Medieval Bosnia and South-East European Relations: Political, Religious, and Cultural Life at the Adriatic Crossroads 9781641890236

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MEDIEVAL BOSNIA AND SOUTH-​EAST EUROPEAN RELATIONS

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BEYOND MEDIEVAL EUROPE Beyond Medieval Europe publishes monographs and edited volumes that evoke medieval Europe’s geographic, cultural, and religious diversity, while highlighting the interconnectivity of the entire region, understood in the broadest sense—​from Dublin to Constantinople, Novgorod to Toledo. The individuals who inhabited this expansive territory built cities, cultures, kingdoms, and religions that impacted their locality and the world around them in manifold ways. The series is particularly keen to include studies on traditionally underrepresented subjects in Anglophone scholarship (such as medieval eastern Europe) and to consider submissions from scholars not natively writing in English in an effort to increase the diversity of Anglophone publishing on the greater medieval European world.

Series Editor Christian Alexander Raffensperger, Wittenberg University, Ohio

Editorial Board

Kurt Villads Jensen, Stockholms Universitet, Stockholm Balázs Nagy, Central European University, Budapest Leonora Neville, University of Wisconsin, Madison

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MEDIEVAL BOSNIA AND SOUTH-​EAST EUROPEAN RELATIONS POLITICAL, RELIGIOUS,  AND CULTURAL LIFE AT THE ADRIATIC CROSSROADS Edited by

DŽENAN DAUTOVIĆ, EMIR O. FILIPOVIĆ, AND NEVEN ISAILOVIĆ

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In memory of Prof. Dr. Dubravko Lovrenović (1956–​2017)

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library © 2019, Arc Humanities Press, Leeds

The authors assert their moral right to be identified as the authors of their part of this work. Permission to use brief excerpts from this work in scholarly and educational works is hereby granted provided that the source is acknowledged. Any use of material in this work that is an exception or limitation covered by Article 5 of the European Union’s Copyright Directive (2001/​29/​EC) or would be determined to be “fair use” under Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Act September 2010 page 2 or that satisfies the conditions specified in Section 108 of the U.S. Copyright Act (17 USC §108, as revised by P.L. 94–​553) does not require the Publisher’s permission.

ISBN: 9781641890229 e-​ISBN: 9781641890236

www.arc-​humanities.org

Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

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CONTENTS

Introduction DŽENAN DAUTOVIĆ, EMIR O. FILIPOVIĆ, and NEVEN ISAILOVIĆ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Chapter 1. Bosnia and Croatia-​Dalmatia in the Late Middle Ages:  A Historical Perspective NEVEN ISAILOVIĆ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Chapter 2. Relations Between the Bosnian Kingdom and the Serbian Despotate in a Regional Context ENES DEDIĆ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 Chapter 3. The Opposition Between Bulgaria and the Latin Empire of Constantinople: A Necessary Hostility? FRANCESCO DALL’ AGLIO . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65

Chapter 4. Ottoman Power Holders in the Balkans (1353–​1580): A Case of Upward and Downward Elite Mobility GÜNEŞ IŞIKSEL. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85 Chapter 5. Exploiting the Frontier—​A Case Study: The Common Endeavour of Matthias Corvinus and Nicholas of Ilok in Late Medieval Bosnia DAVOR SALIHOVIĆ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97 Chapter 6. The Papacy and Marriage Practices in Medieval Bosnia DŽENAN DAUTOVIĆ. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113 Chapter 7. Ecclesiastical Reformer and Politician: The Two Faces of Bishop Stephen II of Zagreb, 1225–1247 IGOR RAZUM. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 Select Bibliography. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147 Index. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

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INTRODUCTION

Dženan Dautović, Emir O. Filipović, and Neven Isailović

THE DALMATIAN COAST of the Adriatic and its vast Balkan hinterland were an integral part of the medieval European world, both in a geographical and historical sense. However, due to language issues and scarcity of sources, the whole region has been overlooked by western historiography, and has thus remained beyond the imagined borders of medieval Europe. Consequently, this book will be devoted to the wider region of Southeast Europe, which was physically framed by the eastern Adriatic coast in the south, the edges of the Pannonian plain in the north and west, and the shores of the Black Sea to the east, while being politically and culturally shaped by the Venetian Republic, Hungarian Kingdom, and the Byzantine Empire. Within this region, particular emphasis will be placed on topics pertaining to the history of the medieval Bosnian state, since it shared a lot of common features with contemporary European societies while simultaneously exhibiting some very distinctive peculiarities. As the central political entity within the broader region, situated on the ridge where ancient Roman emperors split their imperial domains into eastern and western parts, and where boundaries between Catholic and Orthodox Christianity were demarcated deep into the Middle Ages, it was heavily influenced by both sides of this civilizational divide. But as a small, landlocked country, Bosnia managed to preserve its individuality, characterized above all by religious plurality, the existence of an indigenous ecclesiastical organization, recognized neither by the Pope in Rome or the Patriarch of Constantinople, and by a persistent viability of certain ancient customs which defined its remarkable position. Few western historians have devoted their careers to the research of the medieval past of this region, while domestic medievalists only sporadically published their papers in English, French, German, or other world languages. For these reasons, this collected volume covers a number of different themes and a broad chronological scope. Another feature of this volume is that all the contributors belong to a younger generation of medievalists, who have already published their research papers, to a greater or lesser extent, in major world languages, and have therefore already initiated the process of integrating the history of medieval Bosnia and Southeast Europe into dominant general narratives of the Middle Ages. The contributions encompass various topics ranging from the political development of the states in the region, including interstate diplomatic relations, to certain religious or cultural nuances that have been of special interest. Several papers of the volume are dedicated to the different kind of interstate relations in Southeast Europe. The volume opens with the contribution of Neven Isailović, which considers the way the expansion of the Bosnian state towards the West affected its relations with the neighbours whose territory was conquered during this expansion. The focal part of his work discusses two

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Dženan Dautović, Emir O. Filipović, and Neven Isailović

periods during which the Bosnian state held dominance over almost the entire central area of the east coast of the Adriatic, including the Dalmatian communes, during the reign of King Tvrtko I and the peak of the power of the Bosnian magnate Duke Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić. Unlike the temporary rule of the Croatian noble kindred of Šubići from Bribir over Bosnia in the early fourteenth century, the era of Bosnian control over Dalmatia and Southern Croatia had an irreversible impact on regional politics. Although this period lasted less than twenty years, the prolonged conflict gradually weakened the positions of the Realm of St. Stephen and paved the way for the imminent dominance of the Republic of St. Mark on both shores of the Adriatic, which was in turn coupled with prevailing Ottoman influence in the continental Balkans. Years of bitter rivalry over border regions between Bosnia and Croatia-​Dalmatia made the unity of the neighbouring Christian states an impossible task, and so Ottoman pressure ultimately led to their demise. Enes Dedić identifies the Ottomans, as well as the Hungarian Kingdom and the Republic of Ragusa, as the main forces which participated in the modeling of relations between the Bosnian Kingdom and the Serbian Despotate between 1402 and 1459. The interests of Hungarian rulers were mainly focused on the northern part of the border between Bosnia and Serbia, specifically on the town and mining area of Srebrenica, while the Ottomans had clear aspirations toward the territory of both states, gradually weakening their military and economic strength with persistent political pressure. Meanwhile, the Ragusans were keen observers of this process since their main interests lay in preserving good trading links with both political entities, which, to the benefit of modern historians, ultimately caused the creation of the majority of written sources regarding these relations which survive to the present day. Francesco Dall’Aglio articulates the complex web of relations that the Bulgarian Tsardom developed with its neighbours during the reign of Emperor Kalojan. Most of these relations were hostile. During the first phase, he collided with the Hungarian King Emeric as well as with Byzantine emperors Alexios III and Alexios IV. Using Kalojan’s need to legitimize his position and the desire of his opponents to disqualify him as a usurper, Pope Innocent III gained a very important role in political intrigues of Southeast Europe. The second phase of Bulgarian foreign relations began after the Fourth Crusade and the formation of the Latin Empire. At first, Kalojan tried to establish friendly contacts with the new power holders in the Balkans who dethroned his Byzantine enemies, but his efforts hit a wall, since the first Latin emperor Baldwin of Flanders and the powerful lord of Thessalonica, Boniface of Montferrat, saw Bulgaria as the very best avenue for expanding their domains. This triggered a set of very tumultuous and violent events culminating in the battle near Adrianopolis where Bulgarians achieved an important victory, additionally imprisoning the emperor Baldwin. The presence of the Ottoman Turks in the Balkans dates from the mid-​fourteenth century, and they soon became a defining political factor in the whole region. Güneş Işıksel offers a detailed analysis of one pillar of Ottoman society—​the elite noblemen who had very distinctive roles and positions in the processes of forming and expanding Ottoman power from Constantinople to Vienna, from the Middle East and Northern Africa to Central Europe. Those elites had an especially important role in the Ottoman

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Introduction

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Balkans, usually as frontier-​marcher lords whose main objective was to destabilize neighbouring countries through swift and effective raiding incursions. Işıksel presents not just the military aspect of their actions, but also emphasizes those concerning their patronage in the building of mosques, hospices, caravanserai, bathhouses, etc. An especially important example in this sense is the family of Pasha Yiğit, whose descendants Ishak and Isa had important roles in the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. In his contribution, Davor Salihović presents a Hungarian perspective on the situation immediately after the Ottoman and Hungarian dismemberment of the Bosnian Kingdom in 1463, following events in detail up until the appointment of Nicholas of Ilok as king of Bosnia in 1471 by the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus. The author debates with older historiography regarding multiple themes, among which the most useful are the ones elaborating Nicholas’s role and participation in the internal quarrels in the Hungarian Kingdom. As one of the most powerful magnates of his time, the former voivode of Transylvania and the ban of Slavonia and Mačva (Macsó), Nicholas was initially granted the possession of territories in the northeastern parts of Bosnia, in the Land of Usora, but he gradually managed to improve his position and succeeded in gaining consent from King Matthias to acquire the title “King of Bosnia.” Finally, there are two chapters which predominantly cover themes from religious or everyday life. Dženan Dautović offers an analysis of different marriage practices in medieval Bosnia and how they were perceived by the Roman Curia. The first part of this article presents several examples of marital unions which needed special papal dispensation due to the close blood kinship of the spouses, or because one of them was under the suspicion of being a heretic. These cases demonstrate the gradual improvement of relations between Bosnia and the Papacy during the fourteenth century, which stands in stark contrast to the paucity of sources regarding their ties throughout the 1200s. The second part of the work is devoted to a particular ancient custom which was typical for medieval Bosnia: the practice of the conditional, easily dissolvable marriage known as matrimony per modo Bosignanorum. This practice was so deeply rooted in medieval Bosnian society that even the most zealous efforts of Franciscan missionaries failed to achieve significant progress in this matter as part of their attempts to re-​catholicize the Bosnian monarchy. The already mentioned religious pluralism of the society resulted in a high number of inter-​confessional marriages, which were not commonplace in other contemporary societies. The final piece in the volume is that of Igor Razum, which presents the activities of an important though not very well-​known church-​persona, Stephen II, who held the office of the bishop of Zagreb for twenty-​two years (1225–​47). This high-​ranking ecclesiastical official probably finished his studies in Bologna (or in Oxford) and served as a court chancellor for the Hungarian king Andrew II before he was elected to the position of bishop. Stephen II was active during the pontificates of Gregory IX and Innocent IV, maintaining ties with both pontiffs and managing to persuade them to unify the ecclesiastical sees of Zagreb and Split into a single archbishopric, a project that ultimately did not survive the test of time. Stephen was also witness to the Mongol invasion of the Hungarian lands after the Battle near the river Sajó, which compelled him to escape from Zagreb.

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Dženan Dautović, Emir O. Filipović, and Neven Isailović

Overall, the volume aims to shed fresh light on the medieval past of a rather understudied and neglected region of Europe with Bosnia as its focal point. It attempts to analyze the main processes, internal political developments, international relations, the ever-​present and changing frontier policies, social characteristics, cultural patterns, religious and cultural issues. As editors, we hope that the presented studies and examples will convince readers that despite its various peculiarities, distinctive historical experience, and liminal geographical position, Southeast Europe was still an integral component of the rich and varied European medieval experience. The editors would like to thank Dr. Judith Rasson for her generous contribution in significantly improving the reading-​quality of the final drafts of the work collected here. Dženan Dautović, Regional Museum Travnik and Faculty of Pedagogy Bihać Emir O. Filipović, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sarajevo and Neven Isailović, Institute of History, Belgrade

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Chapter 1

BOSNIA AND CROATIA-​DALMATIA IN THE LATE MIDDLE AGES: A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE

Neven Isailović́* THE SCARCITY OF historical sources prevents scholars from establishing irrefutable facts concerning the earliest past of the Slavic states in the Balkans. In this article I present a chronological survey of the key political stages in the development of late medieval Bosnia and its relationships, often military, with its closest neighbour, Croatia-​ Dalmatia (as the part of the composite Hungarian Kingdom—​the Realm of St. Stephen). I have defined the following major phases in this history of Bosnian-​Croatian relations in the late Middle Ages: Croatian rule of Bosnia under the Šubić family, 1301 to 1322; high aspirations of the Bosnians under the reign of Stjepan (Stephen) II, 1322 to 1353; setbacks in the west of Bosnia, albeit temporary, in the period of Ban Tvrtko, 1353 to 1377; an expansionary period under kings Tvrtko I and Dabiša, 1377 to 1395; a period of turmoil under Hrvoje Vukčić, 1398 to 1416; followed by what I call the era of permeable border between Bosnia and Croatia-​Dalmatia, when Venice and the Ottoman Turks emerged as the key players of the region in the period to 1444; and, finally, the fall of medieval Bosnia following constant Turkish pressure from 1444 to 1463. Many effects from this period have major repercussions on the shaping of the political landscape of the Balkans through to this very day. The first written record, which is widely considered to be trustworthy, is De administrando imperio (‘On the Governance of the Empire’), a domestic and foreign policy manual compiled for Romanos, son of Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus (r. 913–​959). According to this record, in the early tenth century the western Balkan area was divided into several political entities ruled by South Slavs, the largest of them being Serbia and Croatia. They bordered each other along a line which generally followed the Vrbas River.1 *  Neven Isailović received his PhD from the University of Belgrade in 2014. His research areas include the political and social history of the late medieval and early Ottoman Balkans (primarily Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia) as well as the history of nobility, medieval literacy and the practice of royal and noble chanceries in Southeastern Europe. Since 2007 he has been publishing papers on these topics, primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia, but also in publications issued beyond the former Yugoslavia. He has edited a collected volume on the fall of the medieval Bosnian Kingdom in 1463 (Pad Bosanskog kraljevstva 1463. godine, Beograd: Istorijski institut Beograd, 2015). He is currently a research associate at the Institute of History in Belgrade and secretary general of the Centre for Advanced Medieval Studies. 1  Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, ed. Gyula Moravcsik, trans. Romilly James Heald Jenkins (Washington: Dumbarton Oaks Center for Byzantine Studies, 1967), 122–​65.

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6 Neven Isailović At that time, Bosnia, situated on the upper and middle course of the Bosna River, existed as a horion (“small land”) within the political borders of Serbia.2 After the gradual disintegration of this large Serbian state, Bosnia developed or re-​developed its home rule.3 By the mid-​twelfth century, if not earlier, it was a fully independent state, although at times it succumbed to the influence of powerful neighbouring states—​primarily Byzantium (until the 1180s) and Hungary (throughout the Middle Ages). The lack of reliable sources makes it almost impossible to follow the exact territorial development of medieval Bosnia or to determine when the title of ban, which Bosnian rulers carried until 1377, came into use and who introduced it.4 The kings of Hungary added Rama to their royal title in the late 1130s, but it is not entirely clear if this toponym denoted Bosnia or part of Bosnia since there is also a mention of a Bosnensis ducatus supposedly given by King Béla II (r. 1131–​1141) to his son Ladislaus.5 In any case, Hungary did not exercise full authority over Bosnia.6 The Croatian state, in contrast, had a rather different development. The peak of its power was in the tenth and eleventh century, in the age after the glory of the Frankish Empire and Bulgaria had diminished and the might of the Hungarians had not yet reached the Balkans. The main Croatian political centres were located in the hinterland, but the country also controlled a large portion of the East Adriatic coastline, that is, Dalmatia, including some of the major cities.7 It remains unknown whether Croatia held the territory of the original land of Bosnia at any time, although this may have happened briefly in the second half of the tenth century. The rise of Hungary, however, eventually came at the detriment of the Croats in the late eleventh and early twelfth century. King Ladislaus I added Slavonia, the region between the Drava River and the mountains, to his 2  Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, 160–​61.

3  Sima Ćirković, Istorija srednjovekovne bosanske države (Beograd:  Srpska književna zadruga, 1964), 33–​43; Nada Klaić, Srednjovjekovna Bosna: politički položaj bosanskih vladara do Tvrtkove krunidbe 1377. g. (Zagreb:  Grafički zavod Hrvatske, 1989), 5–​34; Tomislav Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje: prostor, ljudi, ideje (Zagreb: Školska knjiga, 1997), 113, 281–​82; Tibor Živković, “On the Beginning of Bosnia in the Middle Ages,” in Spomenica akademika Marka Šunjića, ed. Dubravko Lovrenović (Sarajevo: Filozofski fakultet, 2010), 161–​80.

4  Vladimir Ćorović, “Teritorialni razvoj bosanske države u srednjem veku,” Glas Srpske kraljevske akademije 167 (1935):  3–​47 at 9–​21; Jelena Mrgić-​Radojčić, “Rethinking the Territorial Development of the Medieval Bosnian State,” Istorijski časopis 51 (2004):  43–​64 at 43–​57. See Ćirković, Istorija, 40. 5  Pál Engel, The Realm of St. Stephen:  A History of Medieval Hungary, 895–​1526 (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001), 50; Attila Bárány, “The Expansions of the Kingdom of Hungary in the Middle Ages (1000–​1490),” in The Expansion of Central Europe in the Middle Ages, ed. Nora Berend (Farnham:  Ashgate, 2012), 333–​80 at 351. For a rather different approach to the issue of Rama see Tibor Živković, “Rama u titulaturi ugarskih kraljeva,” Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta 41 (2004): 153–​64. 6  Ćirković, Istorija, 41–​43; Klaić, Srednjovjekovna Bosna, 35–​62. 7  “Nova zraka u europskom svjetlu. Hrvatske zemlje u ranome srednjem vijeku (oko 550–​oko 1150),” ed. Zrinka Nikolić Jakus (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 2015), 3–​130.

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realm in the early 1090s, and King Coloman brought Croatia proper, including Dalmatia, under Hungarian control in the late 1090s and early 1100s. By reaching an agreement with the Croatian nobility, crowning himself king of Croatia, and securing rule over Dalmatian cities, Coloman established a personal union between Hungary and Croatia-​ Dalmatia which lasted through to 1918.8 The Croatian state became an integral part of the composite Realm of St. Stephen, while Bosnia, at first a substantially smaller territory, managed to remain a separate, mostly independent, political entity and to expand its borders. The same applies to the legal and administrative system—​while keeping its own legal provisions (unlike Slavonia) Croatia-​Dalmatia was, most of the time, administered by a representative of the central government in Buda. In contrast, Bosnia fully kept its own old polity and customary law.9 The territorial expansion of Bosnia made its banate an immediate neighbour of Dalmatia and Croatia, the almost merged kingdoms within the Árpád realm that were usually administered by a single ban. This development probably took place in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries, after the final withdrawal of Byzantium from the regions west of the Drina River. Even in the fifteenth century, Bosnian Ban Kulin (r. 1180–​1204) was considered to be the person who had established a powerful and enlarged country, but it is not known what territories he actually acquired.10 It is certain that between Kulin’s reign and the rule of Ban Prijezda I (r. ca. 1250–​1287) Bosnia gradually expanded at the expense of Hungary, although it continued to maintain great influence.11 Although the Banate of Bosnia was periodically bestowed upon family members of the Árpád dynasty, such a practice did not reflect political reality. This does not mean that relations between Bosnia and Hungary were always in conflict—​ whenever Bosnian rulers accepted a subordinate position in a wider hierarchy of states and acted as Hungarian allies, their home rule was left unimpaired.12 Such an attitude of the mightier neighbour might seem strange, especially when it involved the territorial diminishment of its realm, but it becomes more understandable when considering that Bosnia was a relatively small frontier country, rather isolated, surrounded by mountains and gorges, fairly difficult to conquer and even more difficult to retain, unevenly settled and, before the era of extensive mining, economically uninteresting. It was more profitable to make it an external member of the Árpád commonwealth than to waste resources 8  Nikolić Jakus, “Hrvatske zemlje u ranome srednjem vijeku,” 3–​130; Bárány, “The Expansions,” 344–​46. 9  Sima Ćirković, “Ostaci starije društvene strukture u bosanskom feudalnom društvu,” Istoriski glasnik 3–4 (1958):  155–​64; Damir Karbić, “Hrvatski plemićki rod i običajno pravo,” Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za društvene i povijesne znanosti Hrvatske akademije znanosti i umjetnosti 16 (1998): 73–​117. 10  Pejo Ćošković, “Bosna na prijelomu stoljeća i potvrda državnih granica 1406,” Prilozi 31 (2002): 57–​82. 11  Ćirković, Istorija, 46–​49, 60–​69; Klaić, Srednjovjekovna Bosna, 62–​148; Bárány, “The Expansions,” 348, 351–​52, 354–​57. 12  Ćirković, Istorija, 72–​76; Klaić, Srednjovjekovna Bosna, 148–​64.

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8 Neven Isailović on an uncertain conquest. The inclusion of Bosnia in the realm ruled from Buda never ceased to be a strategic goal of the Hungarian court, yet this goal was only periodically its main focus, brought on by religious or foreign policy at some specific historical moment, which is the reason why it ultimately failed. According to a dubious source usually called Letopis popa Dukljanina (“The Chronicle of the Priest of Dioclea”), Bosnia started to expand towards Croatia in the years after Prince Časlav’s Serbia disintegrated following his death. Supposedly, Croatian King Mihailo (Michael)13 Krešimir II attacked and defeated the Bosnian ruler in 969 by invading the župas14 of Pliva, Luka, and Uskoplje near the Vrbas River.15 It should be noted that in Porphyrogenitus’s work, Pliva was considered a Croatian župa.16 The Dioclean Chronicle also asserted that Bosnia was situated between the Drina River on the east and Mons Pini on the west. It is difficult, however, to determine not only if any of these data contain historical facts, but also if their chronology is correct. It is also impossible to positively locate Mons Pini; it may refer to a peak called Borova Glava near Livno, another explicitly mentioned Croatian župa, or a mountain called Borje in the region of Usora.17 By the best approximation, it seems that by the time of Ban Kulin, Bosnia included the region between the upper course of the Bosna River and the middle course of the Drina (on the east), highland parts of the regions of Usora and Soli (on the north), and an area surrounding the upper and middle courses of the Vrbas River (on the west). The area along the valley of the Vrbas was called Donji Kraji or Partes Inferiores (The Lower Parts). It was a mostly highland region and its name denoted its geographical position, not its relief. The acquisition of Donji Kraji, whenever it happened, made Bosnia a permanent neighbour of Croatia-​Dalmatia (and, indeed, of Slavonia as well), which intensified the relations between the two political entities.18 13  Throughout the paper the original, Slavic form of Bosnian and Croatian names will be used. The English variant, if it exists, will be mentioned in the parentheses, only at the first occurrence of each name. 14  The župa was a small administrative unit in the South Slavic states, similar to a district. A certain number of župas could form a land (zemlja), a higher administrative unit.

15  Gesta Regum Sclavorum, vol. 1, trans. Dragana Kunčer, ed. Tibor Živković (Beograd:  Istorijski institut, 2009), 114–​17. This narrative source dates from at least late twelfth century and possibly much later. 16  Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, 144–​45; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 40, 113. 17  Constantine Porphyrogenitus, De administrando imperio, 144–​45, 150–​51; Gesta Regum Sclavorum, vol. 1, 58–​59; Ćorović, “Teritorialni razvoj,” 10–​14; Mrgić-​Radojčić, “Rethinking,” 52–​53.

18  Jelena Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji. Krajina srednjovekovne Bosne (Beograd and Banja Luka:  Filozofski fakultet u Beogradu and Filozofski fakultet u Banjaluci and Istorijski institut u Banjaluci, 2002), 26–​36; Jelena Mrgić, Severna Bosna 13–​16. vek (Beograd: Istorijski institut, 2008), 51–​58.

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Through an extant charter from 1244 issued to the Bosnian bishopric during the reign of Ban Ninoslav (r. ca. 1232–​1250) it can be confirmed that Bosnia encompassed the lands of Bosna, Donji Kraji, Usora, and Soli (the last two may have had a special or semi-​independent status), as well as the župas of Vrhbosna, Lašva, Lepenica, Prača, Brod, Uskoplje, Mel, Neretva, and Vydogossa Lubinchi (probably today’s Vogošća).19 A decade later, the Hungarians, who controlled the lowland regions south of the Sava River, organized the Banate of Usora and Soli, which was assigned to various members of the Árpád family, sometimes along with the title of ban of Bosnia. Bosnia kept its independence, however, as well as the southern and western borders with Croatia-​Dalmatia.20 In fact, Ban Ninoslav, who clearly maintained economic and cultural contacts with the littoral, was elected to the position of count of Split in 1244. This was not just an honorary office, since the ban appointed his cousin Richard from Calabria as his deputy and sent his own son with horsemen to defend the city against attacks by the citizens of Trogir. King Béla IV found this unacceptable, supported the Tragurians and imposed severe terms on the Spalatians by not permitting them to elect a foreigner to the office of count.21 It is interesting to note that King Béla considered Ninoslav a foreigner and an enemy. Although the Spalatians had to renounce their Bosnian count, that did not put an end to the political relations nor the circulation of people, goods, and ideas between Bosnia and the Hungarian part of the Eastern Adriatic. Supposedly, some dissident religious groups, branded with heresy, sought shelter in the Bosnian state during that period, while people from Bosnia strove to establish a permanent trade corridor which would connect them to the sea.22 The second half of the thirteenth century saw the last decades of the Árpád dynasty, the growing strength among the nobility in the Realm of St. Stephen, including Croatia, and the ultimate struggle for succession to the Hungarian throne. There is no evidence that Bosnia played a role in these tumultuous events, but their aftermath had serious consequences for the banate, which was ruled by Stjepan (Stephen) I at that time.23 19  Tadija Smičiklas et  al., Codex Diplomaticus Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae, 17 vols. (Zagreb: JAZU, 1904–​90), 4:236–​40; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 113–​14.

20  Augustinus Theiner, Vetera Monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illustrantia, 2 vols. (Rome:  Typis Vaticanis, 1859–​60), 1:273, 276, 303; Smičiklas, Codex diplomaticus, 6:22, 34, 38, 41, 53; Imre Szentpétery and Iván Borsa, Az Árpádházi királyok okleveleinek kritikai jegyzéke (Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 1961), Vol.2, no. 2–3: 28, 33, 38, 40–​42, 47–​50, 62, 240–​41. 21  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 4:235–​36; Klaić, Srednjovjekovna Bosna, 132–​39; Thomae archidiaconi spalatensis Historia Salonitanorum atque Spalatinorum pontificum = Archdeacon Thomas of Split History of the Bishops of Salona and Split, ed. Damir Karbić, Mirjana Matijević Sokol, and James Ross Sweeney (Budapest: CEU Press, 2006), 340–​41, 348–​49. 22  Mladen Ančić, “Bosanska banovina i njezino okruženje u prvoj polovici 13. stoljeća,” in Fenomen “krstjani” u srednjovjekovnoj Bosni i Humu. Zbornik radova, ed. Franjo Šanjek (Sarajevo and Zagreb Institut za istoriju and Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2005), 11–​25. 23  Damir Karbić, The Šubići of Bribir. A Case Study of a Croatian Medieval Kindred, unpublished PhD thesis (Budapest: Central European University, 2000), 46–​63.

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10 Neven Isailović

Croatian Rule of Bosnia—​The Dominance of the Šubić Family (1301–​1322) Bosnia entered the late Middle Ages with a brief suspension of its home rule. After the murder of Ladislaus IV in 1290, the Hungarian kingdom was effectively ruled by magnates, each controlling his own region. The Babonić family from Slavonia and the Šubić family of Bribir from Croatia had acquired wealth and status in the decades before the dynastic crisis, including the offices of the bans of Slavonia and Croatia, respectively. They, as well as Dragutin, the former king of Serbia, and certain Hungarian families (Csák, Kőszegi, Ákos, Kán, Borsa, Pok, and Aba), played important roles in the events of the 1290s which ultimately led to the establishment of Angevin rule in the Kingdom of Hungary in 1301 and the coronation of King Charles I Robert.24 The Banate of Bosnia, i.e., its land of Donji Kraji, bordered both the estates of the Babonić family and southern Croatia, which had been almost completely controlled by the Šubić family of Bribir since the 1270s.25 The marital policy of Bosnian Ban Prijezda I included not only the marriage of his eldest son, Stjepan I, to Jelisaveta (Elizabeth), daughter of King Dragutin, but also a union between his daughter (whose name is unknown) and Ladislav (Ladislaus), son of Stjepan III Babonić. In 1287, Prijezda ceded the župa of Zemunik to his son-​in-​law Ladislav, probably as a form of dowry.26 Unlike the Babonić family, who had their rivals in the Kőszegi family, the Šubić family found their rise to be unhindered and unopposed. Their ambitions were not limited to Croatia-​ Dalmatia, which they virtually united by accumulating the positions of royal governors, city counts, and leaders of local nobility. They strove to become regional oligarchs in the western part of the Balkans and rulers of all the Slavic lands east of the Drina River. The population of Croatia shared the same language and had customs similar to both Bosnia and the land of Hum, which was part of Serbia. Pavao (Paul) I, who laid the foundation for the might of the Šubić family of Bribir, thought that these facts would make it easier for him to achieve his goals.27 It is not known if the rulers of Bosnia had particularly close ties with Croatian nobility before the early fourteenth century. A charter from 1299, in which Pavao I of Bribir styled himself lord of Bosnia, was probably misdated, since it seems that his campaign did not 24  Engel, The Realm, 107–​11, 124–​26.

