The Placitum of Riziano (; ) was a dispute that took place c. 804 around the Rizano River, probably at Rižana in modern Slovenia. The document is important for the history of Koper and Trieste because it is the first written evidence of the presence of a Slavic-speaking population in Istria close to Trieste. Liceo F. Petrarca – Trieste – a.s. 2001/2002 – Il Carso tra natura e culturaJanko Jež – Monumenta Frisingensia: la prima presentazione in Italia dei Monumenti letterari sloveni di Frisinga del X-XI secolo ...: con traduzione dei testi, cenni di storia del popolo sloveno e dati sugli Sloveni in Italia – Trieste: Mladika; Florence: Vallecchi Editore, 1994 -
Legates sent by Charlemagne heard complaints by the leaders of Istria about the bishops and the John, Duke of Istria. The document is believed to have been recorded on the orders of Fortunatus II, patriarch of Grado. A point of historiographical contention is the fact that only the leaders of the coastal towns of Istria were present; one explanation for this is that the issues being discussed (for example, the abolition of the right of the townspeople to fish) only affected the coast.
The Latin text has been edited many times, but the standard edition is by Manaresi.I placiti del Regnum Italiae, ed. C. Manaresi (Rome, 1955), vol. I, no. 17, pp. 48–56 The text has been translated into various modern languages.French translation: Ph. Depreux, Les societes occidentales du milieu du VI a la fin du IX siecle (Rennes, 2002), pp. 293–299, online; English translation: C. West, 'The Rižana Dispute of 804: an English translation' – Earlier medieval history
References
Further reading F. Borri, "Neighbours and Relatives: The Plea of Rizana as a Source for Northern Adriatic Elites," Mediterranean Studies 17 (2008), 1–26 T. S. Brown, Officers and Gentlemen and Officers: Imperial Administration and Aristocratic Power in Byzantine Italy, A.D. 554–800 (London, 1984) J. Davis, Charlemagne's Practice of Empire (Cambridge, 2015), pp. 102–104, 274–277 M. Innes, "Framing the Carolingian Economy," Journal of Agrarian Change 9 (2009), 42–58.