split into two provinces, Pannonia and Dalmatia. Kor?ula became part of the ancient Roman province of Dalmatia. In the 6th century it came under Byzantine rule.
The Great Migrations of the 6th and 7th centuries brought Slavic and Avar invasions into this region. As the so-called barbarians began settling on the coast, the Romanised local coastal population had to take refuge on the islands. Along the Dalmatian coast the Croatian Slavic peoples poured out of the interior and seized control of the area where the Neretva River enters the Adriatic, as well as the island of Kor?ula (Corcyra),which protects the river mouth. The Christianisation of the Croats began in the 9th century, but the early Slavic rural inhabitants of the island may well have fully accepted Christianity only later; in the early Middle Ages the Croatian population of the island was grouped with the pagan Narentines.
It is apparent that piracy on the sea emerged as the Narentines or Neretvians quickly learned maritime skills in their new environment. At first Venetian merchants were willing to pay an annual tribute to keep their shipping safe from the infamous Neretvian pirates of the Dalmatian coast. After the 9th century, the island was briefly under nominal Byzantine suzerainty. In 998 the Principality of Pagania came under Venetian control. Doge Pietro II Orseolo launched a naval expedition along the coast and assumed the title Duke of Dalmatia. Afterwards Kor?ula came under the control of the Great Principality of Zahumlje.
In the 12th century Kor?ula was conquered by a Venetian nobleman, Pepone Zorzi, and incorporated briefly into the Venetian Republic. Around this time, the local Kor?ula rulers began to exercise diplomacy and legislate a town charter to secure the independence of the island, particularly with regard to internal affairs, given its powerful neighbors.
The brothers of Stephen Nemanja, Miroslav and Stracimir, launched an attack on the island on 10