25  Karbić, The Šubići, 46–​63; Damir Karbić, “Šubići Bribirski do gubitka nasljedne banske časti (1322.),” Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za društvene i povijesne znanosti HAZU 22 (2004): 1–​26 at 9–​16; Hrvoje Kekez, “Hinc transit fluvium Vrbaz: Kad i kako je slavonski plemićki rod Babonić došao u posjed Vrbasa?,” Hrvatska Misao 45, no. 4 (2007): 76–​93; Neven Budak, “Paulus de Breberio banus Croatorum dominus et Bosne,” in Portraits of Medieval Eastern Europe, 900–​1400, ed. Donald Ostrowski and Christian Raffensperger (Abingdon: Routledge, 2018), 100–​108. 26  Lajos Thallóczy and Samu Barabás, A Blagay-​Család Oklevéltára (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1897), 53–​54; Neven Isailović, “Povelja bana Prijezde I kojom dodeljuje župu Zemunik svojoj ćerki i zetu, sinu bana Stjepana III Babonića,” Građa o prošlosti Bosne 5 (2012): 9–​25. 27  Stjepan Antoljak, “Ban Pavao Bribirski ‘Croatorum dominus’,” Radovi Instituta JAZU u Zadru 19 (1972): 5–​62; Karbić, The Šubići, 46–​63; Antoljak, “Šubići Bribirski,” 11–​19.

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occur before the arrival of Charles Robert to the Eastern Adriatic in 1300 and his first, preliminary, coronation in 1301.28 The Šubić family was directly involved in Charles’s expedition, helping him disembark in Split and reach Zagreb, and the new king must have given them some tokens of gratitude, perhaps by allowing them to launch their campaigns.29 Sources on Bosnia and the region controlled by King Dragutin (Syrmia, Usora, Soli, and so on) are scarce and it cannot be positively determined if Stjepan I and his father-​in-​law took any action which would have provoked the Šubić family to oppose them. In fact, there might have been a marital alliance linking Pavao I and Dragutin as well, but historians have not yet confirmed this.30 For whatever the reason, the Croatian oligarchs attacked Bosnia in 1301. The land of Donji Kraji was the closest and they overran it first. It seems that the Šubić family came to an agreement with the main local kindred—​the Stjepanić family and their current leader—​Count (knez) Hrvatin. They had kept contacts (which may have involved marital connections) even in the 1290s, and Pavao represented Hrvatin in the Angevin court in South Italy. There are three surviving charters (1301, 1304, and 1305) that were issued to Hrvatin and his sons. It is not entirely clear what made the Šubić family grant them three privileges of similar content, but presumably this implied some change in the position of either the author or addressee of the documents. The result of this set of separate agreements was to exclude Hrvatin and his family from the authority of the Bosnian ban and to attach their lands to the Croatian administration.31 By then, Pavao I himself was already ban of Croatia and his brother Mladin I became ban of Bosnia in 1302 as the family’s representative for the region, supposedly after defeating Ban Stjepan I somewhere near the Drina River. Mladin’s charter for the Spalatian merchants, issued in 1302, does not confirm if his rule over Bosnia was unchallenged at that time.32 Stjepan I’s exact fate is not known, but he may have lived until 1314. The resistance of the local nobility continued against something which was clearly perceived as an occupation, which eventually led to the death of Mladin I, who was “slain by infidel heretics” in 1304.33 That, however, did not bring foreign rule in Bosnia to an end. Pavao I transferred the title of Bosnian ban to his eldest son, Mladin II, and started styling himself dominus totius Bosne (“lord of all Bosnia”). Pavao’s sons, at least according to their titles in the early 1300s, controlled the counties of the 28  Mladen Ančić, Putanja klatna. Ugarsko-​hrvatsko kraljevstvo i Bosna u XIV.  stoljeću (Zadar and Mostar:  Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU and Ziral, 1997), 89–​91; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 113–​14. 29  Karbić, “Šubići Bribirski,” 15–​16. 30  Istorija srpskog naroda, 10 vols., ed. Sima Ćirković et al. (Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga, 1981–​83), 1:441–​44, 449–​52; Karbić, The Šubići, 66–​67. 31  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus 8:3–​4, 80, 96–​97; Karbić, The Šubići, 67–​70; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 41–​43. Cf. Klaić, Srednjovjekovna Bosna, 182–​206. 32  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 8:27–​28. 33  Stipan Zlatović, “Bribirski nekrolog XIV i XV. vieka,” Starine JAZU 21 (1889): 83–​85 at 84; Karbić, The Šubići, 67–​70.

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12 Neven Isailović so-​called Tres campi (Three Fields), Livno, and Cetina, which were in proximity to the banate of Bosnia.34 In fact, the “long hand” of the Šubić family probably did reach the whole of Bosnia, or most of it, since they also invaded the land of Hum, a territory immediately east of the Banate of Croatia, that belonged to the Serbian King Milutin, with some success (ca. 1303–​1306). Pavao’s rule over this land, however, or at least parts of it, ended rather soon since the Serbian Nemanjić family was still interested in actively defending its territories in the west.35 During these tumultuous years, the family of Stjepan I—​his wife Jelisaveta and their three underage sons, including the heir to the Bosnian throne, Stjepan II—​sought refuge in Dubrovnik (Ragusa) and were admitted to the town. According to information recorded in the fifteenth century, this exile was of rather long duration and the Ragusans were quite hospitable to their guests. It was a period of frequent and swift changes of political circumstances. Although the Šubić family was at the height of its power around 1311, with their family network holding almost all the offices in the cities and provincial government, the seeds of their conflicts with the Venetians, Croatian nobility, and royal court were already sown. The death of Pavao I in 1312 left them without a patriarch, which led to the rise of disparate interests within the family.36 Changes occurred in the Nemanjić dynasty, too. The conflict between the brothers, kings Dragutin, and Milutin, was continued by their heirs after their deaths in 1316 and 1321.37 This internal strife enabled the Šubić family to reinvade Hum twice in the 1310s and to take over the administration until 1319, when they were expelled once again.38 This was the time when the domestic ruling family of Bosnia re-​emerged in the sources. Mladin II must have faced problems in Bosnia, where the nobility was not accepting of his rule. Even the Croatian marcher lords39 in Livno and the Stjepanić family showed some signs of discontent. Therefore, he decided to allow Stjepan II, son of Ban Stjepan I, to return to Bosnia. Mladin probably thought this would mitigate his problems in Bosnia and provide him an ally in the fight against Serbia in Hum.40 He may have been correct, since Stjepan II was a grandson of King Dragutin and may have had reason to oppose Milutin’s branch of the Nemanjić family. Mladin II negotiated with the pope in order to arrange a marriage between young Stjepan II and a daughter of Count Meinhard of Ortenburg in 1319. This union may

34  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 8:3–​4, 80, 96–​97. 35  Siniša Mišić, Humska zemlja u srednjem veku (Beograd: Filozofski fakultet, 1996), 54; Mladen Ančić, Na rubu Zapada. Tri stoljeća srednjovjekovne Bosne (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest, 2001), 159; Istorija srpskog naroda, 1:452–​54. 36  Karbić, The Šubići, 74–​76; Engel, The Realm, 128–​31, 135.

37  Istorija srpskog naroda, 1:454–​61, 472–​75; 496–​501; Aleksandar Krstić, “The Rival and the Vassal of Charles Robert of Anjou: King Vladislav II Nemanjić,” Banatica 26, no. 2 (2016): 33–​51. 38  Mišić, Humska zemlja, 54–​55; Karbić, The Šubići, 84–​85; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 92–​99; Ančić, Na rubu Zapada, 159; Istorija srpskog naroda, 1:460, 473–​74. 39  This term denotes noblemen who had possession or held office in the regions along the frontier. 40  Ančić, Putanja klatna, 102–​12.

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never have happened, but it does show that the Šubić family tried to reconcile with the domestic Bosnian dynasty of the Kotromanić family.41 Mladin kept the title of ban of Bosnia until 1322, however, and styled himself Mladinus secundus Croatorum et Bosne banus terreque Hlm dominus generalis.42 Stjepan II’s return to his homeland brought him back into broader politics. Closer connections were forged with the neighbouring nobles attached to the Hungarian Kindom, with whom he shared the language and understanding of regional issues. He must have developed some kind of ties with King Charles, too, at first probably through his enemy-​turned-​benefactor—​Mladin II. From this position he was able to switch sides at the suitable moment and restore his dynasty and home rule in Bosnia. Stjepan did not need to wait too long for the opportunity. It was building throughout the late 1310s and it finally arose in 1322, when the uprising of Dalmatian cities against Mladin II’s rule was reinforced not only by many Croatian and Slavonian nobles, but also by the king, who, in fact, instigated the rebellion and rallied support for it. Stjepan II was amongst those who joined the coalition, as well as some of Mladin’s brothers. The defeat of Mladin II’s army the same year did not destroy the Šubić family, but it did put an end to their absolute dominance and oligarchic position in Croatia.43 It also terminated the foreign rule over Bosnia, although that was not the goal of the Hungarian king. The cunning, mostly realistic, and patient policy of Stjepan II, who remained an Angevin ally for the rest of his life, provided de facto independence to the Banate of Bosnia, which once again became an external, associated, yet prodigal member of the commonwealth of states belonging to the area of the influence of the Kingdom of Hungary, owing it no tribute or adjustment of the internal administrative system. High Aspirations—​The Reign of Stjepan II (1322–​1353)

Within a few years of the downfall of Mladin II Šubić, Stjepan II’s Bosnia was able to regain some of its lost territories and acquire new ones. By 1326, with help from the Ragusans, Bosnia conquered the land of Hum and the Krajina (the territory surrounding the mountain of Biokovo), from the noble Serbian Branivojević family, who had administered this region since the expulsion of the Šubić family. It seems that it was an outright conquest, facilitated by the facts that the Branivojević family members were considered renegades and that Serbia was involved in other more important conflicts at the time. If any pretext was used, it must have been linked to the fact that Stjepan II was acting as one of the heirs of King Dragutin, whose son, Vladislav II, vanishes from the sources in 1325.44 Somewhat earlier, Stjepan assumed control over at least one part of the lands of Usora and Soli that had also belonged to Dragutin. Unlike Hum, which was part of the Serbian state, the Hungarians considered these two lands as their territory, but it seems 41  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 8:508; Ćirković, Istorija, 84–​85. 42  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 8:497. 43  Karbić, “Šubići Bribirski,” 19–​25. 44  Veljan Trpković, “Branivojevići,” Istoriski glasnik 3–4 (1960): 55–​85; Krstić, “The Rival,” 49–​51.

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14 Neven Isailović that no one opposed Stjepan’s annexation, which might have been sanctioned by the royal court.45 In the west, the situation was changing more gradually and it was heavily dependent on the circumstances surrounding the Slavonian and Croatian nobility. After the fall of the Šubić family, the Stjepanić-​Hrvatinić family was caught between the Babonić family and Bosnia, to which they had previously owed allegiance. A conflict within the Babonić family and their loss of the office of ban of Slavonia instigated the Hrvatinić family to “leave the Croatian lord and the Babonić family” and turn to Bosnian Ban Stjepan II.46 Other župas of the land of Donji Kraji, previously detached from Bosnia, followed this example and also turned their back on the Croats. Some of these shifts started as early as 1323 (for instance, in Zemunik, whose knez, Pavle (Paul) Hrvatinić, mentions Stjepan II and not the king of Hungary in his charter), while the others did not occur before 1325. Eventually, one by one, all the branches of the Stjepanići-​Hrvatinići acknowledged Stjepan II as their sovereign.47 The young ruler of Bosnia probably came to some agreement with King Charles I Robert, assuming the role of his trusted vassal, which explains how Stjepan was able to pursue his policy of strengthening his rule and broadening his territory so persistently. His ability to target the king’s enemies, especially among the Croats, at the right moment must have helped his cause. Despite religious differences, the general situation in the taken and retaken lands made it rather easy for the Bosnian ruler to integrate them swiftly and fully into his state. In less than fifteen years after he returned to his homeland, Ban Stjepan II was a political player of regional significance, able to take a proactive stance towards his neighbours.48 Although he entered into several large conflicts with Serbia, not only over the issue of Hum and the Ston peninsula, Stjepan’s ambitions were mainly oriented to the west. For years he meddled in the affairs of the Croatian nobility pursuing his own interests. Unlike his nephew and heir, Tvrtko, in the 1380s, Stjepan II never targeted Slavonia or southern Hungary. The main reason for this was his wish to broaden trade routes to the 45  Ančić, Putanja klatna, 121–​23; Mrgić, Severna Bosna, 63–​72. 46  Ljudevit Thallóczy, “Istraživanja o postranku bosanske banovine sa naročitim obzirom na povelje körmendskog arkiva,” Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja u Bosni i Hercegovini 18 (1906): 401–​44 at 401–​12, 419–​28; Ludwig Thallóczy, Studien zur Geschichte Bosniens und Serbiens im Mittelalter (München:  Duncker & Humblot, 1914), 7–​27, 44–​65; Jelena Mrgić, “Povelja bosanskog bana Stjepana II Kotromanića kojom knezu Vukoslavu Hrvatiniću daje župe Banjicu i Vrbanju,” Građa o prošlosti Bosne 1 (2008): 11–​22. 47  Thallóczy, “Istraživanja,” 419–​28; Thallóczy, Studien, 44–​65; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 112–​15, 118–​20, 123–​26; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 44–​59. Although one of his scribes noted early in Stjepan’s reign (ca. 1329/​30) that the ban ruled a vast state bordered by the Sava, Drina, and Cetina rivers and the Adriatic Sea, he had yet to secure these borders, especially those towards Croatia (see Jelena Mrgić-​Radojčić, “Povelja bana Stjepana II Kotromanića velikom knezu Grguru Stjepaniću,” Stari srpski arhiv 3 (2004): 19–​33 at 21–​22). 48  Ančić, Putanja klatna, 123–​30; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 283–​89; Pavao Anđelić, Srednjovjekovni pečati iz Bosne i Hercegovine (Sarajevo: ANUBIH, 1970), 13–​17.

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Adriatic Sea, leading through Hum on the one hand and Croatia-​Dalmatia on the other, which was a gateway to trade with Adriatic communes and Venice and to opening up landlocked Bosnia. In the following decades the importance of the economy rose with the commencement of mining and the metal trade.49 The ban was careful to make his moves in accordance with the wishes of King Charles. In Croatia, these actions were initiated early. In the divisions among the Croatian nobility following Mladin II’s defeat, Stjepan II sided with Juraj (George) II Šubić, Mladin’s brother, the counts of Krk, and the city of Zadar (Zara) against Count Nelipac, the Mihovilović family of Livno, the Kurjaković family of Krbava, and the cities of Šibenik and Trogir. A year later (1325) he sided with the Angevin royal army against the same circle of nobles supporting Nelipac. Stjepan was able to turn these conflicts to his own advantage, diminishing the power of the Croatian nobility along the border between Croatia-​Dalmatia and Bosnia.50 He also came in closer contact with the Venetians in the Eastern Adriatic, an important political factor in the region.51 In the years to come, probably already by the early 1330s, Stjepan II once again broadened his state by annexing the territories belonging to the Kingdom of Croatia—​namely the lands and župas of Glamoč and Duvno (already tightly linked with Bosnia), while Livno was conquered somewhat later, probably in the conflict with supporters of Count Nelipac and his successors—​the Nelipčić family.52 According to the sources, Glamoč belonged partly to the Stjepanić-​Hrvatinić family.53 In 1337, the pope, who accused the Bosnians of being heretics, called for a crusade against Bosnia by all the Croatian nobles (the Kurjaković, Krčki, Šubić, and Nelipčić families), but King Charles declared this summons invalid and treacherous, protecting his ally and denouncing the rebellious nobles. Ban Stjepan’s ultimate support of the Franciscan missionaries strengthened his position.54 Long-​term conflict with the Croatian nobility was a political, not a personal, issue and Ban Stjepan was not King Charles’s “scourge of the Croats.” The strife intensified contacts and those contacts eventually intensified other kinds of relations. Bosnia started concluding trade treaties with Dalmatian communes and became engaged in marital policy with Croatian magnates.55 In fact, ca. 1337/​38, despite the potential crusade, Ban Stjepan II’s brother Vladislav was married to a daughter of late Juraj II Šubić, who was a 49  Desanka Kovačević, Trgovina u srednjovjekovnoj Bosni (Sarajevo:  Naučno društvo Narodne Republike Bosne i Hercegovine, 1961); Sima Ćirković and Desanka Kovačević-​Kojić and Ruža Ćuk, Staro srpsko rudarstvo (Beograd and Novi Sad: Vukova zadužbina and Prometej, 2002). 50  Ante Birin, Knez Nelipac i hrvatski velikaški rod Nelipčića, unpublished PhD thesis (Zagreb: Filozofski fakultet, 2006), 19–​28; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 132–​34; Karbić, The Šubići, 86–​96. 51  Marko Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija (odnosi u XIV. i XV. st.) (Sarajevo: HKD Napredak, 1996), 17–​28.

52  Tanja Ribar, Zapadne strane u srednjovjekovnoj bosanskoj državi (Beograd: Svet knjige, 2001), 47–​56; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 133–​35; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 114, 123, 281–​82; Karbić, The Šubići, 109–​12. 53  Ančić, Putanja klatna, 134–​36; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 63–​64. 54  Ćirković, Istorija, 110–​11. 55  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 10:494–​95.

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16 Neven Isailović Bosnian ally in 1324. The offspring of this marriage became ban and later King Tvrtko of Bosnia (r. 1353–​1391), who never forgot his Šubić ancestry, especially when he launched his military campaign in Croatia against King Sigismund of Luxemburg (1387).56 The death of Charles I and enthronement of Louis I (r. 1342–​1382) slightly and temporarily changed Ban Stjepan’s perspectives. Although by then he had been granted the offices of count in the southern Hungarian counties of Tolna and Fejér, which put him among the top noble allies of the Angevins, the Bosnian ruler tried to seize the opportunity to extend his power and raise it to another level.57 This episode, which was partly overlooked and partly not taken too seriously by the king, happened in Croatia-​Dalmatia in the mid-​1340s. Many important Dalmatian cities came under Venetian rule in the first quarter of the fourteenth century, which made Venice a key political player. Meddling in the altercations between Croatian nobles and their conflict with the king in Buda, they represented a substantial threat to the stability of the Angevin domain in Croatia-​Dalmatia. Therefore, Louis I wanted to eradicate this threat. Ban Stjepan II was effectively involved in the matter, but he made several unusually independent moves. In 1343 he offered Venice some kind of alliance and the city of St. Mark wanted to make it broader, encompassing Serbia, Bosnia, and the nobles of Sclavonia, meaning the Croats and Dalmatian cities. The same year, they tried to secure Bosnian partnership against Count Nelipac, but this influential nobleman died in 1344 and the Venetians supported his heirs against the Angevin king.58 When the ban of Slavonia, Nicholas Bánffy, was unable to defeat the Nelipčić family, King Louis sent another expedition, led by both Nicholas and Stjepan II. The campaign was successful and both bans issued a charter (1345) in the name of the king to Ivan (John), Nelipac’s son, depriving him of Knin and several other estates and assigning him other possessions.59 The conciliatory posture of the citizens of Zadar towards Louis I provoked their Venetian lords to lay siege to the city in August 1345. Bans Nicholas of Slavonia and Stjepan II of Bosnia led a new expedition but, being outnumbered, they decided to conclude a truce with Venice in November. In July 1346, the royal army suffered another defeat in the field and Ban Stjepan, who never ceased communicating with the Venetians, started making offers which were hostile to King Louis. In September 1346 he proposed an alliance against the Angevin ruler, trying to secure the acquisition of Knin for himself. At that point his state certainly bordered on Knin County in the region of Livno. Stjepan also suggested that Venice should forgive the earlier enmity against the Kurjaković, Ugrinčić, and Nelipčić families, which clearly shows that the ban himself had made peace

56  Marko Perojević, “Ženidba Vladislava Kotromanića s Jelenom Šubićevom. Srodstvo Anžuvinaca, Šubića Bribirskih i Kotromanića,” Jugoslavenski list 19 (1936): 21; Karbić, The Šubići, 111. 57  Pál Engel, “Neki problemi bosansko-​ugarskih odnosa,” Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti HAZU 16 (1998): 57–​72 at 58–​59 (in German: Pál Engel, “Zur Frage der bosnisch-​ungarischen Beziehungen im 14. und 15. Jahrhundert,” Südost Forschungen 56 (1997): 27–​42). 58  Birin, Knez Nelipac, 50–​61.

59  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 11:205–​8, 249–​52; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 139–​46.

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with his former foes, but came into conflict with his in-​laws, the Šubić family, especially Mladin III, the lord of Skradin, Klis, and Omiš.60 This clash was not only the result of Mladin being generally pro-​Venetian and Stjepan pro-​Hungarian prior to 1346, but also of the expansionist policy of Bosnia in the eastern part of the Šubić family’s domain in the lower valley of the Cetina. The citizens of Zadar perceived these actions of the ban as treachery and appealed to the court in Buda, but the charges were dismissed. At virtually the same time, in December 1346, Zadar surrendered to the Venetians and the whole affair was put aside.61 Stjepan II’s conflict with both the Šubić family and Serbia continued, however, and even intensified in the late 1340s. Peace with Serbia could not be concluded because of Hum, which Emperor Dušan demanded and Stjepan denied persistently, even building a fortress—​Novi—​on the Neretva River. In late 1349, local skirmishes turned into open war, with the Bosnians launching a pillaging attack on Serbia. Venetian mediation failed since the ban hoped to receive the help of his suzerain—​King Louis. In September and October 1350, the Serbian army overran Hum, took Novi, and reached the Cetina River, but had to retreat upon hearing about problems on the southernmost border of the greatly enlarged Serbian Empire. Hum, in its entirety, was soon reconquered by the Bosnians.62 According to the charter of Ban Stjepan II to Vuk Vukoslavić of the Hrvatinić family, Vuk was rewarded for his merit in the fighting around Novi and also for defending the ban’s life and his possessions at the Trilj ford, which had been taken by the “king’s infidel.” This note probably does not refer to Nelipac and the conflicts in the 1330s, but to the campaign of 1350 and the successors of Mladin III (d. 1348) who was married to Dušan’s sister.63 If he indeed controlled Trilj, Stjepan II’s dominion encompassed parts of the districts called Radobilja and Posušje, a few miles outside the Croatian town of Omiš, which belonged to the Šubić family. These territories were lost, at the latest, after Stjepan’s death, which was part of his agreement with King Louis I. In the last years of his reign, Ban Stjepan II managed to maintain good relations with the Venetian cities of Dalmatia despite being a vassal of their political opponent—​King Louis—​and despite some robberies committed by the ban’s men in the hinterland.64 Just before he died, Stjepan forged another marital alliance, this time on the highest possible level. His daughter Elizabeth (named after the ban’s mother, Jelisaveta Nemanjić) became queen consort of the Realm of St. Stephen by marrying Louis I  in 1353. This union brought greater prestige to the Bosnian ruling dynasty, but it also entailed some territorial concessions. It is certain that the king was to receive western part of Hum (west of the Neretva River) as dowry, but in practice Bosnia lost all the acquisitions it 60  Ančić, Putanja klatna, 147–​51. 61  Ćirković, Istorija, 116–​17; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 150–​52. 62  Ćirković, Istorija, 120–​21; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 152–​53. 63  Jelena Mrgić-​Radojčić, “Povelja bana Stjepana II Kotromanića knezu Vuku i Pavlu Vukoslaviću,” Stari srpski arhiv 1 (2002):  79–​92; Neven Isailović, “Između otpora i lojalnosti  –​ niže plemstvo na područjima pod vlašću i utjecajem Nelipčića nakon 1345. godine,” Povijesni prilozi 50 (2016): 263–​95 at 269; Thallóczy, Studien, 16–​19. Cf. Ančić, Putanja klatna, 132. 64  Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 28–​52.

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18 Neven Isailović had gained at the expense of Croatia since the 1320s.65 Having no surviving sons, when Ban Stjepan II died in the second half of 1353 he was succeeded, probably by the decision of Bosnian assembly of nobles, by his nephew Tvrtko—​a minor—​under the regency of his father, knez Vladislav, and his mother, Jelena (Helen) Šubić, and with his brother Vuk as co-​ruler in this familial collective ruling body.66

Temporary Setback in the West—​The Time of Ban Tvrtko (1353–​1377)

From the beginning of his reign Tvrtko faced numerous difficulties. He was no more than fifteen years old and, according to Bosnian custom, he had to confirm the bonds of allegiance with his nobility by giving his “lord’s faith” for receiving “faithful service” in return.67 Tvrtko’s father, Vladislav, died in 1354, and his mother went to Hungary to seek confirmation of her two sons’ rule. In 1355, the war between Louis I and Venice reached a critical stage. A branch of the Šubić family, represented by Mladin III’s widow Jelena Nemanjić, was under attack for being openly pro-​Venetian. In May 1355, Ban Tvrtko and his mother went to Duvno to conduct negotiations with the Viceban of Croatia-​Dalmatia, stationed in Knin. The viceban wanted to secure Bosnian participation in an attack planned for Zadar and to make peace between the ban of Bosnia and Count Ivan Nelipčić of Cetina, whose possessions bordered each other, and, finally, to include Tvrtko in a preliminary partition of the estates of the Šubić family. This partition could not have come into effect at that time, but according to it Tvrtko was to acquire the estates and castles of Grgur (Gregory) Šubić, as well as a castle of his maternal aunt, Katarina (Catherine). Due to a lack of sources, it is not known if anything from this agreement was ever realized.68 It is certain, however, that the attack on Zadar never took place, that Serbian garrisons took over Skradin and Klis, and, finally, that there is no mention of the Bosnians participating in the war for Dalmatia which lasted until the Venetian defeat and the Peace of Zadar in 1358.69 By 1357, King Louis had effectively undone his father-​in-​law’s conquests in the west, returning these territories to the full jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Croatia. Livno was divided between local Croatian nobility and the king’s domain. The same fate probably befell Glamoč and Duvno. Hum, west of the Neretva, along with the important market town of Drijeva, was given to the king as dowry, and transferred to the authority of the Croatian-​Dalmatian ban and knez (count) appointed by the crown. After these territorial concessions, Louis I acknowledged Tvrtko and his brother Vuk as holders of the Banate 65  Petar Rokai, “Bibliografsko-​genealoška beleška o ugarskoj kraljici Jelisaveti Kotromanić,” Zbornik Matice srpske za istoriju 28 (1983): 129–​33. 66  Ćirković, Istorija, 121–​25. 67  Thallóczy, Studien, 19–​24; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 59–​63. Also see Sima Ćirković, “ ‘Verna služba’ i ‘Vjera gospodska’,” Zbornik radova Filozofskog fakulteta u Beogradu 6, no. 2 (1962): 95–​112. 68  Ćirković, Istorija, 121–​25; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 153–​68. 69  Ćirković, Istorija, 123.

