of the magnates on his side; but Emeric
went alone and unarmed to the malcontents, saying: "Now I wish to see
who of you will dare to raise his hand against his king"; and all
quietly and in silence let him pass. He then took his brother, led him
out, and imprisoned him in a certain castle. The magnates fell at his
feet asking pardon. Truly in those days divinity did hedge the king!

The French Crusaders had engaged the Venetians to take them to the Holy
Land, but did not assemble at Venice at the time appointed, nor had they
the money ready to pay for their transport. The Venetians, being men of
business, demanded cash down; and so the favourable time for reaching
Syria was allowed to pass without the expedition setting forth.
Provisions and ships had been prepared, and the Venetians, wishing to
use them, with the consent of Doge Enrico Dandolo, proposed to the
French an attack on Zara, part of the booty to be used to pay for their
passage. The attack took place on November 10, 1202, and the French
stayed till April 7, 1203. The Venetians took all the booty, and threw
down the wall on the seaward side, but it was restored shortly after.
They also sent colonists to Zara after a rebellion and a reconquest in
1243.

The Venetian counts were generally citizens of Venice, and had no
defined term of rule. In 1311 the city again returned to the Hungarians,
and the result was the siege of 1312-1313, which ended in the
condottiere Dalmasio, who was besieging, being offered the countship by
the ban of Dalmatia and Croatia. To prevent this the Venetians offered
to leave the Zaratines free to choose their own count, only reserving
the right of confirmation. In 1345 Zara rebelled for the seventh time,
when Andrea Dandolo was doge, and in consequence a long siege commenced
on August 12. The Venetians had at Nona 20,000 men, horse and foot, who
devastated the fields for three days and set fire to the villages; the
countrymen fled to the city, so that there were more than 20,000 within
the walls, of whom 6,000 only were armed. On August 30 they closed the
port with a chain made of thirteen beams, and on September 1 sent an
envoy to Andrew, king of Naples, to ask for aid. On the 8th they
received letters from the King of Hungary promising help, and raised the
Hungarian flag. The king sent the bani of Bosnia and Croatia to help
them, but the Venetian senate bought the rescuers off! In January, 1346,
the Venetians took the Castle of S.