It was originally compiled in 1288 by a commission of 42 members in Novi Vinodolski, a town on the Adriatic Sea coast in Croatia, located south of Crikvenica, Selce and Bribir and north of Senj.

[3] It is the oldest among all Croatian city statutes, which represented an agreement between the people of Vinodol and their new liege lords Frangipani, the counts of Krk.

It contains important information about the feudal law in this area which had replaced the tribal customs of an earlier period.

The Vinodol Statute provides a rare contemporary picture of the life and political conditions in medieval Europe.

The oldest regulations concerning public health in western Croatia are preserved within the Vinodol Statute.