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of Bosnia and Usora (1357).70 The king also influenced the Hrvatinić family in Donji Kraji to change their allegiance. Most of its members came to terms with the king and surrendered the fortresses under their command and their patrimonial possessions (such as Greben and Glamoč) to the Hungarians in exchange for estates in Križevci County in Slavonia.71 For years Tvrtko had to refrain from any actions in Croatia-​Dalmatia and after the Venetian defeat the only potent player in the region was his suzerain, King Louis. In 1362, a conflict arose in Hum between Ban Tvrtko’s distinguished nobleman Sanko Miltenović and Ban Nicholas Szécsi of Croatia-​Dalmatia. Tvrtko may have had no part in this matter, but the situation worsened when Nicholas captured Sanko’s brother and Sanko imprisoned one of the ban’s officials. This problem was resolved through mediation.72 Just one year later, for unknown reasons, under the pretext of fighting against heretics, King Louis launched two attacks on Bosnia—​one directed at Donji Kraji and the other at Usora. Without sustaining heavy loses, the Hungarians could not make significant gains and take over the fortresses of Sokol (in Pliva župa in Donji Kraji) and Srebrenik (in Usora). One of the last members of the Hrvatinić family, Vukac, who had stayed loyal to Ban Tvrtko, was rewarded with Pliva župa, for his services in defending its fortress of Sokol (1366).73 Although Bosnia successfully defended itself in 1363, the growing discontent of several mighty nobles led to the deposition of Ban Tvrtko in February 1366. His opponents proclaimed his brother, Vuk, the “young ban,” as their lord and Tvrtko fled the country with his mother, seeking help from the king of Hungary. Within a month, he returned to Bosnia and managed to capture part of his dominion, while the rebels still held their positions in eastern Bosnia, probably in the core of the original Bosnian state. In time, he was able to regain most of his lands, but faced problems when his brother escaped to Dubrovnik and Sanko Miltenović rebelled twice in three years. By the early 1370s, however, these conflicts had been resolved under less-​than-​clear circumstances.74 The rise of Župan Nikola (Nicholas) Altomanović, a Serbian regional lord whose lordship stretched from Rudnik to the Adriatic Sea, became a new threat on the eastern borders of Tvrtko’s land. Tvrtko concluded peace with him in 1370, but since the problems continued, he made an alliance with Prince Lazar, the mightiest Serbian magnate of that time, and the two of them launched a war against Altomanović with the open support of King Louis I. Their victorious campaign (1373) ended with partition of Nikola’s lands. After many years of territorial losses, Tvrtko annexed upper Podrinje (the upper valley of the Drina 70  Ančić, Putanja klatna, 153–​68; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 83, 114, 124; Ribar, Zapadne strane, 57–​60. 71  Thallóczy, Studien, 24–​25, 332–​33, 337–​47; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 155–​58, 170–​71; Engel, “Neki problemi,” 61–​65. 72  Ćirković, Istorija, 127–​28. 73  Jelena Mrgić-​Radojčić, “Povelja bana Tvrtka knezu Vukcu Hrvatiniću,” Stari srpski arhiv 2 (2003): 167–​84; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 170–​72. 74  Ćirković, Istorija, 129–​32; Engel, “Neki problemi,” 65–​67.

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20 Neven Isailović River), part of Polimlje (the valley of the Lim River), and the area around Gacko, while the Balšići, lords of Zeta, captured other territories.75 Broadening the borders in the east was the “dawn of a new spring” for Ban Tvrtko and Bosnia. At the same time, at least from 1365 to 1372, western Hum, along with the fortresses of Novi and Imotski, was administered by Count Ivan Nelipčić, son of Count Nelipac, who earned King Louis’s trust.76 Ivan was succeeded by counts Peter and Emeric. From the preserved records it can be seen that local nobles became accustomed to Angevin rule and the newly introduced institutions did not disrupt the functioning of the region. Queen Elizabeth, ban of Croatia-​Dalmatia, and the counts (knezes) issued charters, delivered verdicts, and organized assemblies of the land of Hum. The queen continued rewarding nobles who were loyal to her father, which echoed the earlier Bosnian rule over Hum. Licences for trade were issued for Bosnian merchants in the Banate of Croatia-​Dalmatia.77 In this period, some nobles asked for permission to “import” Vlachs to their estates from Bosnia and Serbia. Probably at the same time, the number of Vlachs started to increase in Croatia proper.78 Most local nobles also easily accustomed themselves to the new change of power in the 1380s, since their connections with the Bosnian state were never broken, but only suspended in an administrative sense. Except for a brief episode after the death of Bosnian Grand Voivode Sandalj Hranić in the mid-​1430s, temporary rule over western Hum (1357–​1382) was the last time in the Middle Ages when any part of Bosnia was subjected to the administration in Croatia-​Dalmatia.

Seizing the Moment—​The Western Policy of Kings Tvrtko I and Dabiša (1377–​1395)

The expansion of Bosnia to the western parts of Nikola Altomanović’s lordship was not completed until 1377, when the Balšić family of Zeta were expelled from the regions of Trebinje, Konavle, and Dračevica. After this campaign was successfully finished, Ban Tvrtko acquired a significant portion of the lands that had previously belonged to Serbia along the Drina, Lim, Tara, and Piva rivers and decided to take a further step in his state-​ building project.79 Although he must have made inquiries with King Louis I and received his consent, Tvrtko’s coronation as king of the Serbs and Bosnia (1377) was a political 75  Ćirković, Istorija, 133–​35. On Nicholas Altomanović see Mihailo J. Dinić, O Nikoli Altomanoviću (Beograd: SKA, 1932), passim. 76  Smičiklas et  al., Codex Diplomaticus, 14:440–​42; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 97–​98; Birin, Knez Nelipac, 86–​87, 162, 169–​70, 184. 77  Vladimir Rismondo, “Trogirsko i splitsko zaleđe u nekim dokumentima iz druge polovine XIV. i početka XV. stoljeća,” Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru, 14–​15 (1975–​1976), 487–​96 at 493–​94; Mladen Ančić, “Registar Splitskoga kaptola,” Fontes: Izvori za hrvatsku povijest 20 (2014): 27–​230 at 34–​35, 37–​41, 45–​48, 82–​84; Ančić, Na rubu Zapada, 159–​60. 78  Ančić, “Registar Splitskoga kaptola,” 35–​41, 89–​91, 120–​21. 79  Ćirković, Istorija, 135–​40.

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move devised internally.80 Local nobility of the newly conquered territories, as with Hum, swiftly changed their allegiance. Until the death of Louis I, this was the final territorial change made by Tvrtko and it was not at the expense of the Realm of St. Stephen. When the mighty Angevin king died in 1382, leaving only underage female heirs, opportunities arose for Tvrtko to turn the tide completely to his advantage.81 The fact that Elizabeth, the queen mother, was his first cousin did not play a key role in the Bosnian king’s deliberations. His expansionist policy targeted first the city of Kotor and then Croatia-​ Dalmatia. The essential motive for taking this direction was economic, but the king also knew that the southern areas of the Angevin state, especially the hinterland, would be easier for him to conquer, defend, and, in due time, assimilate. At first, Tvrtko made his moves within the legal framework and suzerainty of Hungary and its new queen, ​Mary (r. 1382–​1395). The Hungarians were unable to access Kotor, so Queen Mary and her palatine’s acknowledgment of Tvrtko’s rule over the city in 1385 did not come as a surprise.82 The western areas of Hum seem to have been peacefully reintegrated into Bosnia soon after Louis I’s death, probably since the dowry issue became obsolete. At some point between 1382 and 1385, Tvrtko also re-​conquered the territory of Croatia previously annexed by his uncle and lost in the mid-​1350s (the lands of Glamoč, Livno, and Duvno), as well as some župas in the land of Donji Kraji and the surrounding Slavonian counties of Vrbas and Sana.83 On the eve of open dynastic war in Hungary, the Bosnian western borders were equal with those established by Stjepan II, if not wider, and they reached regions in the vicinity of the Sana, Pliva and Cetina rivers.84 Though a probable forgery, a charter supposedly issued by Tvrtko in 1382 to the Croatian noble Nenadić family of Radobilja may have reflected real events. That would mean that Bosnian dominion expanded to the Cetina River immediately after the death of King Louis, seemingly with no hindrance.85 The impetus for Tvrtko’s further advance came from outside Bosnia. Louis the Great’s death and the underage queen on the throne brought a variety of problems in Hungary to the surface—​ever-​growing particular interests of the nobles, dynastic strife among the Angevins, warring factions at the court, and so on.86 By the time these frictions turned 80  Mihailo Dinić, “O krunisanju Tvrtka I za kralja,” Glas SKA 147 (1932): 135–​45; Sima Ćirković, “The Double Wreath. A Contribution to the History of Kingship in Bosnia,” Balcanica 45 (2014): 107–​43; Dubravko Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti (sveta kruna ugarska i sveta kruna bosanska) 1387–​1463 (Zagreb: Synopsis, 2006), 614–​723. 81  It is interesting to note that Louis I and his Bosnian spouse, Elizabeth, lived in a childless marriage for more than a decade but did not divorce. The first child who eventually survived Louis was Queen Mary, born in 1371. 82  Ćirković, Istorija, 144–​53. 83  Thallóczy, Studien, 348; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 207–​16, 265; Engel, “Neki problemi,” 67; Ančić, The Realm, 197; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 72–​74; Ribar, Zapadne strane, 61–​67. 84  Ćirković, Istorija, 88, 153–​5; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 85–​86, 114, 125. 85  Lovre Katić, “Dvije poljičke isprave iz XV. stoljeća,” Starohrvatska prosvjeta 8–9 (1963): 233–​44 at 236–​39. 86  Engel, The Realm, 169–​70, 195–​97.

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22 Neven Isailović into open crisis in 1385, the king of Bosnia’s relations with Queen Mary and her main supporters—​the Garai family, led by long-​term Palatine Nicholas I—​were good.87 It is not known exactly when Tvrtko sided with the rebels who supported the candidacy of Charles of Durazzo, member of the Neapolitan branch of the Angevins, for the kingship of Hungary. In late 1385, Charles managed to depose Queen Mary, recently married to Sigismund of Luxemburg, only to be murdered by an agent of Queen Elizabeth and Nicholas Garai in February 1386. The ensuing restoration of Queen Mary’s rule was the alarm for civil war. The Neapolitan party was led by southern Hungarian, Slavonian, and Croatian nobles—​the Horváti brothers (John, former ban of Mačva, and Paul, bishop of Zagreb), the Korpádi brothers (John and Ladislaus), and Ivan of Paližna, ban of Croatia-​ Dalmatia and Hospitaller prior of Vrana. John Horváti captured Queen Mary and her mother and killed Nicholas I Garai near Đakovo in July 1386.88 After that, both Prince Lazar’s Serbia and King Tvrtko’s Bosnia supported the front against the queens and Mary’s husband, Sigismund.89 Her family ties with Tvrtko did not help Queen Elizabeth, who was murdered in prison in Novigrad in early 1387.90 There is, however, no data which would implicate Tvrtko in the planning or sanctioning of this crime. Soon after that, the rebels, with Bosnian help, raided Slavonia and captured Zagreb, holding it for some time.91 Luck started to turn against the Neapolitan party, however. Sigismund of Luxemburg came to Hungary and, alongside the nobles loyal to Mary, including those from Croatia (the Krčki and Kurjaković families), freed the queen and seized power in most of the realm, becoming king consort. The Horváti and Paližna suffered several defeats in Slavonia and northern Croatia by October 1387 and had to seek shelter with King Tvrtko.92 Their bad fortune turned out to be good luck for the Bosnian ruler, who became the de facto leader of the coalition. In March of 1387 he was drafting an alliance treaty with Dubrovnik, which included a provision that no harm would be done to Queen Mary of Hungary.93 But by the end of that year, he openly suggested that his goal was to acquire Croatia-​Dalmatia and he was supported by the Neapolitan faction, whose candidate for king of Hungary was Charles of Durazzo’s ten-​year old son—​Ladislaus of Naples. Although the actions of 87  Ivan Kukuljević Sakcinski, “Spomenici bosanski i crnogorski,” Arkiv za povjestnicu jugoslavensku 2 (1852): 35–​48 at 36. 88  Hrvoje Gračanin, “Ivan Paližna u povijesnim izvorima i historiografiji,” Radovi Zavoda za znanstvenoistraživački i umjetnički rad u Bjelovaru 4 (2011): 237–​67; Engel, The Realm, 197–​201. 89  Sima Ćirković, “Kosovska bitka u međunarodnom kontekstu,” Glas SANU 378 (1996): 49–​69 at 53–​54, 60–​65; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 215–​33. 90  Engel, The Realm, 198–​99.

91  Smičiklas et  al., Codex Diplomaticus, 18:273–​75; Mladen Ančić, Bosanska vlast u Hrvatskoj i Dalmaciji 1387–​1394, unpublished MA thesis (Beograd: Filozofski fakultet, 1985), 26; Damir Karbić and Suzana Miljan, “Političko djelovanje kneza Pavla I.  Zrinskog (1362.–​1414.),” Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti HAZU 30 (2012): 87–​107 at 91–​93. 92  Engel, The Realm, 199–​201.

93  Ljubomir Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje i pisma, 2 vols. (Sremski Karlovci: Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1929–​34), 1:86–​88.

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the Bosnian and anti-​Sigismund factions seemed to have had somewhat disparate aims, that did not hinder their advancement. By July 1387, the Bosnian army had invaded Croatia-​Dalmatia, approached the town of Omiš, and captured the important fortess of Klis.94 Tvrtko’s army captured Omiš and Ostrovica, then drove away Sigismund’s prior of Vrana by October and November of the same year. The town of Knin, whose importance equaled that of Klis, was taken by the Bosnians by November 1388.95 Sigismund’s newly appointed governor of Croatia-​Dalmatia, Ladislaus of Lučenec, was not able to organize counterattacks and was confined to the area around Zadar while Tvrtko’s army raided the districts of Dalmatian cities, which did not surrender even though many of them were riven by internal strife while the enemy was at their gates.96 The reaction of the nobility of southern Croatia is less known compared to that of the communes of the Eastern Adriatic. The Nelipčić family, the only surviving magnate family in the area under Bosnian attack, was also faced with the issue of its main male representative being a minor. At first, they neither accepted foreign rule nor opposed it militarily. Later, when it was clear that the Bosnians meant to stay in Croatia, they established a marital alliance when Jelena, sister of Count Ivaniš Nelipčić of Cetina, married the principal leader of the Bosnians in the region—​Grand Voivode Hrvoje Vukčić, stemming from the Hrvatinić kindred of Donji Kraji (probably in the early 1390s).97 In contrast, in 1388 a league was formed against the Bosnians that included the cities of Šibenik and Split and nobles from the area around the middle and lower valleys of the Krka River—​Nelipac of Nečven, castellan of Skradin (son of Constantine, a cousin of Ivaniš Nelipčić) and the Ugrinić family of Rog. This alliance, however, failed to achieve any of its goals.98 The Turkish threat in 1388 and 1389 paused the advancement of the Bosnian army and due to a Ladislaus of Lučenec defeating Ivan of Paližna, Klis was temporarily lost in July 1389, only to be reconquered in December.99 The following spring, all the communes of Central Dalmatia (Trogir, Split, Šibenik), including the islands, decided to submit to the rule of King Tvrtko. Zadar, further north, stayed loyal to the government in Buda.100 Another expedition of Sigismund’s army in September 1390, led by Detre Bebek, failed to reverse the course of the war—​the Bosnian king was now the de facto ruler of vast territories of Croatia and Dalmatia. His western borders reached at least the Zrmanja River and the valleys (poljes) of Grahovo and Glamoč.101 94  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 17:73–​74. 95  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 26–​28; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 39–​47. 96  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 28; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 46–​47. 97  Mladen Ančić, “Prosopografske crtice o Hrvatinićima i Kosačama,” Istorijski časopis 33 (1986): 37–​56 at 53; Dubravko Lovrenović, “Jelena Nelipčić, splitska vojvotkinja i bosanska kraljica,” Radovi Zavoda za hrvatsku povijest 20 (1987): 183–​93; Birin, Knez Nelipac, 92–​102. 98  Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 17:163–​64. 99  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 28–​29; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 47–​50. 100  Šime Ljubić, Listine o odnošajih izmedju južnoga Slavenstva i Mletačke republike, 10 vols. (Zagreb: JAZU, 1868–​91), 4:280–​84; Smičiklas et al., Codex Diplomaticus, 17:297–​99, 306–​9; Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 29, 36–​38, 134–​37; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 51–​52. 101  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 29; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 66.

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24 Neven Isailović Who led the Bosnian army that achieved such glorious accomplishments? It seems that it was gathered from all the regions of Bosnia. Ivan of Paližna was acknowledged as the ban of Croatia-​Dalmatia, while John Horváti was made “governor” in 1390 and rewarded with the Central Dalmatian islands and the town of Omiš after he lost all of his possessions in southern Hungary.102 All the other principal leaders were Bosnians—​until 1389, Vlatko Vuković, from upper Podrinje, was the appointed voivode for the Kingdoms of Croatia and Dalmatia and later the same office might have been held by Voivode Pavle Klešić, who controlled Glamoč and Duvno.103 The second figure in the chain of command, soon to become the most powerful magnate of the Kingdom of Bosnia, was Hrvoje Vukčić, son of Vukac Hrvatinić, Tvrtko’s loyal defender of the fortress of Sokol in 1366. Hrvoje acted together with his brothers—​Vuk, Vojslav, and Dragiša—​remaining the head of the family and its main strategist. As a young man he was probably sent to Louis I’s court since he is first mentioned with the title of king’s fidelis miles, i.e., loyal knight (1376). After his father’s death he succeeded to the grand voivodeship and distinguished himself in the wars in Croatia-​Dalmatia.104 When it comes to domestic political factors, Tvrtko’s policy in Croatia-​Dalmatia was focused on the maritime communes and the towns as well as the magnates and the Catholic Church. The cities on the coast were economically the most important since the king expected to collect royal taxes—​primarily those which went into the “Salt Chamber” and “Chamber of the Thirtieth.” Therefore, he tried to honor and confirm all their previously vested rights. Yet, the attitude of the cities commonly wavered—​whenever Bosnian rule was endangered they started to issue their documents mentioning King Sigismund and Queen Mary, and vice versa.105 In Klis, Tvrtko tried to act as the heir and successor of the Šubić family, who controlled the town and fortress until the mid-​1350s, but this is the sole example of such a claim.106 As mentioned above, most of the Croatian magnates, excluding the Nelipčić family remained outside Tvrtko’s territorial acquisitions and were hostile to the Bosnians and loyal to King Sigismund. Some of them, however, such as the Zrinski family, were afraid they might be coerced into cooperation with Bosnia.107 The Catholic Church in the conquered area came to terms with the new rulers in 1390—​a special warranty charter was issued to the archbishop of Split, Andrew of Gualdo, while the bishop-​elect of Knin temporarily served as Tvrtko’s chancellor.108 Bosnian rule was most traumatic for the lesser nobility. Its position had improved substantially during the 102  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 38–​39. 103  Neven Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara prema Dalmaciji (1391–​1409), unpublished MA thesis (Beograd: Filozofski fakultet, 2008), 24, 33.

104  Ferdo Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić i njegovo doba (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1902), 20; Rade Mihaljčić, “Povelјa kralјa Stefana Tvrtka I  Kotromanića knezu i vojvodi Hrvoju Vukčiću Hrvatiniću,” Stari srpski arhiv 1 (2002): 117–​29; Ančić, Putanja klatna, 263. 105  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 39–​46, 49, 61–​62; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 28, 35. 106  Smičiklas et al., Codex diplomaticus, 17:73–​74. 107  Smičiklas et al., Codex diplomaticus, 17:305–​6; Karbić and Miljan, “Političko djelovanje,” 95. 108  Ljubić, Listine, 4:283–​84; Smičiklas et al., Codex diplomaticus, 17:312–​13.

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reign of Louis I and they were dissatisfied when their rights were violated for the sake of larger political players. Some of them eventually did support the Bosnians, but some did not. Many of them were particularly offended by the tax introduced by the “Bosnian tyrants”—​a ducat per house which everyone, including petty nobility, was obliged to pay.109 Although his rule was an undeniable matter of fact, Tvrtko never styled himself, nor was crowned, king of Croatia and Dalmatia. His subjects, such as the cities and officials, did style him so in 1390, but none of the charters he issued himself contain that title. It is quite possible that he would have assumed the title had he lived long enough.110 In January 1391, negotiations with Sigismund were to start and in view of the situation on the ground some concessions from the Hungarian side could have been expected. All these issues were put aside, however, when King Tvrtko died in early March. His death coincided with the death of Ivan of Paližna and thus the Bosnian faction in Croatia-​ Dalmatia lost both its king and its ban.111 The death of the first king of Bosnia brought about groundbreaking changes. According to the rules of the country, and bearing in mind that Tvrtko’s legitimate son and heir was just a child, the assembly elected a new king. The choice fell on Dabiša, a member of the Kotromanić dynasty, probably of Tvrtko’s generation. From the beginning of his reign, however, magnates from all across the kingdom started to act on their own behalf, some of them usurping royal authority.112 In Croatia, the only important political players with vested interests were the Vukčić brothers (above all, Hrvoje and Vuk) and John Horváti; two nephews of Ivan of Paližna controlled only a few estates around Vrana and Ostrovica. The clear decentralization under Dabiša revived Neapolitan claims which had been effectively laid to rest in 1387. Both Horváti and the Vukčić family tried to use them to their advantage. Vuk Vukčić was appointed to the office of ban of Croatia and Dalmatia, by either King Tvrtko or King Dabiša, as soon as Ivan of Paližna died.113 In July 1391, however, Ladislaus of Naples, who had already issued several donations (real and fictive) to his supporters, bestowed the Banate of Croatia-​Dalmatia upon Hrvoje and Vuk Vukčić, also making them his representatives. John Horváti became Ladislaus’s general governor for the whole Hungarian kingdom and thus his main agent on the eastern side of the Adriatic Sea.114 109  Smičiklas et al., Codex diplomaticus, 18:139–​40. 110  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 47–​53; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 54–​65. 111  Ferdo Šišić, “Memoriale Pauli de Paulo, patritii Jadrensis (Ljetopis Pavla Pavlovića, patricija zadarskoga),” Vjesnik Kraljevskog hrvatsko-​slavonsko-​dalmatinskoga zemaljskoga arkiva 6 (1904): 1–​59 at 15–​16; Odluke dubrovačkih vijeća 1390–​1392, ed. Nella Lonza and Zdravko Šundrica (Zagreb –​Dubrovnik: Zavod za povijesne znanosti HAZU, 2005), 262–​63; Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 55; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 66–​67. 112  Ćirković, Istorija, 169–​72. 113  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 30–​33. 114  Franjo Rački, “Izvadci iz Kralj. osrednjeg arkiva u Napulju za jugoslovjensku poviest,” Arkiv za povjestnicu jugoslavensku 7 (1863): 5–​71 at 32–​36; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 32–​33.

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26 Neven Isailović The lack of one single authority was felt in the Dalmatian communes and they, once again, had difficulties in dating their official documents. For instance, Trogir sometimes acknowledged the reign of King Sigismund, sometimes that of King Dabiša, and sometimes of no one.115 No city ever recognized Ladislaus of Naples’s claims in this period. The effective rule over Croatia-​Dalmatia was, in fact, in the hands of Ban Vuk Vukčić. He appointed the main officers, mostly his familiares and followers from Bosnia (Ivan Mišljenović was viceban, Vojko Latičić from Donji Kraji was the castellan of Klis, and so on), but also some local nobles (for instance, Stjepan Dubravčić was gubernator of Cetina). Vuk also judged in cases of conflict, besieged Klis during an upheaval in 1391, and sorted out his relations with the archbishop of Split and the city of Šibenik, which recognized his authority in the second half of 1391.116 He and his brother Hrvoje, who was mostly engaged in Bosnia proper at the time, developed contacts with many local political players which became the basis for Hrvoje’s actions in later years. Vuk was even made citizen of Zadar (the city which supported Sigismund but was in conflict with his ban, Ivan Krčki) in the presence of two formally pro-​Luxemburgian nobles of the Nelipčić family (1392).117 John Horváti controlled his administrative sub-​unit—​Omiš with the islands—​but his influence was much less on the ground. His position was based on the fact that he was Ladislaus’s highest dignitary. He and the Vukčić family coexisted in peace, using the Neapolitan connection for their own purposes, and in the 1390s they acted as intermediaries between the Turks and Naples.118 In contrast, King Dabiša was the one who suffered pressure from Hungary, caused by affairs in which he had little interest, since we do not know if he was able to fully collect his regal revenues from Tvrtko’s territorial acquisitions. He sought to stabilize his reign in Bosnia more than to invest in Croatia-​Dalmatia, where others had already established their influence and power. He was not ready to give up his predecessor’s gains but was willing to negotiate; some kind of truce was arranged in the autumn of 1392, when Sigismund’s envoy visited Bosnia.119 In June 1393, a meeting of the two kings was planned in Đakovo, but it did not materialize. Negotiations did take place on some level, however, perhaps between the barons of the two realms. In a charter issued in August 1393, Hrvoje Vukčić expresses his loyalty to King Dabiša, King Sigismund, and Queen Mary, which suggests that the meeting resulted in an agreement although the details are not known. At that point Bosnia did not lose any of its acquisitions in the 115  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 28, 35. 116  Neven Isailović, “Fragmenti o familijarima Hrvatinića u Dalmaciji i Hrvatskoj krajem XIV i početkom XV veka,” in Spomenica akademika Marka Šunjića, ed. Dubravko Lovrenović (Sarajevo:  Filozofski fakultet, 2010), 307–​26 at 312–​14; Smičiklas et  al., Codex diplomaticus, 17:397–​98, 458–​60; Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 137–​39. 117  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 55–​67; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 39–​40. 118  Emir O. Filipović, “Bosna i Turci za vrijeme kralja Stjepana Dabiše –​ neke nove spoznaje,” in Spomenica dr Tibora Živkovića, ed. Irena Cvijanović (Beograd: Istorijski institut, 2016), 273–​301 at 280–​91; Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 38–​39, 68–​72; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 37–​38, 41, 46–​47. 119  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 58–​60.

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west—​in fact, it seems that Hrvoje’s dominion temporarily reached the Una River.120 John Horváti, the only person unable to expect Sigismund’s mercy, could not have been satisfied by this sequence of events, but his position in Bosnia still seems to have been secure in September 1393.121 The next year brought the resolution of this intricate situation, when, in the spring, King Dabiša and many of his nobles seem to have decided to further their arrangements with Sigismund. That prompted John Horváti to try to disrupt these plans, probably with the help of Turks with whom he came in contact through the Neapolitans. The stance of the Vukčić family towards this matter remains vague, but Dabiša launched an attack on Horváti in Omiš in June 1394 whilst the islanders also turned against their governor. It is not known if Horváti was in Omiš during this campaign, but the next month he was in his stronghold of Dobor in Usora, where he was defeated by King Sigismund’s army (originally sent to Dalmatia), and executed some time later. By that time, King Dabiša had already reached an agreement with his Hungarian counterpart.122 The terms were satisfying for Dabiša, but not for the whole of Bosnia. Sigismund demanded that the border revert to that of 1385 and that he receive the Bosnian crown after Dabiša’s death. In return, he granted the king of Bosnia the title of count of Somogy in southern Hungary.123 It is not known if Hrvoje and Vuk Vukčić complained about this solution nor if there was actually a conflict near Knin between Ban Vuk and Sigismund’s arriving ban, Nicholas II Garai, as suggested in some charters. It is certain, however, that in the late spring of 1394 Vuk agreed to hand over power to his pro-​Luxemburgian counterpart, for which he and his castellans received estates near the Una River (Ostrožac, Krupa) and Kalnik in Slavonia.124 Vuk died before 1399, possibly in the battle of Nicopolis, as a supporter of Sigismund.125 The first Bosnian rule over the largest part of Croatia-​Dalmatia was finished. Glamoč, Livno, and Duvno, however, remained in Bosnia permanently and were thereafter considered parts of Bosnia proper.126 The assessment of this period is not easy. Most of the contemporary sources suggest that daily life in Croatia-​Dalmatia functioned well in the period between 1387 and 1394, 120  Sima Ćirković, “O ‘Đakovačkom ugovoru’,” Istorijski glasnik 1–4 (1962): 3–​10; Mladen Ančić, “Bihaćki kraj od 1262. do početka XV stoljeća,” Glasnik arhiva i Društva arhivskih radnika BiH 25 (1985):  193–​230 at 200–​204, 213–​17, 228; Neven Isailović, “Povelja vojvode Hrvoja Vukčića Hrvatinića ugarskom kralju Žigmundu i kraljici Mariji,” Građa o prošlosti Bosne 1 (2008): 87–​97; Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 68–​72. 121  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 1:177–​78; Filipović, “Bosna i Turci,” 283. 122  Pavo Živković, “Sigismundova odmazda prema Horvatima i pokušaj pokoravanja bosanskog kraljevstva,” Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru 28, no. 15 (1988–​1989): 103–​34; Filipović, “Bosna i Turci,” 283–​91. 123  Ćirković, Istorija, 174; Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 70–​73; Engel, “Neki problemi,” 59.

124  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 72; Engel, “Neki problemi,” 59–​60; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 81. 125  Ančić, “Prosopografske crtice,” 41; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 49–​50. 126  In a charter of King Sigismund Livno is mentioned as part of Bosnia (in districtu Hlywno in partibus Bosne). Srđan Rudić, “Nekoliko novih podataka o Restoju Milohni,” Istorijski časopis 58 (2009): 173–​80 at 174.

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28 Neven Isailović that the Bosnian kings and administrators did not fully disrupt the system which they took over and that they mostly tried to rule by the laws and customs of the lands they conquered. During these years, they established some long-​lasting relationships with local people—​some hostile and some friendly. The alliance between Hrvoje Vukčić and Ivaniš Nelipčić marked the second phase of the warfare in Croatia-​Dalmatia.127 There is an adverse side of the story, however. The volatile situation on the ground raised an atmosphere of insecurity among the Dalmatian cities and Croatian nobility. Bosnian armies seemed to have pillaged the region during the conquest, especially between 1387 and 1389, which resulted in hunger, difficulties in trade, violence, and factional feuds in the communes and their districts. These facts could explain the clear reluctance of many Croatian and Dalmatian political actors to accept Bosnian rule, which was, despite the similarities of the populations, at least in the hinterland, a foreign rule which left a sour taste, especially in the view of the fact that Bosnian trade and wealth suffered no impediment, but improved substantially.128 In the following years Bosnia made no moves towards Croatia and Dalmatia. King Dabiša died in September 1395 and Sigismund of Luxemburg was ready to start a campaign in order to obtain the promised crown of Bosnia. However, the campaign never happened and Dabiša’s reign was provisionally continued by his wife, Queen Jelena Gruba.129 After the disastrous defeat by the Turks at Nicopolis (1396), the Hungarian ruler started his long journey home via Croatia-​ Dalmatia, dispensing justice and donations. Some of his measures, however, both local (e.g., superfluous grants to the Garai and the so-​called Bloody Assembly at Križevci) and global (such as the Diet of Timişoara), left many persons and factions dissatisfied.130 That fact, along with other political disturbances in the region, led to a new Bosnian “thrust toward the West” in 1398, led by Grand Voivode Hrvoje.

