These seminaries existed in the days of the
exarch Narses, generations before a doge was given to Venice. Yet,
through all the time which has now elapsed since the first erection of a
separate political jurisdiction, not only the Church, on which such
stress was at the very outset laid, but a civil government, and
regulations for trade and shipping, must have been active forces, always
tending to grow in strength and coherence.
The Venetians, in constructing by degrees, and even somewhat at random,
a constitutional fabric, very naturally followed the precedents and
models which they found in the regions which bordered on them, and from
which their forefathers had emigrated. The Lombard system, which was of
far longer duration than its predecessors on the same soil, borrowed as
much as possible from that which the invaders saw in use and favor among
the conquered; and the earliest institutions of the only community not
subjugated by their arms were counterparts either of the Lombard, the
Roman, or the Greek customary law. The doge, in some respects, enjoyed
an authority similar to that which the Romans had vested in their
ancient kings; but, while he was clothed with full ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, he did not personally discharge the sacerdotal functions
or assume a sacerdotal title.
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