunes to a representative, coordinating council.
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Cassiodorus, secretary of the Gothic emperor Theodoric, wrote to the 'Tribunes of the Maritime Republics' praising the equality and independence of the people in the lagoon around present-day Venice and asking their assistance in shipping goods to Ravenna.
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Venetians ferry mercenaries to join Byzantine imperial troops in Ravenna
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Around this time, while supporting Byzantine military expeditions, the Venetians maintain a distance from Constantinople, informing the emperor’s representative: “we fear no invasion or seizure … not even by the emperor himself” (Hazlitt 1900:9).
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"In 574... a fresh revolution was wrought in government, and the direction of affairs was then entrusted to ten Tribunes" (Hazlitt 1990: 10).
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The real political power in the Venetian settlements continued in the hands of the convocation of elected Tribunes, but it was balanced by the emergence of ‘periodical conventions…termed in the Venetian dialect Arrengi, composed of the whole adult male population of the islands…held in the open air’ (Hazlitt, 1966 [1900]: 9).
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Constantinople orders destruction of icons, western churches rebel anf the local garrison at Heraclea, constituted predominantly by local soldiers, revolts against Constantinople and elects their own leader, Orso as Dux, softened in the local Venetian dialect to Doge.
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Orso’s son, Teodato elected and moves the seat of government from imperially-sanctioned Heraclea to more republican Malamocco, situated on the Lido.
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Internal instability sees Doge Teodato blinded and deposed; new Doge replaced within a year; and now two annually elected tribunes oversee Doge's exercise of power.
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Arengo elects Doge Domenico Flabanico, well known for his anti-dynastic views, he ends the practice of appointing co-regents and successors and enforces existing ‘legislation providing for the proper election of Doges and giving adequate powers to the popular assembly’ (Norwich, 2003: 65-6).
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The Venetian system had gradually developed from rough justice with regular blindings and assassinations into a democratic state with debate in council and assembly and oversight from the arengo to restore order and reconcile divergent social views.
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By the late twelfth century, growing trade saw Italian city-communes emerge from feudalism and Venice’s balanced constitution of elected leader, council and assembly ‘became the republican ideal’ (Jones 1965: 73).
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The Lombard League of North Italian republics forms with Venice as a founding member and sponsor of the Peace of Venice treaty with the Holy Roman Empire.
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A trade dispute with Byzantium in 1171 prompted Doge Vitale Michiel II to embark on mission to avenge Venice’s honour. Returning defeated and with the plague, he was the first doge assassinated in 200 years and a review of the catastrophe established that his venture lacked constitutional authority.
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Constitutional reforms in 1172 began a trend ‘to narrow the popular base and to expand the ruling apex’ (Finer 1997: 988). The arengo’s powers were thus limited to approving war and acclaiming the doge’s selection while all its other powers went to the Consiglio Maggiore,
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Strong central powers allow Doge to manipulate crusade to attack fellow Christians.
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The aristocracy’s power grows as a new senate is instituted to instruct ambassadors, regulate navigation and manage debates in the great council, further sidelining the arengo and the doge (Finer 1997: 989).
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In 1352 Andrea Dandolo, doge and scholar, produced an official chronicle to 1280 using state documents and emphasising the stabilising influence of the office of doge and other elite Venetian institutions that justified the republic’s shift to aristocracy
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Only those who had already sat in the Greater Council (maggior consiglio) and their descendants are now eligible for membership; thus was formed an aristocracy which monopolized the offices of the Venetian State.
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Lagoon once again inundated with refugees
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Torcello and Heraclea are centres of independent Venice, still under theoretical Byzantine rule.
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Doge creates precedent when he makes his son joint holder of the office to remain after the original Doge’s death. While the Arengo acquiesces to this arrangement until it breaks down and is only resolved when the Arengo is again convened.
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Doge Antenori calls for foreign support and the people of the lagoon united under the command of Agnello Participazio see off the Frankish interlopers and depose the Doge .
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Orso Participazio reconvenes and revitalizes Arengo on the Rialto. He introduces a system of elected judges with mixed ministerial and judicial functions plus a full-time watching brief to ensure there was no arbitrary abuse of ducal power (Norwich, 2003: 35).
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Venetian state mythology claims that the Patriarch of Grado called together an assembly of all the people of the lagoon. In order to overcome local conflicts and make peace with the Lombards, the assembly is supposed to have elected a single ruler, Paoluccio Anafesto.
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The Byzantine or eastern Roman empire based in Constantinople called on the settlements of Venice to help in a blockade of Ravenna.
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Doge Pietro Candiano IV assassinated when he grabbed the wealth of the state for himself, married into a noble Frank family and took on the role of a feudal lord.