“The World Did Not Spin and Turn This Much Since the Great Flood”—​The Age of Hrvoje Vukčić (1398–​1416) The Garai brothers, Nicholas II and John, took control of the restored Hungarian regime in Croatia and Dalmatia; they controlled the offices of ban as well as being counts of some cities. They appointed their own supporters to various administrative and military positions and sought to revert some legal issues to the status that they had held before the Bosnian conquest. The Garai seem to have been quite selective, supporting mostly the 127  Dubravko Lovrenović, “Cetinski knez Ivaniš Nelipčić u političkim previranjima u Dalmaciji krajem XIV i tokom prvih decenija XV stoljeća,” Prilozi 22 (1986):  199–​220 at 203–​10; Ančić, “Prosopografske crtice,” 53. 128  Ančić, Bosanska vlast, 74–​83; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 407. 129  Vićentije Makušev, Istorijski spomenici južnih Slovena i okolnih naroda, 2 vols. (Warsaw and Beograd, 1874–​82), 2:23–​24; Aleksandra Fostikov, “Jelena Gruba, bosanska kraljica. Bosna krajem 14. veka (1395–​1399),” Braničevski glasnik 3–4 (2006): 29–​50; Ćirković, Istorija, 174–​77. 130  Engel, The Realm, 203–​6.

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interests of the lesser nobility, the Catholic Church, and the pro-​Luxemburgian factions in the coastal cities.131 During his short stay in Croatia-​Dalmatia in 1397, King Sigismund continued the same policy, seeking to reward his adherents and punish those who had opposed him. Persistent demands for the church tithe by the archbishop of Split seem to have irritated the higher nobility in the hinterland, especially Ivaniš Nelipčić.132 Military, administrative, and tax reforms after the defeat by the Turks at Nicopolis were also problems for many nobles of the realm.133 It is worth noting that most of the communes in Dalmatia were embroiled in internal strife among various parties over private, social, and political issues. Seeking support for their causes, some of these factions remained in contact with foreign states. In 1398, a group of citizens of Split, instigated by Archbishop Andrew of Gualdo and led by Markulin Slovetić, overthrew the local administration and seized the government. The rebels were pro-​Hungarian and they were not defeated until 1402, when internal divisions induced by military pressure from the Bosnian-​Neapolitan coalition brought their rule to an end.134 Meanwhile, a new front was forming in Bosnia. The mightiest nobles of the country, namely, Grand Voivode Hrvoje Vukčić, Grand Voivode Sandalj Hranić Kosača (nephew of Vlatko Vuković), knez Pavle Radinović, and tepčija (a court official who managed ruler’s estates) Batalo formed an offensive league, ready to depose Queen Jelena. When they felt strong enough, they initiated their plan and elected Ostoja, also a member of the Kotromanić family, as king of Bosnia (1398). Hrvoje, who was a well-​informed and skillful political player, led and directed this league.135 King Sigismund reacted swiftly, attacking Hrvoje’s possessions in Donji Kraji from Slavonia, but this campaign produced no results; Hrvoje’s counterattack, however, led to his occupation of the Slavonian County of Dubica and some nearby fortresses such as Nebojša and Krupa. Over the years he repeatedly attacked Croatian and Slavonian magnates from these strongholds seeking ransom.136 Hrvoje would have never waged this war if he were not prepared for it. In the 1390s he established close connections with several Croatian nobles, the Neapolitans, and the Ottoman Turks, whom he had fought against in the past.137 He also arranged a network of marital alliances, which was even widened after his campaigns to the west were successful. One of Hrvoje’s sisters was married to Batalo, the other to a member 131  Smičiklas et  al., Codex diplomaticus, 18:20–​21, 49–​51, 71, 109–​14, 150, 167–​68, 225–​26; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 59–​65. 132  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 59–​65. 133  Engel, The Realm, 203–​6.

134  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 69–​71. 135  Esad Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda bosanski Sandalj Hranić Kosača (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju, 2009), 75–​111; Ćirković, Istorija, 177–​85; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 281–​82.

136  Pejo Ćošković, “Dubica u bosansko-​ugarskim odnosima 1398–​1402. godine,” Istorijski zbornik 2 (1981): 43–​53; Engel, “Neki problemi,” 67; Ančić, Na rubu Zapada, 18–​19, 261–​62; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 88–​94; Karbić and Miljan, “Političko djelovanje,” 99–​102. 137  Đuro Šurmin, Hrvatski spomenici. vol. 1 (Zagreb: JAZU 1898), 95–​98; Filipović, “Bosna i Turci,” 280–​82.

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30 Neven Isailović of the Zlatonosović family from Usora. He himself was married to the sister of Ivaniš Nelipčić and his nieces, daughters of Vuk Vukčić, were the wives of Sandalj Hranić and his brother, Vuk. Later, his granddaughters entered marriages with other distinguished men from the Borovinić family of Bosnia and the Kladuški family from Slavonia.138 Precisely when Hrvoje and his allies began their campaign towards Croatia-​Dalmatia is not known. In 1399, a note concerning the town of Omiš suggests that the Turks and the Bosnians were working in tandem, but there is no evidence of open hostilities in the region.139 It is quite clear that Hrvoje indeed continued to act as an intermediary between the Ottomans and the Neapolitans, protecting the Turkish emissary travelling west in 1400. The same year, King Ostoja donated royal possessions in Livno to Hrvoje and his son, Balša. Livno was a suitable base for warfare in southern Croatia and the Dalmatian hinterland.140 Controlling almost the entire western border of Bosnia, Vukčić was able to observe how the stability of the neighbouring part of the composite Hungarian Kingdom slowly but steadily deteriorated, to his advantage. His acquisition of Livno coincided with the war between the “inner” and “outer” Spalatians, which spread to almost all the other political entities in Central Dalmatia and its hinterland—​the cities of Trogir and Šibenik, the County of Cetina, the royal towns of Klis and Omiš, the noble communities of Poljica and Radobilja, and more. Ivaniš Nelipčić, Hrvoje’s brother-​in-​law, sided with the Tragurians and “outer” Spalatians, but suffered a heavy defeat.141 The Bosnian army does not seem to have participated in this conflict, but some months later it crossed the border into Croatia. By 1401, Hrvoje had actively become the main Neapolitan agent in the region, which he had already been formally since 1391 when he was created ban of Croatia-​Dalmatia. The successful campaigning of King Ladislaus in southern Italy may have prompted the Neapolitans to broaden their actions. At the same time (in April 1401), a rebellion broke out in Hungary in which the majority of higher nobles, led by Palatine Detre Bebek and Archbishop John Kanizsai of Estergom, imprisoned King Sigismund. At first only his foreign dignitaries and personal minions stood with the king (Stibor of Stiboricz, the Celjski family). Ladislaus of Naples was a potential candidate for the throne once again and he enjoyed the support of Pope Boniface IX, but in just a few months the attitudes of several individuals changed and, with the help of the Garai, Sigismund was released in August 1401, pardoning the rebels the next month.142 As in 1387, however, it was already too late for Croatia-​Dalmatia. Hrvoje invaded it as soon as he received the news of Sigismund’s imprisonment. In June 1401 he approached Zadar, asking for it to change allegiance, knowing there were many enemies of the Luxemburgian regime in the city. In this period, he probably attacked Knin, too, but it is unlikely that he captured it at 138  Ančić, “Prosopografske crtice,” 37–​56; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 87, 94, 108–​15. 139  Ćirković, Istorija, 193–​94. 140  Stojan Novaković, “Povelja kralja Stjepana Ostoje vojvodi Hrvoju i sinu mu Baoši, godine 1400. 8. dekembra,” Glasnik Srpskog učenog društva 6 (1868): 48–​53; Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje 1, no. 1:448–​49; Ribar, Zapadne strane, 83–​85, 103, 138. 141  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 70–​71, 77–​81. 142  Engel, The Realm, 206–​7.

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that time.143 Similarly to those of Zadar, the authorities of Šibenik and Trogir, as well as the islanders, were open to negotiations with the Bosnian voivode, but the “inner” Spalatians stood strongly on Sigismund’s side and managed to capture Omiš, which Hrvoje had reserved for himself but failed to occupy.144 The turning point of the war was the capture of the fortress of Klis in December 1401 by Ivaniš Nelipčić and Hrvoje’s viceban, Tvrtko Latičić, brother of the former castellan of Klis. Knez Juraj Radivojević from Hum also participated in the fighting around Split.145 Soon after this success, the Neapolitan navy joined the warfare and put further pressure on the islands and cities in Dalmatia, aiming primarily at Zadar. Once again, there was a duality in the Neapolitan camp; both Hrvoje and Aloysius Aldemarisco, commander of the Neapolitan forces, became Ladislaus’s vicegerents and Hrvoje owed double allegiance—​to King Ostoja and to King Ladislaus of Naples. Trogir and Šibenik surrendered in the spring of 1402 and Zadar in August. The Neapolitan forces disembarked and captured Vrana and Ljubač in October.146 Split found itself encircled by the enemies, which led to a division among the “inner Spalatians.” The majority turned their backs on the “grey eminence,” Archbishop Andrew, and destroyed his tower, built in the times of Ban Vuk Vukčić. Within days, Split also surrendered to the invading coalition.147 After official recognition by the islands, the whole of southern Croatia-​Dalmatia, this time including Zadar, was under foreign rule once again. Each city that accepted the new rule was issued a charter confirming its rights, which gave the impression of dual authority. Some of the privileges were given by Aldemarisco, some by Hrvoje in the name of King Ladislaus, some by Hrvoje and Nelipčić in the name of King Ostoja of Bosnia, and some by King Ostoja himself.148 Although the warfare of 1401–​1402 was led primarily by the forces of Hrvoje and his western marcher lords, Ostoja seems to have joined the fighting personally in late 1402 in the area between Hum and Cetina and managed to take Omiš.149 The next year presented new opportunities. In Hungary, still controlled by the Luxembourgians, there was a new wave of discontent with Sigismund’s reign. Once again, many nobles started to devise a plan to depose their king and replace him with Ladislaus. The league, for the time being, included not only Nikola Krčki, former 143  Ferdo Šišić, “Nekoliko isprava iz početka XV stoljeća,” Starine JAZU, 39 (1938):  130–​320 at 170–​71. 144  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 1:449–​50; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 83–​87. 145  Neven Isailović, “Povelja kralja Stefana Ostoje Splićanima,” Stari srpski arhiv 9 (2010): 167–​86 at 172, 176, 178, 182; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 87–​89; Isailović, “Fragmenti o familijarima,” 314–​15. 146  Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje, 140–​52; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 92–​99. 147  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 96–​97; Isailović, “Povelja kralja Stefana Ostoje,” 177–​79, 181–​82. 148  Šišić, “Nekoliko isprava,” 183–​89, 195–​96, 215–​16, 222–​24; Isailović, “Povelja kralja Stefana Ostoje,” 167–​86. 149  Nicolae Iorga, Notes et extraits pour servir à l’histoire des croisades au XVe siècle, 6  vols. (Paris: Leroux, 1899–​1915), 2:90; Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 1:433.

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32 Neven Isailović close ally of Sigismund, but also many lesser nobles from the Slavonian and southern Hungarian counties, especially those bordering on Bosnia.150 The leaders of the uprising of 1401—​the Kanizsai and Bebek families—​once again played the main role and invited King Ladislaus to come to “his realm.” The first half of the year passed in conflicts among the nobility. Sigismund’s faction in the south was led by Ivaniš of Morović (Maróti) and members the Gara, Babonić, Kurjaković, Zrinski, and Grđevački families.151 The pro-​ Luxemburgian ban of Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia, Paul Bessenyő, organized an expedition into territory controlled by the Bosnian-Neapolitan coalition, but was severely defeated and captured by Emeric Bebek, prior of Vrana.152 In the meantime, Hrvoje, Nelipčić, and King Ostoja received possessions, houses, and estates in Dalmatian cities as well as offices in the government. Yet again, the seed of discord was soon sown between Hrvoje and Ostoja through the Bosnian king’s war with Dubrovnik, which began in mid-​ 1403 and disrupted Vukčić’s plans.153 In July, Ladislaus landed in Zadar, where his retainers greeted him. The Hungarian barons wanted him to lead an army north and be crowned with the Crown of St. Stephen in Székesfehérvár, but he declined this offer. With the pope’s support, he was crowned by Archbishop John Kanizsai of Estergom in Zadar, on August 5, 1403.154 The procedure was illegal as the crown was in Sigismund’s hands. Ladislaus exercised his rule in territories already conquered, issuing and confirming charters to his followers and Dalmatian cities, but by the time he decided to return to Naples in late October practically all of his supporters from Hungary and Slavonia had dispersed.155 Successful campaigns by the Garai and Stibor of Stiboricz, as well as Ladislaus’s reluctance to advance, brought this rebellion to an end. Once again, Sigismund declared an amnesty in October and the main opponents, such as Kanizsai, Bebek, and Krčki, submitted themselves to his power.156 When Ladislaus departed for Italy, the fronts stabilized and the borders returned to their extents of late 1402. Hrvoje only lost Dubica County.157 It became clear that the son of Charles of Durazzo, although crowned, was still just a pretender whose authority could be imposed only by the armies of his retainers occupying southern Croatia and Dalmatia. Neapolitan troops and governors were based in Zadar and Vrana and their immediate vicinity, as well as in the islands of northern Dalmatia and Kvarner. The Bosnians and Ivaniš Nelipčić controlled all the other territories: the

150  Šišić, “Nekoliko isprava,” 196–​98; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 99–​102. 151  Engel, The Realm, 207–​8.

152  Šišić, “Memoriale Pauli de Paulo,” 36–​37; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 100. 153  Gavro Škrivanić, “Rat bosanskog kralja Ostoje sa Dubrovnikom (18. VI 1403. do maja 1404. godine),” Vesnik Vojnog muzeja, 5, no. 2 (1958): 35–​60. 154  Engel, The Realm, 208; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 104–​9. 155  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 108–​12. 156  Engel, The Realm, 208.

157  Ćošković, “Dubica,” 46–​47, 52–​53.

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cities of Šibenik, Trogir, and Split (with part of their royal revenues), the islands of Central Dalmatia, and the royal towns of Klis and Knin. Omiš was in the hands of King Ostoja, and Nelipčić was rewarded with the counties of Klis in Croatia and Rama in Bosnia.158 Hrvoje himself was made duke of Split and in November 1403 he became de facto ruler of the vast area between the Sava River and the Eastern Adriatic. He started exercising his new authority from the first day, violating some “good customs” and laws of the commune of Split. He appointed his Bosnian follower, Petrica Jurjević from Vrbas, to the office of city count and surrounded himself with retainers from his homeland and Croatia-​Dalmatia.159 Vukčić also built a tower or castle in the centre of Split from which he and his agents could control the government. In the city council he abolished the secret ballot and made the Spalatians pay the blood ransom for the men of Ivaniš Nelipčić killed in the civil war in Split in 1400.160 Also, Hrvoje organized a second public reconciliation of the factions previously known as “inner” and “outer” Spalatians, protecting his followers in the process.161 Meanwhile, in Bosnia, King Ostoja’s war with Dubrovnik reached a climax after many magnates joined in. Ragusan diplomats were actively plotting against him, trying to secure both Hrvoje’s and Sigismund’s help. In January 1404, Vukčić signed the agreement with the Ragusans to depose Ostoja, put a pretender, Pavle Radišić, on the throne and start negotiations with Sigismund.162 In March, Hrvoje seems to have changed his mind, but by May, after Ostoja started negotiations with Venice, offering Omiš to the Serenissima, he acquired the support of the majority of nobles and deposed Ostoja, who fled to Sigismund, with whom he had started to communicate on his own.163 As a Ragusan nobleman noted just months later: “Since the Great Flood the world did not spin and turn this much as now.”164 In June 1404 there was a crisis in Omiš, whose garrison, loyal to Ostoja, refused to surrender the town to Hrvoje’s men. After the town was besieged from the islands, however, Vukčić was able to take it for himself. Uniting Omiš, the Central Dalmatian islands (partly reviving the former County of the Islands), and possibly Krajina, he formed an administrative unit attached to his Duchy of Split, which was administered by himself, his son Balša, or his closest associates.165 At the same time, 158  Dubravko Lovrenović, “Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić i srednjodalmatinske komune (1398.–​1413.),” in Jajce 1396–​1996: Zbornik radova, ed. Dubravko Lovrenović (Jajce: Općina Jajce, 2002), 31–​51.

159  Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 114–​15, 125; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 112–​19. See note 172. 160  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 117.

161  Šišić, “Nekoliko isprava,” 224–​25; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 116–​17. 162  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 1:455–​57. 163  Ljubić, Listine, 5:39; Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 1:457–​58; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 112–​17; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 127–​31. 164  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 1:261–​62. 165  Serđo Dokoza, “Obrambeni sustav korčulanske komune u srednjem vijeku,” Radovi Zavoda za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zadru 49 (2007): 205–​20 at 218; Neven Isailović, “Omiš pod vlašću Hrvoja Vukčića i borba za njegovo nasleđe,” Istorijski časopis 54 (2007): 131–​50 at 133–​35.

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34 Neven Isailović Voivode Pavle Klešić, who had previously opposed King Ostoja but reconciled with him just prior to his downfall, was probably driven away from his possessions in Glamoč, Duvno, and the region near the Cetina River.166 Hrvoje assumed the role of kingmaker once again. Respecting the customs of the Kingdom of Bosnia, he did not react to Ragusans’ flattery suggesting that he become king himself, but reached an agreement with the Bosnian nobles to enthrone King Tvrtko’s son, Tvrtko II Tvrtković, at a general assembly.167 He also decided to cooperate more closely with other magnates—​primarily Sandalj Hranić, who became the only potent baron in Hum in 1404, and also with knez Pavle Radinović, the Radivojević family, and others. He abandoned his earlier marital plans and married his nieces to Sandalj and his brother. Vukčić also supported Sandalj’s policy towards Zeta, sought to secure Venetian citizenship for all the main magnates of Bosnia and included them in his negotiations with the Neapolitans, Venice, and, possibly, the Turks.168 Grand Voivode Sandalj acquired the towns and districts of Skradin and Ostrovica, confirmed by King Ladislaus, who also granted him some possessions in northern Croatia and southern Slavonia, such as Slunj, Cetin, and Drežnik, even though he could not effectively command them since they were in the hands of Sigismund’s retainers. Hranić’s governor of Skradin and Ostrovica was nobleman Aleksa Paštrović, whom he brought from the Zeta littoral.169 Ladislaus also issued some grants to Hrvoje, which included confirming his possession of the fortress of Prozor (that Vukčić had built himself) as well as royal land in Vrhrika.170 In 1407, Hrvoje and Ladislaus confirmed the possession of the village of Radošić to a Tragurian noblewoman married to the Bosnian count of Split Petrica Jurjević.171 In 1406, the Neapolitan pretender confirmed the Bosnian state borders from the age of Ban Kulin. Although Kulin’s Bosnia was considerably smaller than Tvrtko I’s, the myth about his reign as the Golden Age clearly remained vital.172 The organization of Bosnian rule over Croatia-​Dalmatia in the period after 1401 was similar to that of the previous decade. The main officials and garrisons in towns and fortresses were brought from Bosnia. Three of Hrvoje’s principal office-​holders in 166  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 1:433–​35; Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 128–​29. 167  Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 114–​17. 168  Thallóczy, Studien, 135–​41; Ančić, “Prosopografske crtice,” 45–​49, 52–​53; Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda, 144–​50. 169  Dubravko Lovrenović, “Kako je bosanski vojvoda Sandalj Hranić došao u posjed Ostrovice i Skradina,” Radovi Instituta za hrvatsku povijest 19 (1986): 231–​36; Đuro Tošić, “Bosanski ‘lutajući vitezovi’ Paštrovići,” Istorijski časopis 58 (2009):  147–​72 at 151–​53; Rački, “Izvadci,” 60, 66–​68; Thallóczy, Studien, 352. 170  Ivan Jurković, “Vrhrički i hlivanjski plemeniti rod Čubranića do sredine 15. stoljeća,” Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za društvene i povijesne znanosti HAZU 24 (2006): 25–​69 at 47–​49; Rački, “Izvadci,” 58–​59. 171  Neven Isailović, “O familijarima Hrvoja Vukčića Hrvatinića u Splitu (1403–​1413),” Istorijski časopis 58 (2009): 125–​46 at 129–​30; Rački, “Izvadci,” 68–​69. 172  Ćošković, “Bosna na prijelomu stoljeća,” 57–​82.

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Split—​two counts (Petrica Jurjević and Cvitko Tolihnić) and one miles (Raup Dragović)—​ were from Bosnia or at least from the area conquered before 1385, as well as his Viceban Tvrtko Latičić, the castellans of Omiš, Biloslav (possibly Ljubunčić of Livno) and Ostoja, and others.173 Local supporters, usually petty nobles or citizens of the Dalmatian communes, acted as envoys, couriers, and lesser bureaucrats.174 Loyal members of the higher nobility of the cities were able to be elected as counts in neighbouring communes, which was an ancient custom.175 Bosnian rule was no more popular than in the 1390s, however, and few nobles from the hinterland, if any, stayed on Hrvoje’s side when his position deteriorated. Factions in the cities that supported the Neapolitan-​Bosnian coalition later became supporters of Venice, not Bosnia. Between 1404 and 1408 King Sigismund launched annual campaigns against Bosnia, twice coming personally with his army. In 1404, his forces captured the unofficial Bosnian capital and royal residence in Bobovac and installed King Ostoja there under the watchful guard of a Hungarian garrison.176 Most of Sigismund’s attacks from 1405 to 1407 were directed at Hrvoje’s lands on the western borders near the Una River and the land of Donji Kraji. None of these military activities brought the Hungarians a decisive victory or reached the conquered parts of Croatia-​Dalmatia.177 What brought the Bosnian-​Neapolitan alliance to an end was the change of global and local political circumstances. First, it seems that King Ostoja did have some support in Bosnia, even though it was not substantial.178 Second, a few documents whose validity is not entirely confirmed suggest that Ivaniš Nelipčić may have been ready to change allegiance around 1406, but it is certain that he did not cut all his ties with other Croatian nobles.179 The active change of attitude of both Ivaniš and Hrvoje, however, came because of actions by King Ladislaus. He kept his administration in Zadar, but was increasingly disinterested in his claims in the Balkans, especially in light of his victories in Italy and the conquest of Rome in 1408. His Bosnian and Croatian associates were probably aware that he had already started selling his possessions and royal rights in the Ionian Sea to Venice.180 Although a new campaign by Sigismund against Bosnia in 1408 and a heavy defeat of the lesser nobility near Dobor fortress were not nearly as disastrous as depicted by some sources, they did serve as an opportunity for Hrvoje and his brother-​in-​law to approach 173  Dubravko Lovrenović, “Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić i Splitska komuna 1403–​1413,” Prilozi 23 (1987):  37–​45; Isailović, “O familijarima,” 125–​46; Isailović, “Fragmenti o familijarima,” 314–​15, 322–​24. 174  Isailović, “O familijarima,” 142–​44; Isailović, “Fragmenti o familijarima,” 312–​14, 318–​22. 175  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 147. 176  Engel, “Neki problemi,” 68; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 122–​24. 177  Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 124–​37. In a charter of King Sigismund from 1405 can be found the only instance where Rama is a direct synonym for Bosnia. See Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje, 194. 178  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 1:269–​70, 272, 436–​37; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 133. 179  Lajos Thallóczy and Samu Barabás, Codex diplomaticus comitum de Frangepanibus, 2 vols. (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1910–​13), 1:145–​46. 180  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 158–​64.

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36 Neven Isailović the legitimate king of Hungary, make peace with him, and visit him in Buda in late 1408 or early 1409.181 This change affected not only Croatia-​Dalmatia, but also, to a greater extent, Bosnia itself. Sigismund confirmed Hrvoje’s title of the duke of Split and count of the Islands and left him in the possession of the fortresses which he held in his own right. He was also granted Somogy and Požega counties in southern Hungary.182 Nelipčić also remained the count of Cetina and Klis and one of the greatest property owners in Croatia.183 Southern Croatia and Dalmatia were no longer under Bosnian rule, however, and the Hungarian administrative system was mostly reintroduced. Even so, a climate of insecurity hung over the region.184 Despite these disturbances in their immediate vicinity, the Neapolitan garrisons in Zadar and Vrana seem to have been undisturbed and they resisted conquest until Ladislaus of Naples sold Zadar, Novigrad, Vrana, and Pag along with his royal right to Dalmatia to the Republic of St. Mark in July 1409 for 100,000 ducats.185 Before Sigismund could do anything, the Venetians entered the city of Zadar. This breached the provisions of the peace treaties of Zadar (1358) and Turin (1381) which, consequently, put Venice and Hungary in a state of war. This war (1409–​1413 and 1418–​1420) eventually ended Hungarian rule over Dalmatia and changed the political map of the Adriatic for centuries.186 Hrvoje did not take part in this war. He had problems of his own to face. All the other magnates of Bosnia, protected by geography and distance and excluded from the negotiations, remained loyal to Ladislaus until 1411. In time, this stance no longer had anything to do with the Neapolitan pretender, but became a league against Sigismund and Hrvoje. Tvrtko II was deposed in Bosnia as Hrvoje’s candidate and replaced by Ostoja who, reportedly, was no longer under Sigismund’s control.187 Hrvoje launched an attack against the Radivojević family in Hum in 1409. This attack might have been provoked by King Ostoja’s charter, supposedly issued in December 1408, by which he gave the Radivojević family large territories between the Neretva and Cetina rivers, including some of Hrvoje’s possesions.188 In 1410, Hrvoje received the title of viceroy of Bosnia from the king in Buda after he agreed to surrender some of his fortresses in the region of Usora and Podrinje and to crown Sigismund in Bosnia. Two Hungarian campaigns in the spring and autumn of 1410, however, failed to achieve their goal, despite the king’s personal presence in the second campaign, his wide preparations for his enthronement, and 181  Ferdo Šišić, “Iz arkiva u Željeznom,” Vjesnik Kraljevskog hrvatsko-​slavonsko-​dalmatinskoga zemaljskoga arkiva 7 (1905):  137–​77 at 167–​69; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 137–​46; Bárány, “The Expansions,” 367–​68. 182  Engel, “Neki problemi,” 60; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 90, 109. 183  Birin, Knez Nelipac, 181–​219.

184  Isailović, “O familijarima,” 136–​42. 185  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 174–​81; Ljubić, Listine, 5:172–​81. 186  Isailović, Politika bosanskih vladara, 184. 187  Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 143–​48. 188  Euzebije Fermendžin, Acta Bosnae potissimum ecclesiastica (Zagreb: JAZU, 1892), 87–​89.

