Mediaeval Istrian urban settlements were not limited to the town, but included and governed a broader rural area. Within this framework they developed their own administration and judicature. Civic territories in the urban environment of north-western Istria bordered on one another. The towns jealously guarded their territories and boundaries, and any violation of the latter by the contiguous communes led to neighbourhood disputes, which the parties concerned tried to solve in various ways: through prudent negotiation or with the help of superior Istrian rulers and other secular and ecclesiastical notables. The method of determining borders when still no detailed cartography or cadastral survey techniques were available, relied primarily on geographical dividing lines and terrain features, as well as the ownership of plots. Some delimitations of borders cite several microtoponyms, others hardly any. Some borders were demarcated by trees and rocks marked with crosses or studded with nails and standing quite close to one another. The disputes between the communes regarding their territory were most frequently triggered by misappropriation of cut grass or hay, pasturing on or tilling and exploitation of 'foreign' soil. Various individuals would intervene in border disputes, either upon taking up their new posts or in case of inter-communal disputes. In 1212, only a few years after gaining control over the March of Istria (1209), Wolfger von Erla, the Patriarch of Aquileia, had the border between Piran and Izola recorded and, that same month, that between Piran and Buje. In the presence of the gastalds and consuls of Piran, Koper and Izola, Wolfger selected five wise men, foreigners -two from Trieste and three from Umag -to determine the Piran -Izola border, and in the presence of the consuls or gastalds of Piran and the gastald of Buje, three wise men -a neutral foreigner from Umag, and one representative per side involved in the dispute -to establish the border between Piran and Buje. Wolfger's example of intervening in the delimitation of the Piran-Izola border was followed in 1254 by the patriarch Gregorio di Montelongo. The latter entrusted the task of defining the boundaries between Piran and Izola to the podesta of the then very infl uential town of Koper, who obtained the authorisation of the Koper and Piran podestariates, as well as of the patriarch's deputy office in Istria, and then determined the border with the help of wise men from Koper. Communal autonomy had by then reached such a level of maturity that in some cases, the sides in the dispute were already able to agree by themselves on an arbiter to solve the problem. In the mid-fifties of the 13th century, the Piran and Izola communes entrusted the role of arbiter and mediator to the podest of Koper. After the establishment of Venetian power in Istrian coastal towns, town magistrates -podesta -appointed by Venice solved the issues of borders. The first podesta of Piran, After the establishment of Venetian power in Istrian coastal towns, town magistrates - podesta - appointed by Venice solved the issues of borders. The first podesta of Piran, Andreas Dandulo, entrusted the task of recording the boundaries of the Piran estate to seven notable Piranese wise men. In the territory of Venetian Istria, in cases of encroachment on a town's estate by the neighbouring town, the podesta nominated a distinguished citizen as a representative who would issue a complaint on behalf of the podesta and his own commune to the magistrate and the judges of the neighbouring commune, providing evidence for his case through testimony of witnesses, and, finally, obtaining an admission of guilt by the off ender. In more complicated cases, the communes in dispute would each appoint and authorize their own representative, while the magistrates of the two communes acted as arbiters and could each engage an esteemed third person to take part in the process of arbitration. The search for territory arbiters in Piran and Buje, for example, was more complicated, as the two towns were each under a different ruler: the former under Venice, and the latter under the Patriarchate of Aquileia. But even in such cases, the injured commune first sent its envoy with the complaint to the magistrate of the neighbouring town (in Piran, to the podesta, in Buje, to the gastald). The arbiter-mediator who enjoyed the trust and was authorised in 1301 by the two sides, was the bishop of Novigrad, Naticherius. His delimitation of the border between Piran and Buje established a precedent that would later be referred to in cases of territorial disputes. Mentioned as witnesses in the records are church dignitaries from Novigrad and distinguished gentlemen from Piran and Buje. Five years later, in 1306, there was a dispute, well-documented, caused by an infringement of the boundaries between the Piran and Buje communes by the inhabitants of the latter. The Piranese authorised a representative to file a complaint in Buje, then the sides sent to the border four honourable people each, and these were joined by three neutral inhabitants of Umag as witnesses. They were to take care of the reconstruction of the boundary marks that were being destroyed by the people of Buje. The final settlement concerning the border was achieved at the highest level. In the presence of the bishop of Novigrad, a colleague of the Venetian governor of the Istrian rural area (Paysenaticum), the podesta of Sv. Lovrec (Pazenaticki) and podesta of Novigrad, a nobleman from Venice and a gentleman of unknown origin, two Buje representatives presented the podesta of Piran with the grain that the farmers from Buje produced on Piran's territory. Infringements by the inhabitants of Piran, though not so well documented, did occur, too. Disputes over borders were thus solved in various ways, enabling some comparisons with contemporary practice. In the case of less significant disputes, town representatives and wise men would negotiate on the level of the communes. When necessary, they could consult the country people, who were familiar with the situation in the field (in a sense like modern "expert groups"). The negotiators were nominated by town magistrates, who occasionally also negotiated directly among themselves and in the presence of the public. They also had the right to introduce in the negotiation process, as a neutral witness, a notable third person - e.g., the podesta of another town. At times, the decision on the borders was taken by a mediator acceptable to both sides in dispute (a church dignitary, for instance). Only rarely, as in the cases of Piran and Izola in 1285 and of Piran and Buje in 1306, were the disputes resolved by foreign arbiters: in the former case, upon the intervention of the Venetian doge, the podesta of the neighbouring towns; and in the latter, the Venetian governor of the Istrian rural area.
