st 1184, raiding its fertile western part. The island's inhabitants called for help from the Republic of Ragusa (Dubrovnik), which in turn captured all of Stracimir's galleys.
The Statute of Kor?ula was first drafted in 1214. This legal document is the second oldest example of legislation among Slavs, with only the Russkaya Pravda of 11th and 12th Century Russia predating it. It guaranteed the autonomy of the island, apart from her outside rulers: the Grand Principality of Ra�ka, the semi-independent Great Principality of Zahumlje and the Republics of Ragusa and Venice. Captains were created for each of the island's five settlements for organized defence. Kor?ula had fewer than 2,500 inhabitants at that time.
In 1221, Pope Honorius III gifted the island to the Princes of Krka (the �ubi?s). Then in 1222, the Serbian King Stephen the First-crowned of Nemanja gifted his monasteries and lands on the island, referring to it as Krkar, to his followers of the Benedictine Monastic Order on Mljet.
During the 13th century the hereditary Counts of Kor?ula were loosely governed in turn by the Hungarian crown and by the Republic of Genoa, and also enjoyed a brief period of independence; but, in 1255, Marsilio Zorzi conquered the island's city and razed or damaged some of its churches in the process, forcing the Counts to return to Venetian supreme rule. According to a local tradition, Marco Polo would have been born at Kor?ula in 1254 to an established family of merchants, although there is no proof of this claim. What is more definite is that the Republic of Genoa defeated Venice in the documented Battle of Kor?ula off the coast of Kor?ula in 1298 and a galley commander, Marco Polo, was taken prisoner by the victors to eventually spend his time in a Genoese prison writing of his travels. However, some Italian scholars believe that he may have been captured in a minor clash near Ayas (in sources from those times: Laiazzo).
After the writings