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the supposed readiness of the Bosnian nobles to accept it.189 Consequently, he never personally returned to Bosnia again nor explicitly mentioned the issue of the crown. Hrvoje did not deliver what he was obliged to and his value to the Hungarian monarch started to diminish. Having more important business in the West, Sigismund started negotiations with King Ostoja, Sandalj Hranić, and Pavle Radinović in 1411, reaching an agreement by that autumn.190 Even before the conclusion of terms, Sandalj, who managed to keep Ostrovica, sold it to the Venetians along with his rights to Skradin and divorced Hrvoje’s niece, Katarina, breaking all ties with his former protector, and marrying Jelena, the widow of Đurađ (George) II Stracimirović Balšić of Zeta and sister of Despot Stefan (Stephen) of Serbia.191 Vukčić’s authority was challenged even in his own city of Split.192 By 1412, Hrvoje Vukčić’s position seemed stable, but it was actually worsening. Political life in southern Croatia and Dalmatia was no longer under his full control. He retained his influence primarily on his own estates, while his long-​term partner, Ivaniš Nelipčić, fully restored the reputation he had in the early 1390s—​he became a loyal subject of King Sigismund, protector against Venice (although he lost Šibenik in 1412), and briefly even the ban of Croatia-​Dalmatia.193 There is no evidence, however, that Hrvoje and Ivaniš ever came into conflict, even though it seemed inevitable. Vukčić did not join the fight against the Venetians even after all of Bosnia accepted Hungary’s formal suzerainty. Moreover, it seems he maintained a close diplomatic relationship with the Republic of St. Mark.194 During a great tournament held in Buda in 1412, all the principal magnates of Bosnia were present along with King Ostoja.195 In June 1413, knowing that the first phase of war with Venice was approaching the point of a truce (which was formalized in August 1413), under the pretext of a supposed attack that Hrvoje made on the estates of Sandalj Hranić who was fighting the Turks in Serbia, King Sigismund declared Vukčić an infidel and the barons, mainly from Slavonia, attacked his possessions.196 It is not known if these accusations were 189  Neven Isailović, “Jedan nepoznati izvor o predaji gradova Hrvoja Vukčića Hrvatinića ugarskom kralјu Žigmundu 1410. godine,” Istorijski časopis 64 (2015):  135–​58; Engel, “Neki problemi,” 69; Ančić, Na rubu Zapada, 262–​67; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 148–​54. 190  Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda, 181–​88. 191  Dubravko Lovrenović, “Ostrovica i Skradin u mletačko-​ugarskim ratovima za Dalmaciju (1409–​1420.),” Historijski zbornik 39 (1986): 163–​72 at 164–​67; Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda, 182–​83. 192  Milko Brković, “U Jajcu izdane isprave bosanskih vladara,” Radovi Zavoda za povijesne znanosti HAZU u Zadru 40 (1998): 97–​142 at 98. 193  Ante Birin, “Cetinski knez Ivaniš Nelipčić  –​ ‘ban naših kraljevstava Dalmacije i Hrvatske’,” in Humanitas et litterae. Zbornik u čast Franje Šanjeka, ed. Lovorka Čoralić and Slavko Slišković (Zagreb: Dominikanska naklada Istina and Kršćanska sadašnjost, 2009), 289–​302; Slišković, Knez Nelipac, 116–​33, 176–​80. 194  Ljubić, Listine, 6:78–​82. 195  Emir O. Filipović, “Viteške svečanosti u Budimu 1412. godine i učešće bosanskih predstavnika,” in Spomenica akademika Marka Šunjića, ed. Dubravko Lovrenović (Sarajevo:  Filozofski fakultet, 2010), 285–​306. 196  Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje, 224–​33; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji kraji, 92–​93.

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38 Neven Isailović true, although they might have been, but it can safely be assumed that the Hungarian king wanted to get rid of his wayward rival/​ally who had inflicted several severe blows on him since 1387. Within days, the Spalatians expelled Vukčić’s garrison and his count from their city and celebrated their deliverance from what they called “Pharaonic slavery.”197 Hrvoje lost Somogy and Požega counties and his estates in Donji Kraji were invaded. King Sigismund gave the Central Dalmatian islands (Brač, Hvar, and Korčula) to the Ragusans. Hrvoje was able to hold only the core of his possessions in western Bosnia and Livno. Omiš, bordered by the Bosnian state, remained his only possession in Croatia proper.198 The former duke of Split tried to deny the accusations against him, but to no avail.199 Managing somehow to survive until the spring of 1414, Hrvoje made another earth-​ shattering political move that brought disarray to the whole region of the Western Balkans. Using his old contacts with the Turks, he summoned their army to his aid. Although Ottoman incursions had been regular occurrences in Bosnia since the late 1380s, no significant raid had ever happened in the Hungarian Kingdom. But, in several akinji (irregular light cavalry) attacks during 1414 and 1415 the Turks swept through Bosnia, Croatia, Slavonia, Istria, Carniola, and Friuli.200 Hrvoje did not join their army at first; he managed to restore some of his estates, mainly in the land of Donji Kraji, this time with the support of the Pavlović family, who welcomed the return of Tvrtko II, who accompanied the Ottoman troops.201 In July 1415, in the valley of the Lašva River, a large Hungarian army, which had penetrated the borders of Bosnia, was completely routed by the Turks and their Bosnian allies, suffering its greatest defeat since Nicopolis. Many distinguished nobles were killed or captured. Some of them died in captivity, while others were only released after paying substantial ransoms.202 Hrvoje did not manage to ensure 197  Georgius Fejér, Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis, 10  vols., 36 parts (Buda: Typogr. Regiae Vniverstitatis Vngaricae, 1829–​43), 10, no. 5:404–​11; Ivan Lucić, Povijesna svjedočanstva o Trogiru, 2 vols. (Split: Književni krug, 1979), 1:857–​62; Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje, 226; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 171–​74. 198  Engel, “Neki problemi,” 60, 68–​71; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 171–​74; Isailović, “Omiš,” 135–​39. 199  Lucić, Povijesna svjedočanstva, 2:854–​56; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 173–​74. 200  Sima Ćirković, “Dve godine bosanske istorije (1414. i 1415.),” Istoriski glasnik 3–​4 (1953): 29–​42; Neven Isailović, “Mihailo Kabužić, dubrovački odmetnik—bosanski diplomata,” Istorijski časopis 56 (2008):  389–​406 at 395–​97; Neven Isailović and Aleksandar Jakovljević, “Šah Melek (Prilog istoriji turskih upada u Bosnu 1414. i 1415. godine),” in Spomenica akademika Sime Ćirkovića, ed. Srđan Rudić (Beograd: Istorijski institut, 2011), 441–​63 at 441–​53. 201  Engel, “Neki problemi,” 69–​70. 202  Sima Ćirković, “O jednom posredovanju despota Stefana između Ugarske i Turske,” Istraživanja 16 (2005): 229–​40; Dubravko Lovrenović, “Bitka u Lašvi 1415. godine,” in Raukarov zbornik: zbornik u čast Tomislava Raukara, ed. Neven Budak (Zagreb: Filozofski fakultet, 2005), 275–​95; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 196–​212; Bárány, “The Expansions,” 368; Neven Isailović, “Prilog o delovanju kneza i vojvode Petra Pavlovića u bosansko-​ugarsko-​turskim sukobima početkom XV veka,” Istorijski časopis 66 (2017): 173–​208 at 188–​200.

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Venetian support for a re-​conquest of Split and the Islands; he died undefeated in March 1416.203 Vukčić’s death marked the end of an era. Despite managing to preserve his state until the end of his life, he left no successors able to retain his heritage. His son Balša died before him and his granddaughters could not become significant political players.204 Therefore, his wife, Jelena Nelipčić, acted as his main heir. After a few months of negotiations and various plots, she gave Omiš, Hrvoje’s last possession in Croatia proper, to her brother, Ivaniš, who became the count of Omiš.205 Jelena married King Ostoja and brought most of Vukčić’s possessions into the hands of the Bosnian royal family. Hrvoje’s family, primarily his nephew Juraj Vojsalić, inherited only the old patrimonial possessions of the Hrvatinić family in Donji Kraji.206 At the end of this era, the Bosnian-​Croatian border had once again reverted to the situation of 1385. Hum with Krajina, the eastern part of Posušje, and the lands north of Mount Kamešnica were Bosnian and all the territories to the west and south of that line belonged to Croatia-​Dalmatia. During the reign of King Ostoja (d. 1418) and his heir, Stjepan Ostojić (r. 1418–​1420/​21), no moves were made to disrupt the peace on the border. Sandalj Hranić and King Tvrtko II, who finally regained his throne in 1420, had expansionist ambitions and intentions for the future, but they never resulted in comprehensive conquests during the periods of Tvrtko I and Hrvoje. One of the reasons was the growing Turkish threat, which became continuous, and the other was the final Venetian victory in Dalmatia in 1420, which brought Trogir, Split, all the Central Dalmatian islands, and Kotor under the aegis of the Republic of St. Mark.207 Unlike earlier, in all their actions from 1420 onwards, the Bosnians had to take account of three factors, some of which they themselves had inadvertently made relevant—​The Realm of St. Stephen, Venice, and the Ottomans.

A Permeable Border—​Croatia-​Dalmatia and Bosnia between the Kingdom of Hungary and Venice (1416–​1444) The period between Hrvoje’s death and the international recognition of King Tomaš (Thomas) of Bosnia was marked by a growing Turkish presence in Bosnia, the rising importance of Venice, and the gradual (and sometimes deceptive) warming of relations between Bosnia and the central authorities of the Kingdom of Hungary. The obvious change in Bosnian policy towards Croatia-​Dalmatia was the loss of its Dalmatian element. After 1420 all cities that had comprised the Kingdom of Dalmatia came under continuous Venetian rule and the kings and barons of Bosnia did not want to endanger their links with the Serenissima for both political and economic reasons. Therefore, at opportune 203  Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje, 235–​36; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 86. 204  Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 108–​15. 205  Isailović, “Omiš,” 139–​47. 206  Lovrenović, “Jelena Nelipčić,” 187–​90; Mrgić-​Radojčić, Donji Kraji, 115–​21. 207  Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 227–​28.

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40 Neven Isailović times, they focused their attention on areas that bordered the Bosnian state—​primarily Omiš and its vicinity (Poljica, for instance) as well as the region between Imotski and the Cetina River (the districts of Radobilja and Posušje which belonged to local Croatian nobility and Ivaniš Nelipčić as count of Cetina). The border remained stable most of the time, however, since internal feuding within Bosnia overshadowed the country’s expansionist western policy. Between 1415 and 1422 practically all connections between Hungary and Bosnia were broken due to the disastrous defeat of the Hungarian army at Lašva and the ensuing position of the Bosnians towards the Ottomans. Internal strife among the nobility prevented any significant actions outside the borders of the Bosnian Kingdom. In 1417, King Ostoja waged war against Sandalj Hranić in Hum and Krajina, winning the support of the local Croatian nobility, the Kačić family of Krajina, who had lived for decades under the supreme power of Bosnia.208 In 1419, Ostoja’s son and successor, Stjepan Ostojić, through his allies the Radivojević family, offered to help Venice in its efforts to capture Trogir and Split, but nothing came of the offer. Venice took these cities the next year.209 His second diplomatic effort towards the Republic of St. Mark came in April 1421, but at that point he lost support in his homeland and was replaced by Tvrtko II, who once again came with a Turkish raid, but was soon able to devise his own fairly independent policy.210 The initiative for this came from the Venetian authorities (in August 1422), who wanted Bosnian help in their war with Hungary in the Dalmatian hinterland and with Serbia in Zeta. The offer focused on an alliance against Ivaniš Nelipčić, by then the most loyal agent of King Sigismund in southern Croatia. The negotiations concerning this alliance did not go smoothly, but agreement was reached in February 1423, when Tvrtko II undertook to organize military actions against Count Ivaniš by Easter of the next year. Bosnia was to receive virtually all of Nelipčić’s possessions except Klis, which would go to Venice. This campaign was first postponed and then cancelled due to an Ottoman attack on Bosnia in 1424 and Venetian withdrawal after that.211 The Republic settled its accounts with Ivaniš some years later, but it is interesting to note that Sandalj Hranić, when he stabilized the situation in his domain, seems to have gained some influence in the Croatian noble community of Poljica (which did not directly belong to him) in the late 1420s, when this district was in conflict with Nelipčić.212 Sandalj renewed his contacts with King Sigismund in 1422 and King Tvrtko did the same two years later. By early 1425, Bosnia had returned to the status of vassal to

208  Neven Isailović, “Crtice o Kačićima u Makarskom primorju u XV veku,” Istorijski časopis 55 (2007): 119–​31. 209  Ćirković, Istorija, 248–​50.

210  Pavo Živković, Tvrtko II Tvrtković. Bosna u prvoj polovini XV stoljeća (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju, 1981), 81–​83.

211  Ljubić, Listine, 9:197, 202–​5, 215–​17; Pavo Živković, “Ivaniš Nelipić između Mletačke republike i bosanskog kralja Tvrtka II Tvrtkovića,” Radovi Filozofskog fakulteta u Zadru 27, no. 14 (1987–​1988): 151–​70 at 155–​68; Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 176–​89. 212  Birin, Knez Nelipac, 134–​53; Živković, “Ivaniš Nelipić,” 168–​69.

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Hungary, but the king in Buda was unable to influence its politics in any substantial way.213 In 1426, the Ottomans launched a military expedition that plundered not only Bosnia, but also Croatia and Posavina. In 1427 and 1428, Tvrtko II made two moves which brought him closer to Sigismund—​he made Hermann II of Celje, the Hungarian king’s father-​in-​law, his heir and then married Dorothea, daughter of John Garai.214 The nobility of Bosnia did not look upon this with approval and such an attitude was important in a decentralized country with strong barons and increasing Turkish influence. That is why, even in his military plans of 1432/​33, King Sigismund considered the Bosnians potential enemies rather than allies.215 Although the war among the nobles took place near Croatia once again, the actions of Juraj Vojsalić, Hrvoje’s nephew, against Sandalj in Hum in 1434 were not transferred across the border.216 The situation changed when Sandalj Hranić died in March 1435 and was succeeded by his nephew, Stjepan Vukčić Kosača. King Sigismund immediately claimed that Hum belonged to him and issued an order to the Croatian nobility (including Ivaniš Nelipčić and the bans of Croatia-​Dalmatia from the Frankapan family) to invade Vukčić’s lands.217 The late Sandalj’s Bosnian rivals—​the Radivojević, Vojsalić, and Pavlović families—​joined the attack. Vojsalić conquered Drijeva, an important market town, but soon after that he allowed a Hungarian official named George Ker to take it over.218 Stjepan Vukčić was in serious danger, but all of his fortresses remained in his hands until July, when he called the Turks to his aid. By August he had driven the Hungarians from all of Hum.219 The death of Ivaniš Nelipčić in the second half of the same year brought an opportunity for Kosača to strike back. Namely, King Sigismund denied the right of Ivan VI (Hans) Frankapan, Nelipčić’s son-​in-​law, to inherit the counties of

213  Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 229–​35. 214  Pavao Anđelić, “Bosanska kraljica Doroteja Gorjanska,” Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja n.s. Arheologija 27–​28 (1972–​73):  377–​95; Tomislav Raukar, “Grofovi Celjski i hrvatsko kasno srednjovjekovlje,” Historijski zbornik 36 (1983):  113–​40 at 124; Peter Štih, “Celjski grofje kot dediči bosanske krone—Listina bosanskega kralja Tvrtka II. Kotromanića za celjskega grofa Hermana II. iz leta 1427,” in Med srednjo Evropo in Sredozemljem—Vojetov zbornik, ed. Sašo Jerše (Ljubljana: Zgodovinski inštitut Milka Kosa, 2006), 79–​103. 215  Petar Rokai, “Poslednje godine balkanske politike kralja Žigmunda (1435–​1437),” Godišnjak Filozofskog fakulteta u Novom Sadu 12, no. 1 (1969): 89–​109 at 89–​91; Franciscus Dőry, Georgius Bonis, and Vera Bácskai, Decreta Regni Hungariae. Gesetze und Verordnungen Ungarns 1301–​1457 (Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 1976), 416–​19, 426–​27. In 1432 Ottoman forces coming from Bosnia pillaged the hinterland of Zadar. 216  Aranđel Smiljanić, “Povelja vojvode Đurđa Voisalića kojom potvrđuje baštinske posjede braći Đurđevićima,” Građa o prošlosti Bosne 4 (2011): 117–​35. 217  Thallóczy and Barabás, Codex diplomaticus comitum de Frangepanibus, 1:265–​66; Sima Ćirković, Herceg Stefan Vukčić Kosača i njegovo doba (Beograd: SANU, Naučno delo, 1964), 8–​19; Rokai, “Poslednje godine,” 96, 99–​101. 218  Đuro Tošić, Trg Drijeva u srednjem vijeku (Sarajevo:  Veselin Masleša, 1987), 141–​43; Rokai, “Poslednje godine,” 99–​101. 219  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 8–​11; Rokai, “Poslednje godine,” 99–​101.

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42 Neven Isailović Cetina, Klis, and Omiš and other possessions of the Nelipčić family. He stripped Hans of the office of ban of Croatia-​Dalmatia and declared him a rebel, donating all of Ivaniš’s estates to his Croatian minions—​the Talovac (in Hungarian, Tallóci) family.220 Stjepan Vukčić intervened with his troops to support Frankapan’s claim and reached the Cetina River and town of Sinj in March 1436. He made no territorial gains, but the Hungarians never invaded Hum.221 Frankapan died in December 1436 and the Talovac brothers received his widow’s lands, becoming Kosača’s neighbours, but no conflict ensued since Stjepan came to terms with King Sigismund, who confirmed his possessions in 1437. In the same year there was a possibility of Bosnian intervention in favour of the Venetians in Split, but the government in Venice prohibited it.222 Sigismund died in 1437 and the reign of his son-​in-​law and successor, Albert of Austria (r. 1437–​1439), passed in peace since Albert settled his relations with the Bosnian king and barons. His death, however, changed the political climate. Hungary entered a long period of internal feuds, dynastic turmoil, and a series of wars with the Turks.223 Following a Turkish raid, King Tvrtko II and Grand Voivode Stjepan Vukčić Kosača attacked the lands of the Croatian-​Dalmatian bans and successors of Nelipčić, the brothers Matko and Petar (Peter) Talovac. In early 1440, Omiš was besieged and Poljica was conquered. Queen Elizabeth of Hungary and Matko Talovac offered the city to the Ragusans, unable to defend it by themselves. These calls produced no effective response and, after an eight-​month siege, Omiš fell into the hands of Vukčić. The fighting continued in May 1441 and somewhat later the Talovac brothers had to sue for peace and concede their territorial losses.224 In the following years, the relations between King Tvrtko II and Stjepan Vukčić worsened and, as many times previously, they became rivals. In 1442, the king offered to ally with Venice, suggesting that he was willing to give up all of Bosnia if he could make a satisfactory arrangement. Alternatively, he was prepared to exchange a Bosnian town for another one in Dalmatia. These arrangements were never made, however, and Tvrtko died in November 1443.225 Tomaš, son of King Ostoja, was elected as his heir in early December, but Kosača did not accept this choice and supported Tomaš’s brother Radivoj instead. The Celjski family also objected, referring to the charter issued 220  Neven Isailović, “Dve ćirilske isprave Ivana VI (Anža) Frankopana Omišanima,” Mešovita građa-​Miscellanea 32 (2011):  101–​24 at 109–​13; Neven Isailović and Aleksandar Jakovljević, “Srednjovjekovno Brečevo i Polje Kanjane—još jedan pokušaj ubikacije,” Povijesni prilozi 43 (2012): 31–​58 at 32; Rokai, “Poslednje godine,” 96–​98. On the Talovac family, see Elemér Mályusz, “Die vier Gebrüder Talloci,” Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 28 (1982): 3–​66. 221  Lajos Thallóczy and Antal Áldásy, Magyarország és Szerbia közti összeköttetések oklevéltára 1198–​1526 (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1907), 117–​18; Rokai, “Poslednje godine,” 96–​97, 103. 222  Ljubić, Listine, 9:101; Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 22; Rokai, “Poslednje godine,” 103. 223  Engel, The Realm, 278–​81.

224  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 42–​43; Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 207–​9. 225  Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 193–​95.

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by Tvrtko II to Hermann II in 1427.226 In June 1444, however, King Tomaš received crucial support from the mightiest Hungarian baron—​John Hunyadi—​who accepted his pledge of loyalty and a substantial amount of money.227 Even before that, Tomaš, the Pavlović, and Radivojević families attacked Voivode Stjepan in Drijeva and the lower valley of the Neretva. The Venetians embraced this opportunity and captured Omiš and Poljica in January 1444, reversing all of Kosača’s gains from 1440 and 1441.228 Protest came not only from Stjepan, but also from Tomaš, who wanted Omiš for himself and even declared that he had paid a considerable amount of money to Matko Talovac for his undelivered help in these efforts. Venice still did not yield to the king’s pressure and within a few months Stjepan Vukčić restored his rule in Drijeva and the Neretva valley.229

The Breach in Antimurale Christianitatis—​In the Shadow of the Ottoman Threat (1444–​1463)

By the 1440s, Turkish pressure on Bosnia was constant and the country had already been a tributary state for years. This did not change even after the Peace Treaty of Edirne in 1444, since the peace itself turned out to be ineffective just some months after it was concluded. Another problem of the Bosnian Kingdom was incessant internal feuding that the king and the main barons participated in for various, often ephemeral, petty, and inessential reasons. As the Ottoman threat increased, the king, at first, and then the majority of nobles, started to think about their future and prospects by establishing contacts with the papacy and Western rulers (primarily those of Italian states). The alliance with the clergy advanced during the reign of King Tomaš, who was, at times, included in papal crusading plans.230 From almost the first year of his rule (1444), King Tomaš made a change in the Slavic version of his solemn title, adding to it something that even King Tvrtko I had hesitated to do. He styled himself “the King of the Serbs, Bosnia, Maritime Parts, Land of Hum, Dalmatia, the Croats, Donji Kraji, Western Parts, etc.” At times, Dalmatia would be left out (maybe accidentally, maybe because of Venice), but the Croats were never 226  Pejo Ćošković, “Fridrih II Celjski kao pretendent na bosansko prijestolje,” Prilozi 35 (2006): 11–​29. 227  Ćošković, Bosanska kraljevina u prijelomnim godinama 1443–​1446. (Banja Luka: Institut za istoriju u Banjaluci, 1988), 29, 54–​57; Emir O. Filipović, “Exurge igitur, miles Christi, et in barbaros viriliter pugna…: The Anti-​Ottoman Activities of Bosnian King Stjepan Tomaš (1443–​1461),” in Holy War in Late Medieval and Early Modern East-​Central Europe, ed. Janusz Smołucha, John Jefferson, and Andrzej Wadas (Krakow:  Ignatianum & WAM, 2017), 201–​42 at 213–​14; Thallóczy, Studien, 366–​68. 228  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 73; Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 223–​24. 229  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 72–​73. 230  Ćirković, Istorija, 275–​80; Ćošković, Bosanska kraljevina, passim; Filipović, “Exurge igitur,” 214–​15.

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44 Neven Isailović omitted.231 Why did this occur? Besides Srebrenica (in Serbia since 1411), this was the only territory that he could potentially annex. The king contributed to the loss of Omiš, which had belonged to Grand Voivode Stjepan Vukčić, but, as it was said, he wanted it for himself. During his rather long reign he tried to conquer southern Croatia, that is, the possessions of the Talovac family. Tomaš’s efforts, which occasionally came into conflict with those of the Kosača family, resulted only in a series of periodic raids and the occupation of some fortresses on the Croatian side of the border in the regions of Posušje and Radobilja.232 These small forays did not generate much friction with either Hungary or Venice. As noted above, the Bosnians did not want the Venetians to be their enemies for both commercial and strategic reasons, while the Kingdom of Hungary had numerous more important problems and, besides, did not consider these skirmishes along the border real interstate conflicts, especially since some Hungarian high dignitaries had better relations with Bosnian rulers than with certain nobles of their own realm. After failing to secure Omiš for himself, King Tomaš made another offer to Venice—​ he would give them some forts near Poljica and co-​sponsor the construction of a fortress in the lower Neretva Valley if they agreed to join him in an attack aimed against Stjepan Vukčić. Venice, however, signed a peace agreement with Vukčić in August 1445.233 Although Tomaš once again took the market town of Drijeva the same year, he soon changed his attitude and married Stjepan’s daughter, Katarina, in 1446, the same year when his protector in Hungary, John Hunyadi, became the governor of the realm.234 The peace between the father-​in-​law and son-​in-​law did not last long and their ensuing feuds were combined with Turkish attacks, one of which, in 1448, also affected Croatian territory. Yet, although he bore the title of “king of Dalmatia and the Croats,” Tomaš did not wage war against the Talovac family until the death of Ban Petar Talovac in 1453. In fact, he deposited some of his money in Sinj, one of Petar’s capitals (1449).235 He also improved his commercial relations with Dalmatian cities, even forming a business partnership with a certain Nikola of Trogir in 1449 in order to trade in silver in three places in Bosnia and Dalmatia (Jajce, Fojnica, and Split). Salt was also an essential product in Bosnian-​Venetian trade.236 Some of Tomaš’s main diplomats, like Nikola Testa from 231  Franz Miklosich, Monumenta Serbica spectancia historiam Serbiae, Bosnae, Ragusii (Vienna: Apud Guilelmum Braumüller, 1858), 438–​41; Ljubomir Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje i pisma, 1, no. 2:115–​21; Thallóczy and Barabás, A Blagay-​Család Oklevéltára, 342–​45. 232  Salih Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze srednjovjekovne Bosne i Cetinske krajine u vrijeme kralja Stjepana Tomaša,” Istraživanja 6 (2011): 19–​36. 233  Ljubić, Listine, 9:226–​29; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 20–​21. 234  Ćošković, Bosanska kraljevina, 102–​21. 235  Neven Isailović and Aleksandra Fostikov, “Isprava kralјa Stefana Tomaša kojom ovlašćuje Jakova Testu da povrati novac oplјačkan pod Sinjem,” Građa o prošlosti Bosne 7 (2014): 85–​101. 236  Neven Isailović and Aleksandra Fostikov, “Ugovor kralјa Stefana Tomaša i kneza Nikole Trogiranina o zajedničkoj trgovini,” Građa o prošlosti Bosne 8 (2015):  73–​93; Ćirković, Istorija, 291–​92.

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Trogir, were from Dalmatia and one of king’s trusted noblemen, Ivanac Jurčinić, may have originated in Croatia.237 The war between Stjepan Vukčić (who styled himself Duke (Herzog) of St. Sava after 1448/​49), and Dubrovnik, which lasted from 1451 to 1454 turned into “total war” inside Bosnia. Almost all of the nobles conspired against the duke, including his son, Vladislav, the king, and the Vojsalić and Radivojević (Vlatković) families.238 Stjepan called the Venetians to his aid, offering to capture Dubrovnik for them in exchange for Omiš and Poljica and 200,000 Ragusan ducats. Understandably, the Serenissima did not accept this offer.239 In March 1452, Vladislav Kosača and his coalition expelled Duke Stjepan from Hum and the duke once again made an offer to Venice—​granting them Drijeva and Krajina if they would help him. Instead, the Venetians took advantage of a rebellion against Vladislav by the Kačić family in Krajina and put this region under their control.240 Afterwards they were also able to reach Drijeva, but King Tomaš launched a successful attack against both Drijeva and the rebellious Krajina, which the Venetians were unable to hold. Soon afterwards, due to internal conflicts among the enemies of Duke Stjepan (including skirmishes among the Vojsalić, and Celjski, and Talovac families), the coalition was disbanded.241 Peace within the Kosača family was concluded in the summer of 1453.242 In the spring of 1453, Petar Talovac, ban of Croatia-​Dalmatia and count of Cetina and Klis, died, leaving his wife, Hedwig (daughter of John Garai and sister of Tvrtko II’s wife), with two underage sons. Both King Tomaš and the recently widowed Duke Stjepan tried to impose their marital plans on Hedwig in order to obtain Talovac’s territories. The king planned to marry the widow to his son and heir Stjepan, while the duke wanted to marry her himself.243 In the feud that followed, Kosača, as before, called for the assistance of the Turks (in the autumn of 1453). Once again, a third party intervened—​Venice decided to put the minor sons of Petar Talovac under its protection and, soon afterwards, the Hungarian court also intervened through its viceban and by appointing a new ban of Croatia-​Dalmatia, Ulrich II of Celje.244 Yet, neither Tomaš nor Stjepan Vukčić gave up—​the 237  Venetian State Archives, Commemoriali, registro 14, f. 108r; Srđan Rudić, “Povelјa kralјa Stefana Tomaša sinovima Ivanca Jurčinića,” Stari srpski arhiv 3 (2004): 141–​50; Neven Isailović, “Akreditivno pismo kralјa Stefana Tomaša za poslanika Nikolu Testu,” Stari srpski arhiv 7 (2008):  175–​86 at 181–83; Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 287, 290–​93, 317, 327, 335–​36. 364–​66; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 21–​22. 238  Ljubomir Jovanović, “Ratovanje hercega Stjepana s Dubrovnikom 1451–​1454,” Godišnjica Nikole Čupića 10 (1888): 67–​198. 239  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 171–​72. 240  Ljubić, Listine, 9:430–​32. 241  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 175–​99; Tošić, Trg Drijeva, 167–​69. 242  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 2:66–​72. 243  Neven Isailović, “Bračni planovi Kotromanića i državna politika Bosne polovinom XV veka,” in Pad Srpske despotovine 1459. godine, ed. Momčilo Spremić (Beograd: SANU, 2011), 203–​14 at 205–​7. 244  Ljubić, Listine, 10:25–​26, 29; Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 205–​6; Raukar, “Grofovi Celjski,” 126–​28; Isailović, “Bračni planovi,” 206; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 23–​24.

