144 THE REPUBLIC OF RAGUSA
most numerous of the foreign settlers, and the Ragusans came immediately after them. At Novobrdo early in the fifteenth century we find members of nearly all the noblest Ragusan families—Bobali, Benessa, Menze, Rag-nina, Resti, Gozze, Caboga, &c. The Ragusans were the principal merchants and carriers, and the provision trade was almost wholly in their hands. They sold supplies in exchange for raw metal. There were also merchants from the other Dalmatian towns, from Italy, especially from Venice, and a few natives. The mining towns on the whole had a marked Latin character, and they were all provided with at least one Latin church,1 under the authority of the Bishop of Cattaro. There were also several Franciscan monasteries, which afterwards ministered to the religious needs of the native Catholics in Turkish times; some of them still exist. The chief authority in the town was, as I have said, the Servian Vojvod, but the head of the mining and mercantile community was the Conte dei Purgari Vaoturchi. The taxes and customs were farmed to Ragusan or Cattarine speculators, and in fact most of the higher financial officials in the South-Slavonic States, including the Protovestiars (Finance Ministers), were usually natives of those cities. The Ragusans who owned houses were bound to bear arms in defence of the castle and market-town, but the others were exempt. If a dispute arose between them and the Saxons or the Serbs the question
   1	According to Farlati, it is owing to the Ragusans that some traces of Latin Christianity survived in these lands of schism and heresy.
   2	Purgari is evidently derived from the German word Bürger, but the etymology of Vaoturchi is unknown (Jirecek).