46

46 Neven Isailović first sided with John Hunyadi and the second with Ulrich II, who were enemies. The king asked his father-​in-​law Kosača not to meddle in the affairs of Cetina and pleaded with the Venetians not to allow Celjski to take possession of Talovac’s estates (1454), but at that point his role in this matter was of secondary importance.245 In 1451, the Ottoman ruler, Murad II, was succeeded by his ambitious son, Mehmed II. While the Bosnian lords were concerned with their internal difficulties, Constantinople fell to the Turks in May 1453. By 1455, when most of the Serbian Despotate had been conquered as well, the situation in the Balkans became critical. Although the Hungarian Kingdom was the main goal of the Ottomans, both King Tomaš and Duke Stjepan sensed that their states and lordships would not be spared, despite their annual tribute and connections with the Turks. The king had been presenting himself as a potential crusader since 1455, trying to make Bosnia the new Antimurale Christianitatis (Bulwark of Christendom) and explaining to Western rulers that they would soon be under attack if Bosnia fell. Duke Stjepan made similar calls for help in the following years.246 In 1456, the sultan asked Tomaš to surrender four crucial towns in Bosnia, including the key to Croatia, i.e., Bistrički (the main fortress of the Livno župa), and to provide him with large quantities of food for the Turkish army marching against Belgrade. The king did not comply.247 Mehmed’s defeat in July 1456 only led to a very short break, since the next year the sultan extracted 160,000 ducats from the king and forbade the export of silver from Bosnia. Hungary, meanwhile, was in disarray after Hunyadi’s death, the murder of Ulrich II of Celje, and dynastic struggles.248 Tomaš, who even considered fleeing the country, tried to engage in efforts towards organizing a crusade against the Turks. He received the support of Pope Callixtus III, who sent him his envoy, Cardinal Carvajal. These actions ultimately failed in late 1457, sabotaged primarily by Venice and Dubrovnik, because some thought that Hungary must be the leader of any crusade in the Balkans, and because King Tomaš was overcome with domestic difficulties among his lords, the churches present in Bosnia, and the fact that his subjects were not willing to wage war abroad.249 In the midst of these ambitious plans, King Tomaš was renewing his actions in Croatia. After the death of Ban Ulrich II of Celje in late 1456, he took advantage of the situation and, being at peace with Duke Stjepan, occupied some of the lands of the Talovac family. He enjoyed the support of the Radivojević-​Vlatković family, who lost their patrimonial possessions to the Kosača family and moved westwards. Managing to control the district of Radobilja, the Bosnian king formed a base from which he planned to attack the Banate of Croatia, since it was “without a lord,” inviting Venice to join his endeavors and take whatever it wanted, since 245  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 213, 222–​23; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 24–​27. 246  Ćirković, Istorija, 309–​23; Filipović, “Exurge igitur,” 219–​29. 247  Ćirković, Istorija, 310–​14. 248  Ćirković, Istorija, 312–​14; Engel, The Realm, 295–​97. 249  Ćirković, Istorija, 313–​15; Emir O.  Filipović, “The Key to the Gate of Christendom? The Strategic Importance of Bosnia in the Struggle against the Ottomans,” in The Crusade in the Fifteenth Century:  Converging and Competing Cultures, ed. Norman Housley (London:  Routledge, 2016), 151–​68; Filipović, “Exurge igitur,” 229–​37.

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the Hungarians would be hostile neighbours (1458).250 The worsening of the situation with the Turks and the renewal of anti-​Ottoman plans with newly elected King Matthias Hunyadi of Hungary (r. 1458–​1490) did not put a stop to Tomaš’s policy in the southwest. The fall of Smederevo to the Turks in June 1459 was blamed on the Bosnians since the last despot was in fact the son and heir of King Tomaš—​Stjepan Tomašević—​and this accusation cast a dark shadow on Bosnia, especially in regard to relations with the court in Buda and the Catholic Church.251 Yet, in the same month, Duke Stjepan conquered Čačvina fortress in Posušje from a castellan, which led to conflict with King Tomaš, who claimed the exclusive rights to the Talovac family property. The duke declined to surrender the city and said that he would rather give it to the Turks than to his king.252 By that time, the Ottomans were indeed interested in this region and started requesting Čačvina from Stjepan Vukčić. Despite his earlier assertion, he did not comply and suffered a Turkish raid in 1460. He seems to have concluded some kind of alliance with the new Croatian ban, Pavao Sperančić, warden of the Talovac estates, but the ban failed to help him.253 Although they were in a desperate international position, the Bosnian lords kept on fighting over small estates along the Cetina River. King Tomaš died in July 1461 while campaigning and was succeeded by his son, Stjepan Tomašević, who, unlike his father, tried, unfortunately too late, to overcome divisions inside his country and organize resistance to the Ottoman threat.254 The new king settled all his differences with Duke Stjepan and their first joint action was the suppression of an attack by the Croatian Ban Sperančić, who had previously taken a Bosnian town. This campaign continued over the summer of 1461 and Venice felt her interests could be threatened if the Bosnians captured Klis and Ostrovica, which eventually did not happen, without recourse to the Hungarian court.255 King Stjepan put all his hopes in the papacy and asked to be crowned by the papal legate. In November 1461, the coronation took place and Pope Pius II gave support to the intentions of the young king, who continued using his father’s title that included a claim to Dalmatia and the Croats.256 Although King Matthias felt his rights of suzerain had been violated, in the spring of 1462 relations between Bosnia and Hungary warmed up due to the mission of John Vitéz of Sredna. But just when it seemed that the breach in the Christian league had been repaired, another rebellion, led by Vladislav Kosača, broke out in the south. The 250  Borislav Grgin, Počeci rasapa:  Kralj Matijaš Korvin i srednjovjekovna Hrvatska (Zagreb: Ibis grafika—Zavod za hrvatsku povijest, 2002), 88–​89; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 27–​30.

251  Đuro Tošić, “Bosanska nazovi ‘krivica’ za pad srpske Despotovine,” in Pad srpske Despotovine 1459. godine, ed. Momčilo Spremić (Beograd:  SANU, 2011), 185–​93; Filipović, “Exurge igitur,” 236–​40. 252  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 238–​39; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 30–​31. 253  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 241; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 30–​32. 254  Ćirković, Istorija, 322–​23; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 337–​38; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 32–​33. 255  Ljubić, Listine, 10:188–​98; Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 343–​48; Grgin, Počeci rasapa, 89; Jalimam, “Vojno-​političke veze,” 33. 256  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 2:162–​65; Raukar, Hrvatsko srednjovjekovlje, 94, 384.

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48 Neven Isailović sultan once again asked Duke Stjepan to relinquish Čačvina and two fortresses in the eastern part of his lordship and to sever all ties with Venice and the papacy.257 Hungarian preparations for war were delayed and in March 1463 the Turks attacked the lands of Duke Stjepan. Two months later the full invasion of Bosnia ensued, ending in the death of King Stjepan Tomašević and his uncle, Radivoj, the eradication of the Pavlović and several other notable noble families, and the occupation of the informal capital of Jajce and many other towns and fortresses. The Bosnian kingdom ceased to exist.258 Queen Mara fled to the Adriatic coast, along with many other nobles when their resistance at various strongholds was crushed. The Croatian Ban Sperančić was informed that his territories would also be attacked, which indeed happened later that summer. He asked for weapons and it seems that he decided to fight against the invading force, but he was captured somewhere in Cetina County. In early September 1463, his wife offered the towns of the Croatian Banate to Venice in exchange for ransoming her husband.259 According to the available sources, Ban Pavao never returned to his homeland, but the Turks did not stay in Croatia nor organize their own base there, especially since King Matthias launched a successful campaign against them in October 1463. An interesting note from the same year lists the forts of Croatia which were situated along the border with Bosnia:  Vrlički, Grahovac, Visuć, Bilaj, Bukarac, and Strmički. The fort of Travnik near the Cetina River may have been on the Bosnian side of the border at the time of the Ottoman conquest.260 The land of Duke Stjepan stood firm and did not fall to the Turks that year. After agreement with his son Vladislav, who received his part of the lordship, the duke was able to retake his lost territories all the way to Ljubuški and temporarily put aside his quarrel with the Radivojević-​Vlatković family, who also participated in this campaign. By the end of 1463 the Kosača family had joined King Matthias’s efforts to retake Jajce, which resulted in victory in December. For his services, Vladislav Kosača was given substantial possessions, some of them (like Livno) near the border with Croatia.261 257  Agostino Pertusi, Martino Segono di Novo Brdo, vescovo di Dulcigno. Un umanista serbo-​dalmata del tardo Quattrocento (Roma: Istituto storico italiano per il medio evo, 1981), 133–​34; Ćirković, Istorija, 324–​29; Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 227–​29, 248–​52. 258  Lovrenović, Na klizištu, 351–​60; Emir O.  Filipović, “Ardet ante oculos opulentissimum regnum…Venetian Reports about the Ottoman Conquest of the Bosnian Kingdom, A.D. 1463,” in Italy and Europe’s Eastern Border (1204–​1669), ed. Iulian Mihai Damian, Ioan Aurel Pop, Mihailo St. Popović, and Alexandru Simon (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2012), 135–​55. 259  Pavle Dragičević, “Pravci turskih napada na Bosnu 1463. godine,” in Pad Bosanskog kraljevstva 1463. godine, ed. Neven Isailović (Beograd: Istorijski institut Beograd, Filozofski fakultet u Sarajevu, and Filozofski fakultet u Banjoj Luci, 2015), 129–​73 at 148, 157–​65; Ljubić, Listine, 10:271–​72; Grgin, Počeci rasapa, 89–​90.

260  Ahmed S. Aličić, Sumarni popis sandžaka Bosna iz 1468/​69. godine (Mostar: Islamski kulturni centar, 2008), 100, 195–​96; Dragičević, “Pravci turskih napada,” 160–​65. Cf. Pertusi, Martino Segono, 104–​5. 261  Emir Filipović, “Minor est Turchorum potentia, quam fama feratur…Contributions to the History of Bosnia in the Second Half of 1463,” in Pad Bosanskog kraljevstva 1463. godine, ed.

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Hungarian counterattacks ended in failure, however, after the unsuccessful siege of Zvornik in 1464. Croatia was pillaged once again the same year. In 1465, a new feud emerged in the Kosača family and Duke Stjepan faced another challenge. The Turks overran his lands and he even considered exchanging all of his possessions with King Matthias in return for Zagreb and possessions in Slavonia or with Venice, who was to give him a house in Split and the island of Brač in exchange for the towns of Novi and Risan in Boka Kotorska.262 Stjepan allowed the Hungarian garrison to occupy the lower Neretva and the Venetian count of Split to put Krajina under his protection, although he later seems to have regretted this decision. Reduced to fragments of his former domain, Duke Stjepan died in May 1466, having lost all hope of retaking his land.263

The Aftermath—​Seeking Shelter in the West … or Among the Turks After the disasters of 1463 and 1465, Bosnian nobles had to find their place in new circumstances. Most of the higher nobility, as well as those who found themselves on territory occupied by the Hungarians, put themselves in the service and under the protection of King Matthias.264 The lesser nobility, especially in the former king’s land, accepted their integration into the Turkish military system.265 In fact, some prominent members of the Kotromanić and Kosača family even converted to Islam.266 Queen Katarina, wife of King Tomaš, went to Croatia and then to Italy. She died in Rome in 1478. The last Bosnian queen, Mara, after taking shelter in Dubrovnik and Italy, eventually went to live with her aunt and namesake, Sultana Mara, under Turkish protection.267 King Stjepan Tomašević’s surviving uncle—​Radič Ostojić (Kristić) fled to Venetian Rab and then to the island of Krk, which still belonged to the Frankapan family, where he died and where his family members were supposedly treated badly by Count Ivan VII Frankapan.268 Many families of more common origin also decided to leave war-​affected Bosnia and move to Dalmatia, especially the islands. Southern Croatia, which was confined between the Neven Isailović (Beograd, Sarajevo, and Banja Luka: Istorijski institut Beograd, Filozofski fakultet u Sarajevu, and Filozofski fakultet u Banjoj Luci, 2015), 195–​226; Thallóczy, Studien, 418–​22; Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 254–​60; Pertusi, Martino Segono, 134. 262  Veljan Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine (Beograd: Istorijski institut, 1979), 12–​13. 263  Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje, 1, no. 2:87–​92; Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 267.

264  Marko Šuica, “Bosanska vlasteoska porodica Banovići,” Istorijski glasnik 1–2 (1993): 25–​35 at 25–​26, 31–​33; Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 254–​64. 265  There are examples of this practice in the defter of Bosnia from 1468/​69. See Aličić, Sumarni popis, passim. 266  Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine, 189–​219; Pertusi, Martino Segono, 134.

267  Đuro Tošić, “Bosanska kralјica Katarina (1425–​1478),” Zbornik za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine 2 (1997): 93–​112; Tošić, “Posljednja bosanska kraljica Mara (Jelena),” Zbornik za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine 3 (2002): 29–​60. 268  Vicko Solitro, Povijesni dokumenti o Istri i Dalmaciji (Split: Književni krug, 1989), 62, 77–​80; Srđan Rudić, “Izveštaj Antuna Vinćiguere kao izvor za istoriju srednjovekovne Bosne,” Zbornik za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine 5 (2008): 149–​56.

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50 Neven Isailović vanishing remains of Bosnia and the Venetian possessions in Dalmatia, was the apparent next goal of the Turks. Although it took them many years to conquer it, the fate of Ban Sperančić was paradigmatic. Interestingly, the remains of the Bosnian nobility from Hum, sometimes acting on behalf of the Hungarians and sometimes on behalf of the Ottomans, survived along the former border between Bosnia and Croatia for many decades. The members of Radivojević-​Vlatković family, who were expelled from their lands and sought shelter with the Hungarians, resided in and around Krajina and started to return to their patrimonial possessions. They started to use the term Humski as their surname (the adjective for Hum) and formed a mini-​state in the Makarska Littoral and its hinterland.269 One of the Vlatković brothers—​Žarko—​managed to conquer Klis and hold it for a certain period after 1466. Before that, Cetina and Klis counties were administered by Pavao Sperančić’s widow and briefly by Ban Ivan Tuz until the temporary restoration of the Talovac family, with the help of King Matthias.270 The Vlatković family was feuding with Duke Vlatko, son and successor of Duke Stjepan Vukčić Kosača, who also had control over parts of Krajina, Gorska župa (a district near Vrgorac), Imotski (at least until 1467), the fort of Visući near the town of Omiš, and the community of Poljica (up until the 1470s).271 Visući, defended by Radič Banović, may have been one of two forts given to the Neapolitan envoys by Vlatko’s brother Vladislav in 1466, but this was only a temporary acquisition and the men of Ferrante of Naples soon departed, feeling threatened by the neighbouring Venetian garrisons.272 Two Hungarian garrisons in Hum—​Počitelj and Koš—​were conquered by the Turks in 1471 and 1490/​91, respectively. After the fall of Počitelj, Ottoman raids reached Croatia, Istria, and the Slovenian lands (1471/​72).273 The župa of Livno was still in Hungarian hands in 1465, but most of it was conquered by 1468 and 1469.274 After a temporary peace with Duke Vlatko, the Turks organized the separate sanjak (higher military and administrative division within Ottoman Empire) of Hersek (Hercegovina) around 1470.275 Vlatko continued his rivalry with the Radivojević-​Vlatković family, even when some of them became Turkish supporters, trying to expel them from the lower Neretva and Krajina. Around 1475/​77, Tadija (Thaddeus) Vlatković, known as “Voivode Dadoy” in 269  Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine, 74–​96, 140–​47. 270  Grgin, Počeci rasapa, 97–​98.

271  Marko Šunjić, “Vlatko Kosača u Poljicima 1487. godine,” Godišnjak Društva istoričara BiH 34 (1983): 145–​47; Đuro Tošić, “Fragmenti iz života hercega Vlatka Kosače,” Istorijski časopis 56 (2008): 153–​72 at 161–​71; Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine, 64–​125. 272  Ćirković, Herceg Stefan, 266; Šuica, “Bosanska vlasteoska porodica Banovići,” 31. 273  Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine, 122–​23, 126–​43.

274  Lajos Thallóczy and Sándor Horváth, Alsó-​szlavóniai okmánytár (Dubicza, Orbász és Szana vármegyék) 1244–​1710 (Budapest:  Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1912), 335–​36; Thallóczy, Studien, 425–​26; Aličić, Sumarni popis, 100, 195–​96; Ribar, Zapadne strane, 141–​43. 275  Hazim Šabanović, Bosanski pašaluk:  postanak i upravna podjela (Sarajevo:  Svjetlost, 1982), 44–​46; Ahmed S.  Aličić, Poimenični popis sandžaka vilajeta Hercegovina (Sarajevo:  Orijentalni institut, 1985), passim.

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Turkish documents, was the proprietor of almost all of Krajina and Rogoznica, east of Omiš. All the other estates in the littoral belonged to the Kačić family, while the nobles of Radobilja also submitted to the authority of the Turks.276 Interestingly, Tadija was later in Croatia (1487) buying vast estates in the district of Petrovo polje in Knin County.277 His brother, Andrija-​Avgustin (Andrew-​Augustine), also changed allegiances. He was a friar and Hungarian supporter, but later turned to the Ottoman side. In the sixteenth century the whole eastern part of Krajina was turned into the so-​called nahiye (lower administrative unit within Ottoman Empire) Fragostin (i.e., Friar Augustine’s district).278 Up until 1528, members of the Vlatković family inhabited Krajina and the lower Neretva, acting as semi-​autonomous Turkish administrators.279 In 1481, Duke Vlatko surrendered the town of Novi to the Turks and received several estates controlled by the sultan.280 Around 1487/​88 he decided to leave the last remains of his fatherland and move to Rab, a Venetian island in the northern part of the eastern Adriatic. He died there in 1489 and his heirs continued the dynasty as nobles of Venice.281 Vlatko’s brother, Vladislav, went to Slavonia, where he died the same year as his sibling. His descendants later lived in Transylvania and their line became extinct in the early seventeenth century.282 By the 1490s, many parts of Croatia were under constant Ottoman attack, although some fortresses remained in local hands through to the 1520s and 1530s. In the 1490s, Hungary, under Jagiellonian rule devised a plan to unite the remaining parts of Bosnia and Croatian lands under the administration of John Corvinus, illegitimate son of King Matthias.283 Some thirty years later, there was nothing left to unite—​all the territories that had been fought over for decades, even centuries, by the Bosnian and Croatian Kingdom belonged to the Ottoman Empire.

Conclusion Being immediate neighbours since at least the twelfth century, Bosnia and Croatia-​ Dalmatia naturally developed political, economic, and cultural relations. The populations of both entities had similar origins, customs, and basic social structure, and they shared virtually the same language, which facilitated cooperation. Religious differences were significant but they were gradually diminishing and did not generate conflicts. The 276  Aličić, Poimenični popis, 89–​95. 277  Isailović and Jakovljević, “Srednjovjekovno Brečevo,” 45, 55–​56. 278  Đuro Tošić, “Andrija (fra Avgustin) Vlatković—(ne)svakidašnji primjer humskog velikaša,” in Nauka i identitet. Zbornik radova sa naučnog skupa, vol. 2, ed. Vladimir Milisavljević (Pale: Univerzitet u Istočnom Sarajevu, 2012), 61–​67; Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine, 143–​46. 279  Srđan Rudić, “Petar Pavlović—Vojvoda Humski i Krajine,” Zbornik za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine 7 (2012): 49–​60. 280  Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine, 134–​35, 146–​47.

281  Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine,147, 166–​87; Tošić, “Fragmenti iz života,” 153–​72. 282  Atanasovski, Pad Hercegovine, 154–​65.

283  Engel, The Realm, 345–​46; Rokai, “Guverner, banovi, kraljevi,” 269.

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52 Neven Isailović development of the Bosnian state and economy in the fourteenth century led to conflict with their neighbours, whose geographical position kept Bosnia landlocked for centuries. The acquisition of Hum, Trebinje, and Konavle from Serbia brought the Bosnians to the hinterland of the unconquerable Dubrovnik, but Central Dalmatia also had several wealthy communes important in trade and communication with the western Adriatic coast. Despite differing historiographical opinions on the political status of Bosnia—​ whether it was fully independent or part of a Hungarian Archiregnum284—​it is certain that it used its geographical, economic, and social potentials to broaden its territory towards southern Croatia and Dalmatia, which were effectively cut off from the central parts of the Realm of St. Stephen. Paradoxically, accepting vassalage to the Hungarian rulers eventually enhanced the opportunities of Bosnia and its lords to advance westwards, either through open war or negotiations. Ironically, Bosnia was an ally and an enemy at the same time in the 1430s and in turn called heretical and pious in the 1450s. Bosnia’s expansionist actions were locally motivated but had regional importance and much wider consequences. Almost all its conquests, wherever they originated, were motivated by strengthened regional or marcher lords of royal or noble origin. At the height of their power, the Šubić family made the first move, becoming the lords of Sclavonia, but their rise was halted by the might of the Hungarian state. In contrast, Tvrtko of Bosnia was “ban by the grace of God and King Louis” in 1366, but in 1390 his kingdom overran vast areas of Croatia and Dalmatia. This development might have been just a brief glorious episode for Bosnia brought on by temporary circumstances, but the era of Hrvoje Vukčić showed that a marcher lord who changed allegiances whenever he had to, but was mostly considered a Bosnian by his contemporaries, could bring an earthquake to the whole region. Hrvoje’s period seriously influenced the political map of the Balkans for decades and even longer. His actions in Croatia and Dalmatia, both inadvertently and deliberately, led to the Venetian domination of Dalmatia and accelerated the Turkish advance into the western Balkans. Despite the adaptability of medieval people, this surely must have induced a long-​term atmosphere of distrust among neighbouring states, which can be observed in historical sources. In the ensuing years and decades, despite the growing Ottoman threat, Bosnian and Croatian lords waged periodic wars among themselves. Their lands, exhausted by powerful enemies and unable to live up to the expectations of the promoters of the concept of the Antimurale Christianitatis, eventually became Ottoman prey, one after another.

284  On different concepts of Bosnian statehood cf. Mladen Ančić, “Od zemlje do kraljevstva: mjesto Bosne u strukturi Archiregnuma,” Hercegovina 1 (2015):  9–​88; Klaić, Srednjovjekovna Bosna, passim; Lovrenović, Na klizištu, passim.

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Chapter 2

RELATIONS BETWEEN THE BOSNIAN KINGDOM AND THE SERBIAN DESPOTATE IN A REGIONAL CONTEXT

Enes Dedić* THE MEDIEVAL BOSNIAN Kingdom and the Serbian Despotate1 were two different political, religious, and cultural state organizations. Relations between the states led to border interactions, alliances, conflicts, and affiliation to the same or a broader opposing political camp over a period of time between 1402 and 1459. Because they were not connected by such common medieval relations as vassalage and suzerainty, the contacts between Bosnia and the despotate were of low intensity with ongoing issues. Such contacts often included a wide range of neighbouring states, thereby creating significant moments that left their mark on everyday life in the wider area of Southeast Europe. The specific geographical positions of these states initiated a continuous overlapping of strong influences of eastern and western factors. The mutual relations between the Bosnian Kingdom and Serbian Despotate in the fifteenth century cannot be observed from today’s perspective without accepting the political picture of the wider region. At the beginning of the fifteenth century, the South Slavic countries, and most of all, Bosnia and the Serbian Despotate, found themselves in the gap between the political ambitions of the Ottoman Empire and Hungary. Those were two powerful states in different religious and political positions. While the Ottoman expansion was the strongest, Hungarian policy towards the southern neighbours took on an increasingly defensive character. In addition to them, Ragusa, which has always been an interested factor in gaining economic and political profit from the neighbouring countries, was another active participant in the creation of an image of mutual relations between Bosnia and the despotate. The character and quality of the relations of these countries towards Bosnia and the despotate greatly influenced their position in the regional policy, which directly reflected on the mutual relations of these two countries. The thematic framework of the neighbouring states’ roles in the formation of the political relations between the Bosnian Kingdom and the Serbian Despotate has not *  Enes Dedić earned his PhD at the University of Sarajevo in 2017 with a dissertation entitled The Bosnian Kingdom and the Serbian Despotate (1402–​1459). He has been employed at the Institute of History of the University of Sarajevo since 2016 and is currently a research associate for the Middle Ages. His work draws on documents held in the State Archives of Dubrovnik.

1  Historical sources did not refer to despot Stephen Lazarević’s state, established in 1402, as the Serbian Despotate. This state chronologically represents the last form of the medieval Serbian statehood. The term Serbian Despotate represents an established mark for this state in historiography and as such is adopted in this paper.

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54 Enes Dedić been adequately represented in previous historiography. So far, this problem has been treated in monographs on Bosnian relations with Hungary and Venice, unpublished doctoral theses on Bosnian relations with the Ottoman Empire and the city of Ragusa,2 studies on the relations of Ragusa with the Hungarians and the Ottomans, and on the relations between the Balkan states and the Ottomans.3 The specific fate that befell the territory of Bosnia and the despotate in later periods meant that a great deal of diplomatic source material concerning the relations between the two states was lost over subsequent centuries. To this day there is only one preserved document that directly treats the mutual relations between these states.4 Due to this, research into the relationship between the despotate and Bosnia is based on the archives of neighbouring states that are much better preserved and contain numerous data on this topic. The available sources that originated in the years immediately following the establishment of the Serbian Despotate do not provide detailed information on relations with neighbouring Bosnia. The paucity of sources surely does not mean a lack of contacts and links between these states, but it is certain that in this period they were infrequent. At the time, their relations were dictated by the international positions of these states in the politics of Southeast Europe. Due to fear of the Ottomans, Despot Stephen was naturally directed towards King Sigismund of Luxembourg (r. 1387–​1437). Negotiations between the Hungarian and Serbian rulers occurred in late 1403 or early 1404, which strengthened Despot Stephen’s position.5 Along with the other possessions that he received from the Hungarian king, on this occasion he extended his power to Mačva, Golubac, and Belgrade.6 The direct consequence of good Serbian-​Hungarian relations was seen in the fact that the despotate bordered with Bosnia in the northern parts. King Sigismund tried to establish a firmer foothold along the southern Hungarian borders in order to resist frequent Ottoman attacks. He led military actions from 1404 to 1408 with the aim of reversing Bosnia’s conquests in Croatia and Dalmatia, taking

2  Marko Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija (odnosi u XIV. i XV. st.) (Sarajevo: HKD Napredak, 1996); Dubravko Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti (Sveta kruna ugarska i sveta kruna bosanska) 1387–​1463 (Zagreb and Sarajevo:  Synopsis, 2006); Emir Filipović, Bosansko kraljevstvo i Osmansko carstvo od 1386. do 1463. godine, unpublished doctoral dissertation (Sarajevo:  Faculty of Philosophy, 2014); Adis Zilić, Bosna i Dubrovnik (od kraja XII do sredine XV stoljeća), unpublished doctoral dissertation (Mostar: Faculty of Humanities, 2016). 3  Jovan Radonić, Zapadna Evropa i balkanski narodi prema Turcima u prvoj polovini XV veka (Novi Sad: Izdanje Matice Srpske, 1905); Ivan Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska u XIV i XV veku (Beograd: Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1952); Dušanka Dinić-​Knežević, Dubrovnik i Ugarska u srednjem veku (Novi Sad: Filozofski fakultet-​Institut za istoriju, 1986).

4  It is a charter of Bosnian king Stephen Tomaš directed to logothete Stephen Ratković in October 1458. Franz Miklosich, Monumenta serbica spectantia historiam Serbiae Bosnae Ragusii (Vienna: Apud Guilelmum Braumuller, 1858), 481.

5  Stanoje Stanojević, Pipo Spano-​Prilog srpskoj istoriji početkom XV veka (Beograd:  Štamparija Kraljevine Srbije, 1901), 8–​9; Jovanka Kalić, “Despot Stefan i Vizantija,” Zbornik radova Vizantološkog institute 43 (2006): 31–​40 at 33. 6  Kalić, “Despot Stefan i Vizantija,” 33; Jovanka Kalić Mijušković, Beograd u srednjem veku (Beograd: Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1967), 83–​84.

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over the Bosnian crown and expanding his territories.7 In the first decade of the fifteenth century, King Sigismund initiated an interesting approach to relations with his southern neighbours through his foreign policy towards Bosnia and the despotate. On his own initiative, Sigismund reached an agreement with Despot Stephen. Sigismund, however, harboured constant mistrust towards the Bosnian kings and nobles, which in turn created an imbalance in the relations between Bosnia and the despotate since the despotate held a much better international position. King Sigismund and Duke Hrvoje of Bosnia reached an agreement in late 1408.8 Details of this agreement are not known, but the deal certainly influenced Hrvoje’s ultimate decision to surrender his towns in eastern Bosnia: Srebrenica, Kučlat, Susjed, and Brodar, to the Hungarian king in the spring of 1410.9 It is quite possible that, according to the parameters of this agreement, Duke Hrvoje has received certain privileges from the King Sigismund. In September 1410 Sigismund visited Bosnia in order to be crowned as the Bosnian ruler. According to Ragusan sources, Despot Stephen was in Bosnia together with Sigismund.10 The arrival of Despot Stephen on the territory of the Bosnian Kingdom probably should have had a role in Sigismund’s attempt to be crowned as king of Bosnia because the Serbian Despot was one of the most loyal vassals of the Hungarian crown. It is difficult to determine whether Stephen was accompanied by his army or only by his entourage during his stay in Bosnia. In any case, the complete episode was another of Sigismund’s unsuccessful attempts to seize the Bosnian crown. The most important instance of Hungarian influence on the relationship between Bosnia and the despotate concerns Sigismund’s ceding of Srebrenica to Despot Stephen. At this time, Srebrenica had one of the most important silver mines in this part of Europe, which brought a large income to the ones who had the authority over this place. The mine exploitation in Srebrenica started during the fourteenth century, just to reach its highest intensity in the fifteenth century. Srebrenica developed into a strong economic 7  Vladimir Ćorović, Historija Bosne (Beograd:  Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1940), 393–​406; Marko Perojević, “Stjepan Tvrtko II. Tvrtković,” in Poviest hrvatskih zemalja Bosne i Hercegovine od najstarijih vremena do godine 1463 (Sarajevo: HKD Napredak, 1942), 417–​30; Sima Ćirković, Istorija srednjovekovne bosanske države (Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga, 1964), 201–​14; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 121–​54. 8  Ćirković, Istorija, 211–​12; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 144–​45. 9  Jozsef Gelcich and Lajos Thalloczy, Diplomatarium relationum Reipublicae Ragusane cum Regno Hungariae (Budapest: Kiadja am. Tud. Akadémia Tört. Bizottsàga, 1887), 195; Ferdo Šišić, Vojvoda Hrvoje Vukčić Hrvatinić i njegovo doba (Zagreb: Izdanje “Matice Hrvatske,” 1902), 221; Pavo Živković, Tvrtko II Tvrtković-​Bosna u prvoj polovini XV stoljeća (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju, 1981), 65–​66; Jelena Mrgić, “Župe i naselja zemlje Usore,” Jugoslovenski istorijski časopis 1, no. 2 (2000): 27–​41 at 40; Neven Isailović, “Jedan nepoznati izvor o predaji gradova Hrvoja Vukčića Hrvatinića ugarskom kralju Žigmundu,” Istorijski časopis 64 (2015): 135–​58 at 144–​46. 10  Dubrovnik State Archives (hereafter: DSA), Reformationes XXXIII, 282; D, SA, Lettere di Levante V, 42v; Jovanka Kalić, “Nemirno doba,” in Istorija srpskog naroda: Doba borbi za očuvanje i obnovu države (1371–​1537), 10 vols. (Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga 1981–​1982), 2:82–​83; Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 24; Marko Perojević, “Stjepan Ostoja (opet),” in Poviest hrvatskih zemalja Bosne i Hercegovine od najstarijih vremena do godine 1463, 434; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 152.

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56 Enes Dedić centre that contained a large number of traders, artisans and other business people from Bosnia and the neighbouring countries. By the beginning of the fifteenth century, Srebrenica was under the control of Bosnian rulers. The earliest information about Srebrenica as part of the Serbian state dates from May 1413, when the geographic location of a church was explained in terms of ad partes Sclauonie ad locum Srebernize.11 This information suggests that Despot Stephen’s rule in Srebrenica was already established. Ragusan sources from August 1415 indicate that the Hungarian king handed over Srebrenica to the Serbian despot,12 which sowed the seeds of discord between Bosnia and the Serbian Despotate. The attack of the Bosnian military on this place in April 1411 probably arose from this act.13 From that time on, this rich and important place became an apple of discord between these states for decades. From mid-​1411 relations between Voivode Sandalj of Bosnia and King Sigismund improved noticeably.14 By the time of a convocation in Buda in May 1412, half a year after Sandalj had married Stephen’s sister Jelena, Sandalj’s relations with the Serbian ruler already had a solid foundation. The Ragusans possessed information on joint plans between Sandalj and Stephen at that time, but sources do not indicate precisely what those plans were.15 Based on their subsequent activities it is possible that they had agreed on a joint attack on Prince Musa, the son of Sultan Bayezid I (r. 1389–​1402), who had been pressuring the despotate since January 1412.16 The arrangements of these activities certainly took place under the patronage of King Sigismund. Sandalj, Stephen, and Sigismund became allies after the summer of 1412. Sandalj’s military units, together with Hungarian and Serbian forces, defeated Prince Musa’s army in mid-​1413.17 The Ragusans notified Sigismund in late July that they had learned from Sandalj’s deputies that Musa had been defeated18 and they also noted Sandalj’s significant help of Despot Stephen.19 11  Mihailo Dinić, Za istoriju rudarstva u srednjevekovnoj Srbiji i Bosni, 2 vols. (Beograd: Srpska akademija nauka Posebna izdanja 140, Odeljenje društvenih nauka 14, 1955), 1:57. 12  Gelcich and Thalloczy, Diplomatarium, 251.

13  Gelcich and Thalloczy, Diplomatarium, 200–​201; Dinić, Za istoriju rudarstva, 1:56–​57.

14  Gelcich and Thalloczy, Diplomatarium, 201; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 166–​67; Esad Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda bosanski Sandalj Hranić Kosača (Sarajevo: Institut za istoriju, 2009), 184–​85.

15  Gelcich and Thalloczy, Diplomatarium, 206; Ћоровић, Хисторија, 409; Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda, 189. 16  Konstantin Jireček, Istorija Srba, 2 vols. (Beograd: Slovo Ljubve, 1978), 1:344; Nedim Filipović, Princ Musa i šejh Bedreddin (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1971), 450–​51.

17  Vatroslav Jagić, “Konstantin Filosof i njegov život Stefana Lazarevića despota srpskog,” Glasnik Srpskog učenog društva 42 (1875): 223–​328 at 307–​10; Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 26–​27; Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska, 29; Jireček, Istorija Srba, 1:344–​45; Filipović, Princ Musa, 509. 18  DSA, Lettere di Levante VII, 76v; Gelcich and Thallóczy, Diplomatarium, 225–​26; Jovan Radonić, Dubrovačka akta i povelje, 5 vols. (Beograd: Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1934–​1951), 1:225–​26; Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda, 198. 19  Ljubomir Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje i pisma, 2 vols. (Beograd-Sremski Karlovci: Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1929), 1, no. 1:290; Kurtović, Veliki vojvoda, 199, 432.

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The rift in relations between Duke Hrvoje and Sigismund in mid-​1413 led the Ottomans to enter the conflict a year later on the side of the Bosnian nobleman.20 The final clash between the two rivals, the Ottomans and Hungarians, took place on Bosnian territory, in Lašva in July 1415, and the Turks were victorious. Several Bosnian noblemen and their armies fought on the Ottoman side.21 The Turkish victory over the Hungarians in Bosnia led to a change in the previous political norms. Hungarian influence on the relations between Bosnia and the despotate was significantly reduced, and their role in the following decades was taken by the Ottomans. Significant moves of Hungarian diplomacy towards their southern neighbours in the 1420s were reflected through agreements with both the Bosnian and Serbian rulers. In an agreement with Despot Stephen, the Hungarian king accepted George Branković (r. 1427–​1456) as his successor.22 In the treaty with King Tvrtko II Tvrtković (r. 1404–​1409, 1421–​1443), it was agreed that the Bosnian crown, if the Kotromanić king had no offspring, would be inherited by Sigismund’s father-​in-​law, Count Hermann II of Celje.23 This example clearly shows Sigismund’s dual approach to his southern neighbours to secure a stable position for the despotate. Simultaneously, the Ottomans were increasing pressure on Bosnia and the despotate. This pressure meant that the Bosnian ruler began to pay tribute and Despot George saw a significant increase in his annual tribute.24 Simultaneous pressure on Bosnia and the despotate from their powerful neighbours in the 1420s ultimately caused the formation of a more flexible foreign policy in the states that were in the Hungarian and Ottoman spheres of influence. Due to his good relations with the Hungarian and the Ottoman courts, Ragusan diplomacy drew Despot George into the Konavlian war, which occurred in the mid-​1430s between Voivode Radoslav Pavlović of Bosnia and the city of Ragusa. From their first diplomatic step, the Ragusans involved Despot George in the war since they had a common suzerain and he had good relations with the Ottomans. The initial attempts to involve the 20  Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska, 47; Esad Kurtović, “Oko velikog osmanskog upada u Bosnu 1414. godine,” Godišnjak BZK Preporod 2 (2002): 130–​34 at 133; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 175. 21  Ćorović, Historija, 416; Jelena Mrgić, Severna Bosna 13.–​16. vek (Beograd: Istorijski institut, 2008), 108–​9.

22  Georgius Fejér, Codex diplomaticus Hungariae ecclesiasticus ac civilis, 11  vols., 36 pts. (Buda:  Typogr. Regiae Vniverstitatis Vngaricae, 1829–​1843), 10, no.  6:809–​13; Jovan Radonić, “Sporazum u Tati 1426 i srpsko-​ugarski odnosi od XIII–​XVI veka,” Glas Srpske kraljevske akademije 187 (1941):  117–​232; Ivica Prlender, “Sporazum u Tati 1426. godine i Žigmundovi obrambeni sustavi,” Historijski zbornik 44, no. 1 (1991): 33–​39.

23  Fejer, Codex diplomaticvs, 10, no.  6:  900–​901; Peter Štih, “Celjski grofje kot dediči bosanske krone–​Listina bosanskega kralja Tvrtka II Kotromanića za celjskega grofa Hermana II. iz leta 1427,” in Med srednjo Evropo in Sredozemljem-​Vojetov zbornik, ed. Sašo Jerše (Ljubljana:  Založba ZRC, 2006), 79–​103; Pejo Ćošković, “Fridrih II Celjski kao pretendent na bosansko prijestolje,” Prilozi Instituta za istoriju 35 (2006): 11–​29 at 14. 24  Ćorović, Historija, 437; Jireček, Istorija Srba, 1:355; Desanka Kovačević, “Prilog pitanju ranih bosansko-​turskih odnosa,” Godišnjak Društva istoričara BiH 11 (1962): 257–​63 at 260–​63; Živković, Tvrtko II, 125–​27.

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58 Enes Dedić despot in the conflict were realized through King Sigismund and Ban Matko Talovac and after that the Ragusans made direct contact with the Serbian court.25 With the despot’s permission, mercenaries from the despotate entered Ragusan service.26 The Ragusans intended to offer military support to the Serbian despot alongside the Bosnian king and Voivode Sandalj, but connections with Sultan Murad II (r. 1421–​1451) led the Serbian despot to take a more significant role in this war. The marginalization of Pavlović’s influence in the Ottoman Empire, from the Ragusan viewpoint, was to be done through joint Hungarian and Serbian diplomacy and with the help of the Bosnian king and nobility.27 At the request of the Hungarian court, George’s direct impact in this conflict was achieved through diplomatic relations with Voivode Radoslav and Sultan Murad II.28 Despite good relations with the Ottomans, the role of Despot George in the Konavlian war remained tied to the Ragusan idea of purchasing Pavlović’s possessions. Once Tvrtko II became responsible for arbitration, George’s role in the Konavlian issue ceased from mid-​1431. During 1432 and 1433 there was a direct conflict between King Tvrtko II and Despot George caused by George’s interference in the Konavlian war.29 This event was also, to a certain degree, influenced by the neighbouring states. The despotate’s consistent position on foreign policy came to the fore again in this war, especially towards the Ottomans. Along with the war against the Serbian ruler, the Bosnian king had to deflect Ottoman attacks. George used his ties with the sultan to prevent Tvrtko from using diplomatic moves to bind the Ottoman court to his side. Tvrtko’s only possible support was the Hungarian King Sigismund, with whom he sought to improve relations, helped by the Ragusans.30 The consequence of the conflict, which ended in the summer of 1433, was probably the occupation of Zvornik and its surroundings by Despot George.31 The participation of Tvrtko II and George in the convocation in Hungary in early 1435 is usually characterized in historiography as a conciliatory act directed by the Hungarian king.32 Although that type of information is not noted in the sources, there is a possibility 25  DSA, Lettere di Levante X, 118v, 130, 130v; DSA, Consilium Rogatorum IV, 15; Gelcich and Thálloczy, Diplomatarium, 337, 340, 342; Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska, 50; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 243–​44; Sima Ćirković, “Protivrečnosti balkanske politike,” in Istorija srpskog naroda: Doba borbi za očuvanje i obnovu države (1371–​1537), 2:232; Dinić-​Knežević, Dubrovnik i Ugarska, 93. 26  DSA, Lettere di Levante X, 153; Vladimir Ćorović, “Despot Đurađ Branković prema konavoskom ratu,” Glas Srpske kraljevske akademije 90 (1923): 26–​39 at 27–​29.

27  Ćiro Truhelka, “Konavoski rat (1430–​1433):  Historička studija po spomenicima dubrovačke arkive,” Glasnik Zemaljskog muzeja 29 (1917): 145–​211 at 151–​58; Ćorović, “Despot Đurađ,” 28–​39; Živković, Tvrtko II, 140–​62. 28  DSA, Lettere di Levante X, 191, 197v, 201, 203–​203v; Stojanović, Stare srpske povelje i pisma, 1, no. 2:231; Ćorović, “Despot Đurađ,” 28–​29.

29  Ćirković, Istorija, 265–​66; Živković, Tvrtko II, 164–​68; Momčilo Spremić, Despot Đurađ Branković i njegovo doba (Banja Luka: Glas srpski, 1999), 182–​84. 30  Spremić, Despot, 182; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 253–​54.

31  DSA, Lettere di Levante XIV, 92; Mavro Orbin, Kraljevstvo Slovena (Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga, 1968), 163. 32  Ćorović, Historija, 445; Živković, Tvrtko II, 175; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 258.

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that Sigismund insisted on reconciling the feuding parties for the safety of his own country; after their meeting with Sigismund further outbreaks of hostilities between Tvrtko II and George stopped. Sigismund presented a plan of defence that included the territory of Usora, the despotate, Wallachia, and Moldavia, but did not include the active involvement of the Bosnian ruler. Considering that the Serbian despot was regarded as one of the most important factors in this plan, Sigismund’s antagonism and unequal attitude towards the Balkan rulers came to the fore once again. By emphasizing that the gathered army should be directed towards warfare with the Ottomans, Hussites, and Bosnians, the Hungarian king clearly drew the line between his friends and enemies, and Bosnia and the despotate found themselves on opposite sides.33 Despite the agreements reached between the rulers at the end of the 1430s, the Ottomans exerted strong pressure on the despotate. As a result of the attacks, the population was in fear and started moving from the despotate to neighbouring Bosnia.34 At the end of 1437, Sigismund’s death left Despot George without a strong protector for the despotate in the fight against the Ottomans. After several years of constant attacks, the Ottomans conquered the capital city Smederevo and took over the despotate in mid-​1439. George left the capital and moved to Hungary, where he tried to encourage his neighbours to start a war against the Ottomans.35 A Ragusan chronicle noted that Despot George was expelled de Bosnia et de Servia by gran Turco Murat Bey Zelebia.36 Mention of the despot’s expulsion from Bosnia is in the context of the chronicler narrating the Ottoman conquest of the possessions which had until recently belonged to the Bosnian crown. With the Ottomans’ conquest of the despotate, Srebrenica had become part of the Ottoman Empire by 1440.37 Parallel with the Ottoman attack on Smederevo in mid-​1439, Voivode Stephen Vukčić Kosača of Bosnia began attacks on the remaining possessions of Despot George.38 Stephen’s move towards Despot George has been interpreted in the historiography as part of his obligations as a vassal of Sultan Murad II.39 The Ragusans offered mediation in peacemaking, emphasizing to Voivode Stephen the importance of restoring the despotate, which would once more be a good shield for Bosnia and Hungary.40 The Bosnian voivode 33  Ignaz Aurelius Fessler, Geschichte von Ungarn, 2  vols. (Leipzig:  Brockhaus, 1867–​1883), 1: 416–​20; Petar Rokai, “Posljednje godine balkanske politike kralja Žigmunda (1435–​1437),” Godišnjak Filozofskog fakuteta Novi Sad 12, no. 1 (1969): 89–​109 at 91. 34  Eusebius Fermendžin, Acta Bosnae potissimum ecclesiastica cum insertis editorum documentarum regestis ab anno 925 usque ad annum 1752 (Zagreb: JAZU, 1892), 159; Momčilo Spremić, “Prvi pad Despotovine,” in Istorija srpskog naroda, 2:248. 35  Spremić, “Prvi pad Despotovine,” 246.

36  Ragnina, Annales Ragusini Anonymi item Nicola de Ragnina (Zagreb: JAZU, 1883), 56. 37  DSA, Consilium Rogatorum VII, 175; Dinić, Za istoriju rudarstva, 1:74.

38  DSA, Lettere di Levante XII, 148; Sima Ćirković, Herceg Stefan Vukčić Kosača i njegovo doba (Beograd: SANU, 1964), 46. 39  Ćorović, Historija, 455; Ćirković, Istorija, 271; Ćirković, Herceg, 46.

40  DSA, Lettere di Levante XIII, 14; Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 97; Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska, 85; Ćirković, Herceg, 50; Spremić, Despot, 291.

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60 Enes Dedić was not interested in reconciliation with the Serbian despot because he felt this was a favourable situation that would allow him to gain new territory.41 Despot George’s arrival in the city of Ragusa caused even greater complications42 and the intervention of powerful neighbours in the relationship between Bosnia and despotate.43 Ottoman deputies sent a reprimand to the Ragusans for accepting Despot George44 and ordered Voivode Stephen to attack the city for helping the Serbian ruler.45 According to the chronicle of a Ragusan author, Mauro Orbini, Murad II made an offer to the Ragusans–​an exchange of Bosnian towns and the area near the city of Ragusa for the despot’s extradition.46 In July 1441, Despot George left Ragusa for Hungary;47 his departure affected the positions of Ragusa and Voivode Stephen since he was clearly unresponsive to the sultan’s order. Despot George now had favourable circumstances for organizing an expedition against the Ottomans. By the end of 1443, the Serbian and Hungarian forces had defeated the Ottomans.48 The new Bosnian king, Stephen Thomas (Tomaš) (r. 1443–​1461) used the confirmation of his rule by the Hungarian King Vladislav (r. 1440–​1444), as a reason for seizing Srebrenica and the nearby fort of Srebrenik from the Ottomans in May 1444.49 Thomas directed an anti-​Ottoman coalition towards occupying territory that Despot George also had his eyes on. It is difficult to determine the extent to which this attack was carried out in coordination with the Hungarian court. In June 1444, the deputies of the despot and the Hungarian King Vladislav met in Edirne where they reached a non-​aggression agreement with the Ottomans. Under the provisions of the agreement, George became a subject of Sultan Murad II and agreed to pay a large annual tribute, which enabled him to re-​establish his authority over the despotate almost within the same borders as before 1439.50 Parallel to these negotiations, the despot made a separate agreement with the Ottomans through an envoy of his daughter Mara, wife of Sultan Murad II, which further strengthened his position with the Ottomans.51 41  Ćirković, Herceg, 50. 42  Јorjo Tadić, Promet putnika u starom Dubrovniku (Dubrovnik:  Izdanje turističkog saveza, 1939), 82; Jelka Ređep, “Dubrovnik, utočište srpskih despota Brankovića,” Zbornik Matice srpske za slavistiku 36 (1989): 99–​107 at 100. 43  DSA, Consilium Rogatorum VIII, 2v; Gelcich and Thalloczy, Diplomatarium, 433; Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 100; Ćirković, Herceg, 52. 44  Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska, 87.

45  Gelcich and Thalloczy, Diplomatarium, 435–​36. 46  Orbin, Kraljevstvo Slovena, 113–​14.

47  Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 104; Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska, 88; Ređep, “Utočište,” 100. 48  Milomir Maksimović, “Srbi i Duga vojna 1443/​1444. godine,” Vojnoistorijski glasnik 1 (2013): 45–​70 at 52–​63.

49  DSA, Consilium Rogatorum IX, 51v; Mihailo Dinić, “Srebrenik kraj Srebrenice,” in Srpske zemlje u srednjem veku, ed. Sima Ćirković (Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga, 1978), 357; Pejo Ćošković, Bosanska kraljevina u prijelomnim godinama 1443–​1446. (Banja Luka:  Institut za istoriju, 1988), 54, 56. 50  Jireček, Istorija Srba, 1:369; Spremić, Despot, 339. 51  Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 201–​10; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 287.

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Over the years, the agreement with Sultan Murad II put the Serbian ruler in a favourable position in relation to the neighbouring rulers and nobility. George took advantage of his ties to the Ottoman court and influenced the political behaviour of the Bosnian king and nobility. Immediately after the restoration of the despotate in the autumn of 1444, Voivode Stephen negotiated a peace and an alliance with George by returning the possessions which he had conquered at the time of the Ottoman occupation of the despotate.52 In the following years the relationship between George and Stephen was constantly in flux.53 The established reputation of the Serbian ruler remained unchanged, and in the coming years he became a diplomatic liaison with the Ottomans.54 Changes in the expansionism of the neighbouring powers in early 1448 necessitated a further political arrangement of the Balkan rulers and nobles. The Ottomans made the first move at the beginning of 1448, when they carried out an attack on Bosnian territory. According to the count of Korčula, Peter Soranzo, the Ottoman incursion into Bosnia was directed by Despot George, who offered his guides on this expedition.55 Immediately after the attack, King Thomas and Voivode Stephen attempted to reach a reconciliation with George, who should have intervened to fix the status with Murad II.56 Stephen and George reached a peace in mid-​1448, most likely through the mediation of the king of Naples, Alfonso V (r. 1442–​1458).57 The Balkan states were unable to form a bloc against the Ottoman incursions. The Ottomans constantly used quarrels and divisions among rulers and nobles to deepen their own influence in the region. After the defeat by the Ottomans at the Field of Kosovo in 1448, the Hungarians had no more funds for new military ventures. For the governor, John Hunyadi, achieving peace with Murad II was of great importance. In such political circumstances the Hungarians sought to regulate relations with the Ottoman court through Despot George. The Serbian ruler, serving as a mediator in the peacemaking that occurred in May 1449, drew up a draft agreement that was submitted to the Hungarian assembly. According to the draft, the peace was to last for seven years and the despotate would pay only half the usual tribute to the sultan, Bosnia would continue paying the full amount, and the earlier debts of the Bosnian crown to Murad II would be written off. According to this agreement, Bosnia and the despotate would benefit by ensuring peace with the Ottomans. As an alternative option, the despot proposed that according 52  DSA, Consilium Rogatorum IX, 88v; Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 247; Ćirković, Herceg, 80; Momčilo Spremić, “Duga vojna i obnova države,” in Istorija srpskog naroda, 2:260. 53  Ćorović, Historija, 476; Ćirković, Herceg, 92; Ćošković, Kraljevina, 104–​5.

54  DSA, Lettere di Levante XIII, 244v–​245; Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 248; Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska, 114; Ćirković, Herceg, 99–​100; Spremić, Despot, 377, 382. 55  Frane Radić, “Prilog za povjest slavenskoga juga god. 1448.” Starine JAZU 27 (1895): 226–​38 at 227–​28; Ćorović, Historija, 482; Ćirković, Istorija, 290. 56  DSA, Consilium Rogatorum X, 199v, 206; DSA, Lettere di Levante XIII, 261vbis; Ćirković, Herceg, 105; Spremić, Despot, 384.

57  Radić, “Prilog,” 235; Momčilo Spremić, “Despot Đurađ Branković i kralj Alfons Aragonski,” in Prekinut uspon-​Srpske zemlje u poznom srednjem veku (Beograd:  Zavod za udžbenike i nastavna sredstva, 2005), 377.

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62 Enes Dedić to the earlier truce made during King Sigismund’s reign Bosnia and the despotate would pay their full amounts of tribute.58 George’s draft included the removal of the Balkan states from the influence of the Hungarians and the Ottomans, which suited neither side. The proposed agreement was negligible for the Bosnian king because it was not in the despot’s interest to facilitate Thomas’s position. The proposed draft agreement was never submitted to the Ottomans because it was rejected at the Hungarian assembly in the presence of the Bosnian king and the despot. During this meeting, papal delegates argued the importance of making peace between the Bosnian and Serbian rulers and they agreed on a reconciliation plan according to which their mutual conflicts would be resolved in court.59 Despite the attempts of the Roman Curia during 1450 to reconcile the two rulers, no reconciliation occurred.60 The relations of the Bosnian king with the Serbian despot from 1448 to 1450 must be observed through the lens of the unsettled relations with the Ottomans as being the most unstable point of Thomas’s foreign policy. The constant vulnerability of the king’s possessions directed him towards his eastern neighbour, who made a significant impact on the sultan and the Ottoman officials in subsequent years. The despot’s influence on the Ottoman court in the early 1450s enabled him to interfere in the conflict between Bosnia and the city of Ragusa once again. In the spring of 1451, there was strife between Duke Stephen Vukčić Kosača and the city of Ragusa, and along with these events the city of Ragusa began diplomatic correspondence with the Serbian ruler. The Ragusans sought to persuade the despot to obtain permission from Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1451–​1481) to attack Kosača’s possessions.61 The reconciliation between the Bosnian and Serbian rulers, which was achieved after the Ragusans insisted on it in the summer of 1450, was related to this event. Under this agreement King Thomas surrendered Srebrenica to George, while in turn the despot pledged to improve his position with Mehmed II.62 The Bosnian king regulated his status with the Ottomans in June 1452 through Despot George.63 Both rulers, according to the Ragusan plans, were meant to engage diplomatically and militarily against Duke Stephen. Kosača’s possessions were 58  Jozsef Teleki, Hunyadiak kora Magyarországon, 12  vols. (Pest:  Könyvnyomdaja, 1852–​1857), 10:243–​44; Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 261; Momčilo Spremić, “Turski tributari u 14. i 15. veku,” Istorijski glasnik 1, no.  2 (1970): 9–​59 at 37; Sima Ćirković, “Despot Đurađ Branković i ugarsko-​ turski pregovori 1454. godine,” Glas SANU 280, no. 15 (1971): 103–​12 at 104. 59  Radonić, Zapadna Evropa, 262; Jireček, Istorija Srba, 1:374; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 317. 60  Nicolai Iorga, Notes et extraits pour servir a l’histoire des croisades au XVe siècle, 6  vols. (Paris:  Ernest Leroux, 1899–​1916), 2:438–​39; Paulus Lukcsics, Diplomata pontificum saec. XV, 2  vols. (Budapest:  Monumenta Hungariae Italica Edidit collegium historicorum hungaricorum romanum, 1931–​1938), 2:274; Spremić, Despot, 412; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 317. 61  DSA, Lettere di Levante, XV, 70; Božić, Dubrovnik i Turska, 117.

62  DSA, Lettere di Levante XIV, 138–​39; Gelcich and Thalloczy, Diplomatarium, 514–​17; Mihailo Dinić, Iz dubrovačkog arhiva, 3  vols. (Beograd:  Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1967), 3:203–​4; Ljubomir Jovanović, “Ratovanje hercega Stjepana s Dubrovnikom 1451–​1454,” Godišnjica Nikole Čupića 10 (1888): 67–​198 at 143–​44. 63  DSA, Lettere di Levante XV, 105; Spremić, Despot, 441–​42.

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to be distributed among the participants. As a result, the Serbian ruler would receive part of the Bosnian state. Continuing his relations with the Ottoman court on the diplomatic level, Despot George did not intervene militarily on the side of Ragusa, nor did his ties with the Ottomans prevail in the resolution of the conflict.64 Parallel to these events, thanks to Despot George, a peace treaty was signed in April 1452 between the Ottoman Empire and Hungary. According to this treaty, the Serbian ruler profited by the confirmation of his possessions situated in Bosnia.65 There is a possibility that the meeting between Thomas and George, when the Bosnian ruler confirmed the despot’s ownership of Zvornik in November 1452, was directly related to this agreement.66 Immediately after the conquest of Constantinople in 1454, Sultan Mehmed II turned to conquering the despotate. The Ottoman attacks on the despotate were getting stronger every year and they resulted in the gradual conquest of the territory. Despot George’s death in late 1456 and a dispute among his successors only helped the Ottomans in their plans.67 During the attacks on the despotate, the sultan was trying to get help from the Bosnian king and nobility. At the beginning of 1456, the sultan’s request for military detachments for an attack on Smederevo and Belgrade reached Bosnia. According to this ultimatum the sultan asked Duke Stephen Kosača to send eight thousand soldiers, the Pavlović brothers six thousand, and the Bosnian king ten thousand, and to participate in the expedition personally. King Thomas and the nobility agreed to continue paying the usual tribute, but the king refused to send military aid to the Ottomans against the despotate.68 A few months later a request to send grain to feed the Ottoman troops in the despotate reached Bosnia.69 After Despot Lazar’s death (r. 1457–​1458) at the beginning of 1458, several rivals fought over the despotate’s throne, including King Thomas. According to the plans of the Bosnian king, which were directly related to the Hungarian interests, rule of the despotate was to be transferred to Bosnian Prince Stephen Tomašević.70 From the autumn of 1458, negotiations were held between the Bosnian, Hungarian, and Serbian 64  Ćirković, Herceg, 158–​99; Spremić, Despot, 435–​44. 65  Neculai Iorga, Acte si fragmente cu privire la istoria Romnilor, 3 vols. (Bucuresti, 1895–​1897), 3:25; Ćirković, “Despot Đurađ Branković i ugarsko-​turski pregovori 1454. godine,” 104–​6. 66  DSA, Lettere di Levante XIV, 113v; Spremić, Despot, 442. 67  Spremić, Despot, 477–​623.

68  Schematismus almae provinciae Sancti-​Joannis a Capistrano ordinis fratrum minorum S.P. Francisci in Hungaria (Koloszvar, 1909), 40; Ćirković, Herceg, 228; Kalić-​Mijušković, Beograd u srednjem veku, 134; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 325. 69  Šime Ljubić, Listine o odnošajih izmedju južnoga slavenstva i mletačke republike, 10  vols. (Zagreb: JAZU, 1868–​1891), 10:86–​90; Šunjić, Bosna i Venecija, 287–​88. 70  Ivan Nagy and Albert Nyary, Magyar diplomacziai emlekek-​Matyas kiraly korabol, 4  vols. (Budapest, 1875–​1878), 1:18; Vincentio Macuscev, Monumenta historica slavorum meridionalium vicinorumque populorum, 2  vols. (Varsaviae and Belgradi, 1874–​1882), 2:114–​15; Momčilo Spremić, “Propast srednjovekovne države,” in Istorija srpskog naroda, 2:306; Đuro Tošić, “Posljednja bosanska kraljica Mara (Jelena),” Zbornik za istoriju Bosne i Hercegovine 3 (2002): 32–​33; Neven Isailović, “Bračni planovi Kotromanića i državna politika Bosne polovinom XV veka,” in Pad Srpske despotovine 1459. godine, ed. Momčilo Spremić (Beograd: SANU, 2011), 210.

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64 Enes Dedić courts in order to link the remaining territory of Serbia to a stronger political framework. This was to take place through a marriage plan with Jelena (also known as Mara), Despot Lazar’s daughter.71 Hungary’s support for the Bosnian ruler’s plans was conditioned by the desire to create a stronger defensive zone between the Ottomans and Hungary. The marital plans were realized, and Bosnian Prince Stephen was declared the despot in March 1459. His rule lasted until June 1459, when the Ottomans conquered the capital of the Serbian Despotate—​Smederevo—​and the remaining parts of the country.72 Therefore, the Bosnian-​Hungarian plans for a long-​lasting possession of the despotate and significant resistance to the Ottomans ended unsuccessfully. ***

I have attempted to demonstrate that the neighbouring states had a significant role in the relationship between the Kingdom of Bosnia and the Serbian Despotate in the period from 1402 to 1459. The foreign policies pursued by Bosnia and the despotate made a significant contribution to their mutual conflicts. During the first decades of the fifteenth century the Hungarian Kingdom also played a significant role. At that time, Hungarian King Sigismund bestowed the rich Bosnian town of Srebrenica and its silver mine upon Despot Stephen and thus created the cause for a decades-​long conflict between Bosnian and Serbian rulers and nobles. George’s influence at the Ottoman court over Bosnia came to the fore from the 1430s. The Bosnian kings and noblemen were trying to take advantage of Despot George’s ties and so were the Ragusans. This political context enabled the Serbian despot to interfere in the Bosnian kings’ and nobles’ relations with neighbouring states, but these contacts usually ended at the diplomatic level. In the late 1450s, the Bosnian ruling family, together with the Hungarians, took advantage of the vacancy on the throne of the despotate. By the end of this period, Ottoman domination of the region was too strong for any revival of the despotate.

71  Nagy and Nyary, Magyar diplomacziai, 1:38–​39; Macuscev, Monumenta historica, 2:221; Ludwig von Thalloczy, Studien zur Geschichte Bosniens und Serbiens im Mittelalter (München:  Duncker & Humblot, 1914), 99, 101–​2; Isailović, “Bračni planovi,” 210–​11. 72  Ljubomir Stojanović, Stari srpski rodoslovi i letopisi (Sremski Karlovci: Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1927), 244; Nagy and Nyary, Magyar diplomacziai 1:49–​50; Tošić, “Posljednja bosanska kraljica,” 35–​36; Jelena Mrgić, “Poslednja dva Kotromanića i Srpska despotovina,” in Pad srpske despotovine 1459. godine, ed. Momčilo Spremić (Beograd:  SANU, 2011), 200; Isailović, “Bračni planovi,” 212.

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Chapter 3

THE OPPOSITION BETWEEN BULGARIA AND THE LATIN EMPIRE OF CONSTANTINOPLE: A NECESSARY HOSTILITY?

Francesco Dall’Aglio* THE UNEXPECTED ESTABLISHMENT of the Latin empire of Constantinople in 1204 altered the balance of power in South-​Eastern Europe significantly.1 The conquered territories were divided among the participants in the crusade; the Byzantine aristocracy was able to wrestle away some peripheral areas such as Nicaea, Epirus, and Trebizond, and slowly build successful polities that, in time, posed a grave threat to the Latin rule, eventually causing its demise.2 The imperial borders were also menaced by the kingdom of Bulgaria, ruled at that time by Kalojan.3 He was the third tsar of the newly restored *  Francesco Dall’Aglio is a research fellow at the Institute for Historical Studies at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where he is currently editing Hungarian medieval sources for the history of Bulgaria. His research is mainly focused on the establishment and the development of the “second Bulgarian kingdom” between the end of the twelfth and the first half of the thirteenth century, and its relations with the Byzantine Empire, the Latin Empire of Constantinople, the papacy, the Kingdom of Hungary, and the Cumans. He also works on the formation of an ethnic/​national consciousness in the Middle Ages.

1  The latest contribution on the Latin Empire of Constantinople is Philip van Tricht, The Latin Renovatio of Byzantium. The Empire of Constantinople (1204–​1228) (Leiden: Brill, 2011); see also Ernst Gerland, Geschichte des lateinischen Kaiserreiches von Konstantinopel, I: Geschichte der Kaiser Baldwin I  und Heinrich, 1204–​1216 (Homburg:  v.d. Höhe, 1905); Jean Longnon, L’empire latin de Constantinople et la principauté de Morée (Paris:  Payot, 1949). The standard reference for the Fourth Crusade is Donald E.  Queller and Thomas Madden, The Fourth Crusade. The Conquest of Constantinople, 2nd edition (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997). See also Thomas Madden, Enrico Dandolo and the Rise of Venice (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003). The most useful primary sources are Geoffroy de Villehardouin, La conquête de Constantinople, ed. Edmond Faral, 2  vols. (Paris:  Les belles lettres 1938–​39; repr. 1961)  or the same source edited by Jean Dufournet (Paris: Flammarion 1993), and Robert de Clari, La conquête de Constantinople, ed. Jean Dufournet (Paris:  Champion, 2004). For a complete overview of the sources, see Alfred J. Andrea, Contemporary Sources for the Fourth Crusade (Leiden: Brill, 2008). 2  Donald Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros (Oxford:  Blackwell, 1957); Michael Angold, A Byzantine Government in Exile:  Government and Society under the Laskarids of Nicaea, 1204–​1261 (London: Oxford University Press, 1975).

3  On the Second Bulgarian Kingdom and its relations with the Byzantine Eempire and the Latins of Constantinople, see especially Vasil Zlatarski, Istorija na Balgarskata darzhava prez srednite vekove, vol. 3 (Sofia: Pridvorna Pečatniza, 1940; repr. 1994); Genoveva Cankova-​Petkova, Balgariya pri Asenevci (Sofia: Narodna Prosveta, 1978); Ani Dančeva-​Vasileva, Balgarija i Latinskata Imperija

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Bulgarian state, which had regained its independence from Byzantium in 1185/​86 after a successful revolt led by Kalojan’s elder brothers, Asen and Petăr. Leading a coalition of Bulgarians and Vlachs, with the invaluable help of the Cumans, they seceded from the Byzantine Empire and conquered a large territory stretching from the Danube to the Stara Planina massif; their capital city was the previously unimportant town of Tărnovo. Kalojan was crowned in 1197 after the death of his brother Petăr, killed by an unknown assassin. During the first years of his reign, Kalojan apparently did not engage in major confrontations with the Byzantine Empire on Bulgaria’s southern frontier like his brothers had done continuously in the past years. Instead, he occupied the region of Braničevo to the northwest, thus reaching the borders of Hungary; he also continued to enlist the help of his Cuman allies, who systematically raided Thrace and Macedonia. It is possible that Bulgarian and Vlach troops participated in the operations, whose aim was not, however, the conquest of new lands, but rather to amass plunder. Kalojan also supported two separatists of Bulgarian origin, Ivanko (who had murdered Kalojan’s brother Asen in 1195, sought refuge in Constantinople, and then betrayed the empire as well) and Dobromir Chrysos, an otherwise unknown character. The former created an autonomous dominion in the Rhodopes, while Chrysos was based in the Macedonian fortress of Prosakon. Neither uprising lasted long, but while they existed they created substantial problems for the Byzantine Empire.4 Ivanko was captured in 1200 and his lands returned to imperial control. This probably brought a change in Kalojan’s strategy, since in the following year he besieged and conquered the fortress of Konstanteia (near present-​day Simeonovgrad) in the eastern Rhodopes and the coastal town of Varna, the last Byzantine enclave on the shores of northern Bulgaria. Emperor Alexios III Angelos was unable to organize a counterattack, since he was busy fighting against Chrysos and another rebel, John Spiridonakes. In the end, both rebels were eliminated and shortly afterwards, probably in 1202, Alexios and Kalojan concluded a peace treaty. The details of this agreement are unknown since it is only mentioned briefly in the Chronicle of (1204–​1261) (Sofia:  Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata Akademija na Naukite, 1985); Ivan Božilov, Familiyata na Asenevci (1186–​1460). Genealogiya i prosopografiya (Sofia: Izdatelstvo na Bălgarskata Akademija na Naukite “Marin Drinov,” 1994), 9–​118; Ivan Bozhilov and Vasil Gyuzelev, Istoriya na srednovekovna Balgariya VII–​XIV vek. Istoriya na Balgariya v tri toma: Том 1 (Sofia: Anubis, 1999); Alexandru Madgearu, The Asanids. The Political and Military History of the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–​1280) (Leiden: Brill, 2017). 4  See Günter Prinzing, Die Bedeutung Bulgariens und Serbiens in den Jahren 1204–​1219 im Zusammenhang mit der Entstehung und Entwicklung der byzantinischen Teilstaaten nach der Einnahme Konstantinopels infolge des 4. Kreuzzuges (München: Miscellanea Byzantina Monacensia 12, 1972); Georgi N.  Nikolov, Samostoyatelni i polusamostoyatelni vladeniya vav vazobnovenoto Balgarsko carstvo (kraya na XII—sredata na XIII v.) (Sofia:  Gutenberg, 2011), 70–​94, 124–​37; Radivoj Radić, “Oblasni gospodari u Vizantiji krajem XII i u prvim decenijama XIII veka,” Zbornik radova Vizantološkog instituta 24–​25 (1986): 172–​245 at 176–​205; Jürgen Hoffmann, Rudimente von Territorialstaaten im byzantinischen Reich. Untersuchungen über Unabhängigkeistbestrebungen und ihr Verhältnis zu Kaiser und Recht (Munich:  Institut für Byzantinistik und Neugriechische Philologie der Universität, 1974), 47–​55, 90–​95.

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Niketas Choniates,5 the most detailed source for the period, in one of Choniates’s official speeches, delivered in 1203,6 and in one of Nicephorus Chrysoberga’s orations.7 The treaty agreed on delimiting the frontier between Bulgaria and the empire and on some reciprocal obligations between the two countries. It is not clear who took the initiative for this agreement, but both sovereigns could have profited from a truce in the long conflict between Bulgaria and the empire. For Kalojan, especially, the treaty offered an opportunity to divert resources and manpower from his southern flank to the borderlands that separated Hungary from Bulgaria, where the situation was much more fluid and troublesome. Kalojan had occupied the region of Braničevo sometime after 1199, since in 1198 it was still under Byzantine control, as stated in a treaty between the empire and the Venetians.8 At the turn of the century, Emeric of Hungary decided to intervene in the dynastic conflict between the two sons of the former Serbian Župan Stefan Nemanja, Vukan, and Stefan. When Nemanja abdicated in 1196, he chose his second-​born son, Stefan, as his successor on the Serbian throne. Vukan resented the decision and sought the assistance of Emeric and Pope Innocent III to overthrow his brother. In 1202, with the help of the Hungarian army, Vukan seized the throne; Kalojan sided with Stefan, who was welcomed in Tărnovo. In the same year, or in 1203 at the latest, Emeric and his Serbian ally invaded and conquered the region of Belgrade and Braničevo.9 Worried by those developments and Emeric’s aggressive politics, Kalojan proposed an agreement to Alexios III (or accepted it, if the initiative came from the Byzantine emperor) and, in order to increase his status and strengthen his position, finally decided to answer an exploratory letter sent to him by Innocent III between the end of 1199 and the beginning of 1200.10 In his letter, the pope announced that he had sent Kalojan a legate, Archbishop Dominic of the Greek community of Brindisi, to inquire about the disposition of the Bulgarian tsar. The letter was clearly aimed at gaining a new supporter for the Roman church, exploiting Kalojan’s hostility towards Byzantium at a time when the pope was organizing the Fourth Crusade and needed to increase the pressure upon Alexios III in order to convince him to participate. It is unclear when the pontifical legate reached the Bulgarian capital, but Kalojan did not answer until the summer of 1202, with vague explanations about the delay and 5  Nicaetae Choniatae Historia, ed. Jan-​Luis van Dieten (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1975), 535.

6  Nicetae Choniatae Orationes et Epistulae, ed. Jan-​Luis van Dieten (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1972), 110–​11. 7  Nicephori Chrysobergae ad Angelos orationes tres, ed. Maximilian Treu (Breslau:  Gutsmann, 1892), 16–​21.

8  Gottlieb L. F. Tafel and Georg M. Thomas, Urkunden zur älteren Handels-​und Staatsgeschichte der Republik Venedig, 3 vols. (Wien, 1856–​1857; rep. Amsterdam, 1964), 1:260–​61. 9  On those events, see especially the recent contribution of Madgearu, The Asanids, 122–​25, who also provides an extensive bibliography; see also Alexandru Madgearu, “Confrontations between Hungary, the Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria for the Belgrade-​Vidin Border Regions in the 9th–​14th Centuries,” Transylvanian Review 22, no. 4 (2013): 125–​32, at 128–​29. 10  Othmar Hageneder et al., Die Register Innocenz’ III, 11 vols. (Vienna: Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1979–​2015), 2:485–​86.

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the long detention of the legate.11 Now that the political situation had changed, however, the Bulgarian tsar was ready to state his claim to a royal crown, which would have made him an equal to the Hungarian king; in exchange, he offered his allegiance to the Roman church. Archbishop Vassily of Tărnovo confirmed his offer, although his letter to the pope did not add much to what the king had already written.12 Both messages were to be delivered to Rome by Archbishop Dominic, who would be accompanied by Vlasi, bishop of Braničevo. Clearly, the choice of Vlasi as an envoy reflected the great importance Kalojan attached to his troubled relations with Hungary, of which the bishop certainly had a good knowledge, and the hope that Innocent would support Bulgaria against its powerful neighbour. For unspecified reasons, perhaps from the tensions at the borders of Bulgaria, the bishop of Braničevo was not able to reach Rome. Dominic returned alone and delivered the letters, but the matter of Bulgaro-​Hungarian relations was apparently not discussed; at least, Innocent made no mention to it in his cordial answers to Kalojan and Vassily, dated November 27, 1202, in which he promised to send one of his most trusted legates to Tărnovo, John of Casamari, to discuss further the issue of Kalojan’s coronation.13 By the time these letters reached Tărnovo, the Fourth Crusade had already been detoured to Zadar (Zara) and then to Constantinople; the crusaders, who had vowed to help the young Prince Alexios recover his father’s throne,14 arrived within sight of Constantinople on June 23. In the same month, Kalojan, who had not yet received the visit of the pontifical legate (John of Casamari was sent to Bosnia first, but Kalojan had no way of knowing this), wrote to Innocent again,15 expressing with great urgency his willingness to put his country under the authority of the pontifical See, adding that, once Alexios III and the patriarch of Constantinople knew that he had begun negotiations with Rome, they wrote to him: “come to us, we will crown you emperor and will give you a patriarch, because there can be no empire without a patriarch; but I did not accept, on the contrary I appealed to your holiness, because I want to be a servant of St. Peter and of your holiness.”16 This detail cannot be a reference to the peace negotiations concluded with Alexios in 1202, since the Byzantine sources do not mention anything in this regard, and Kalojan could have used this information in his previous letters to Innocent as further proof of his good will. One must conclude, therefore, that this was a new offer made by Alexios III. He was certainly aware that the crusader fleet was coming to Constantinople and also that Kalojan was in contact with Innocent. Fearing for the security of his empire, he asked for Kalojan’s help, offering him in return exactly what Kalojan had asked from Rome. 11  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 5:224–​26. 12  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 5:229–​30. 13  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 5:226–​33. 14  Alexios was the son of Isaac II, imprisoned in 1195 by his brother, Alexios III, who proclaimed himself emperor. The young prince escaped to the West in 1201, taking refuge at the court of Philip of Swabia, who had married his sister Irene. He then proposed to Boniface of Montferrat that the crusade to Constantinople deviate, to reinstate his father on the throne. 15  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 6:233–​35. 16  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 6:234.

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It is not known if Kalojan was informed that the crusaders (or at least a foreign army) were moving towards Constantinople with the aim of ousting Alexios from power. In his letter, he only stated that the emperor had made his offer because he had been informed of his negotiations with the pope. The reason for the refusal of such an advantageous agreement, which would have immediately granted Kalojan what Innocent had promised but not yet accorded may again be connected with the conflict between Bulgaria and Hungary. In this regard, Innocent was rightly perceived as more willing, and more capable, of assisting Bulgaria. To show the pope that he wanted to settle the issue as soon as possible, Kalojan entrusted the letter to Archbishop Vassily, to deliver it personally to Rome. The last part of the letter contains an addendum written a few weeks later by Vassily, in which the prelate informs Innocent that the Byzantine authorities in Dyrrachium prevented him from embarking and that he had no choice but to consign the letter to two members of his retinue, hoping that they would make it to Rome. And while Vassily was stranded on the Adriatic coast and John of Casamari was making his way to Tărnovo, on July 5, the siege of Constantinople began. On the night between July 17 and 18, after having realized that the city was lost, Alexios III escaped to Debeltos, a coastal town on the border between the Byzantine Empire and Bulgaria. There he asked again for Kalojan’s assistance, and again he received none. Isaac was restored to the throne and his son was crowned co-​emperor on August 1. The crusaders expected that the young prince now ruling Constantinople with his father would honor his promises. But he asked for more time to gather all the money he owed them and invited the crusaders to remain in his service until March and escort him on an expedition in Thrace, where Alexios III had sought refuge in order to obtain the support of the local nobility. The crusaders accepted and the expedition was successful; Villehardouin writes that all the Thracian lords paid homage to Alexios, “with the only exception of Johanis, who was king of Bulgaria and Vlachia.”17 According to Villehardouin, Kalojan “was a Vlach who had rebelled against his [Alexios IV’s] father and uncle, and fought against them for twenty years, and captured so much land that he became a rich king.”18 These words partially match the description made by De Clari, who adds many details to the portrait of Kalojan: Now Vlachia is a land which belongs to the emperor, and this Jehans was a sergeant of the emperor, who managed a stud farm belonging to the emperor; and when the emperor wanted sixty horses, or 100, this Jehans sent them to him, and he came to court every year until he fell from grace at court, when the day came in which an eunuch, one of the officers of the emperor, offended him, because he whipped him in the face, and he considered this a great insult. And because of the offence that he had received, so Jehans the Vlach left the court with evil intentions, and took refuge in Vlachia. Vlachia is a very difficult land, all enclosed by mountains, so that one can enter or leave it only through a gorge. When Jehans came there, he began to gather the noblemen of Vlachia, like someone who is rich and powerful as well, and began to make promises

17  Villehardouin, La conquête, § 202. 18  Villehardouin, La conquête, § 202.

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and to bestow gifts, and he did so much that all the inhabitants of the country became his subjects, to the point that he became their lord.19

This was the first contact between the crusaders and Bulgaria and the first time that Bulgaria was mentioned in one of the Western chronicles reporting the events of the Fourth Crusade. The encounter had no consequences; it was politically and culturally mediated by the presence of the Byzantines, since the crusaders were only in Thrace to escort Alexios IV and not by their own design. They certainly meant no harm to Kalojan, whose existence, in all probability, they ignored until their arrival in Constantinople (with the exception of Boniface of Montferrat, who had an excellent knowledge of the political situation in Southeast Europe because of his family’s long association with the Byzantine Empire).20 Both Villehardouin’s and De Clari’s descriptions, however, clearly reflect the Byzantine point of view on Kalojan, namely, that he had illicitly obtained his kingdom as the result of a rebellion against the empire and that he was a powerful king ruling over a land that was difficult to attack.21 From the words of Villehardouin one must infer that no actual fighting took place between the troops of Alexios IV and the Bulgarian army, and it seems reasonable to suppose that Alexios was well aware that he could not expect obedience from the king of an independent country, although, even if only for reasons of prestige, he considered Bulgaria as a province of the empire. More than a blunt request for Kalojan’s obedience, it is much more probable that he wanted to renew the peace treaty signed by Kalojan and Alexios III and remind the Bulgarian tsar of his obligations to the empire. If this was the case, Kalojan’s refusal would mean that, at least for the time being, he had no intention of assisting Alexios IV, just as he had twice denied his help to Alexios III. The reasons for this defiant attitude probably lay in the fact that John of Casamari had finally arrived in Tărnovo in July or August. His arrival and the good news he brought reassured Kalojan of the positive disposition of the pope. Archbishop Vassily was called back to Tărnovo, from where he wrote a jubilant letter to Innocent, adding some details on the vexations he had endured in Dyrrachium and on the joy he felt when he met John of Casamari, read the pope’s letters, and received the pallium and the blessing on September 8.22 The letter also contained a profession of obedience signed by several 19  De Clari, La conquête, § 64–​65. It is necessary to remember that this passage does not refer to the expedition in Thrace, but to a later date; it is, however, the first mention of Kalojan in De Clari’s chronicle. See below, note 39. 20  Choniates, 556, explicitly states that Boniface accompanied Alexios on his expedition. 21  From a historical point of view, both accounts are inaccurate. The Bulgarian revolt was not started by Kalojan, rather his elder brothers, Asen and Petăr, who are never mentioned by Villehardouin or De Clari. Moreover, some of the details in De Clari’s account are reminiscent of Choniates, 368–​69, in which the Byzantine chronicler relates a similar story with Petăr and Asen as the protagonists. The one punched (not whipped) in the face was Asen; the offender was not some unspecified eunuch but the sebastokrator John, Isaac II’s uncle. See Phaedon Malingoudis, “Die Nachrichten des Niketas Choniates über die Entstehung des zweiten bulgarisches Staates,” Βυζαντινά 10 (1980): 51–​147 at 84–​85. 22  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:15–​18.

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Bulgarian archbishops and bishops, all heads of dioceses situated in the western regions of the Bulgarian Kingdom (with the exception of the archbishop of Preslav). The signatures of the bishops of Skopje and Priština are telling evidence that these towns had came under Bulgarian control sometime between the peace treaty of 1202 and the summer of 1203. Kalojan wrote to Innocent as well, a chrysobull in which he officially required the royal crown and the rank of patriarch for Archbishop Vassily, promised faithful and perpetual obedience to Rome,23 and in a letter24 summarizing their past correspondence, again entrusted to the bishop of Braničevo Vlasi, he informed the pope of the latest development in the border war with Hungary, asking for his intervention: And regarding the border between Hungary, Bulgaria and Vlachia, I leave the judgment to your holiness, so that you would direct this matter rightly and justly, so that the soul of your holiness will be without sin, and my Kingdom will have the same rights over Bulgaria and Vlachia that the king of Hungary has over Hungary, and the killing of Christians between him and me will cease. Also, let your holiness know that five Bulgarian episcopates belong to my Kingdom, and the king of Hungary has invaded them and detains them along with the rights of their churches; and the episcopates have been destroyed, and if this is right, let it be so. What the present legate of my Kingdom, the bishop of Braničevo Vlasi, will tell your holiness, regard it as the truth, because he speaks on my behalf.25

The names of the episcopates invaded by the Hungarians are unknown, but they must lie in the contested region between Braničevo, Belgrade, Vidin, and Niš; further proof of this is the choice, once again, of Vlasi of Braničevo as envoy. Nowhere in this correspondence is there a reference to the arrival of the crusaders in Constantinople or to the relations between Bulgaria and the Byzantine Empire, which is also evidence that, for the time being, Kalojan did not consider them a threat and was only concerned about the conflict with Hungary. While the events in Tărnovo and Constantinople were unfolding, Innocent received the visit of the envoys that Vassily had sent him from Dyrrachium, and reading the letters they bought him he understood that the will of the Bulgarian tsar was sincere. On September 10 he wrote back to Vassily, inviting him to come to Rome and promising him a secure escort,26 and to Kalojan, whom he asked to “make any effort to reform a peace treaty with our dear son Vukan, so that there would not be any occasion of disagreement in which your land or his would suffer any irreparable harm.”27 Innocent III, who only had fragmentary and outdated information about the events unfolding in Constantinople, was cautiously satisfied. While he appreciated the promises made by Alexios IV, especially those related to the end of the ecclesiastical 23  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:14–​15. 24  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:18–​20. 25  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:20. 26  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 6:235–​38. 27  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 6:238.

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schism and the funding of the crusade, he also urged the crusaders to be ready to continue their journey to the Holy Land once the emperor, who, unbeknownst to him, had already been imprisoned, had fulfilled his vows.28 He was even more satisfied with the outcome of the Bulgarian issue, since at the beginning of 1204 John of Casamari and the bishop of Braničevo arrived in Rome with Kalojan’s message. This was the last assurance Innocent needed. On February 25, the pope wrote a score of letters to Kalojan, Archbishop Vassily, and the Bulgarian clergy, sending Cardinal Leo Brancaleone to Tărnovo as his legate.29 His mission was of great importance; he received full powers to reform and organize the Bulgarian church as he saw fit, along with a crown, a scepter and banner for Kalojan, who also received the right to mint coins. Vassily would not be elevated to the dignity of patriarch, but only to that of primate of the Bulgarian church. One of the letters was addressed to the Hungarian clergy, since Cardinal Leo would cross that land on his journey to Tărnovo. Knowing full well that the Hungarian king would resent Kalojan’s coronation, the letter revolved around the parable of the prodigal son, whom the firstborn must not envy, an obvious metaphor for the situation of Bulgaria and Hungary.30 Unfortunately for Cardinal Leo, Emeric did not agree with the spirit of the pontifical letter. Once the legate arrived in Hungary, the king first guaranteed him safe passage, but then changed his mind and stopped him at the border fortress of Keve, forbidding him to proceed further until Kalojan sent him legates to discuss the question of the frontier between Hungary and Bulgaria. Since the border crossing was at the fortress of Keve, it seems clear that the region of Belgrade and Braničevo was once again under Bulgarian control, which explains Emeric’s urgency to discuss the matter even at the cost of mistreating a pontifical legate. Evidently, Emeric feared that Leo’s mission to Tărnovo could be considered an implicit validation of the Bulgarian claims and he tried to coerce the cardinal into favouring the Hungarian position. Leo refused to postpone spiritual matters for political ones and Emeric detained him along with Vlasi, the bishop of Braničevo who was accompanying him. Innocent, who had been informed of this misdeed by the cardinal, wrote a threatening letter to Emeric,31 which the Hungarian king answered expressing all his frustration with Kalojan’s prospective coronation. Emeric’s answer has not been recorded in the pontifical registers, but can be reconstructed from the letter Innocent wrote to Cardinal Leo on September 15, in which the pope quoted the objections raised by the Hungarian king along with his answers to them.32 Judging from what he wrote to Innocent, apparently Emeric shared the same opinion that the Byzantines (and, following their example, the Latins) had of Kalojan, 28  Innocent wrote to Alexios IV and to the leaders of the crusade at the beginning of February, when Mourtzouphlos had just been crowned and had no intention whatsoever of fulfilling the promises made by his predecessor; see Die Register Innocenz’ III, 6:386–​93. 29  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:3–​15, 21–​30. 30  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:28–​29. 31  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:199–​202, in which the whole episode is related. 32  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:202–​8.

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considering him a usurper. This is evident from Innocent’s answer to his objections: “as you wrote, the named Iannitius is not legally the lord of any land, although until now he holds a part of your Kingdom and a part of another one.”33 The territory occupied by Kalojan is clearly the region of Belgrade and Braničevo. It belonged formally to the Byzantine Empire, but Emeric considered it pertinent to Hungary because it was part of the dowry of his sister, Margaret, who had married Isaac II in 1185. He also considered the Kingdom of Serbia pertinent to Hungary, a part of which had also been invaded by the Bulgarians: “the named Ioannitius has occupied the land that your father [Béla III] gave as a dowry to your sister [Margaret], the empress of the Greeks, and he has cruelly devastated the Serbian land which is subjected to your crown, with the help of a multitude of pagans.”34 While striving to be sympathetic, Innocent found the objections groundless. He answered that Kalojan was not a usurper because he and his brothers, whom he considered descendants of the old Bulgarian royal house, had recovered land that was part of the first Bulgarian Kingdom: [W]‌e do not deny that maybe they invaded with violence a part of the land, but we firmly state that they have recovered the largest part of the land by paternal right. Therefore we want to crown him king not of an alien land, but of its own, like our predecessors did, wishing for a restitution of the land unjustly taken by him, and of the land unjustly taken from him, because he asked this from us, that we make justice between him and you of the invaded lands, on both sides.35

Innocent conceded that if Kalojan had conquered some land that did not belong to Bulgaria, he would examine the matter carefully so that no harm would come to the Hungarian king: the named Iannitius [Kalojan] will be punished if, after taking the crown, he will not accept the arbitration or the judgment of our legate regarding the dispute which exists between you, and new things, worse than the previous ones, will happen to him and his new mistake will be worse than the previous one. Because, as much as we love the often nominated Iannitium, nevertheless we love you incomparably more, and we will find a suitable way, as we believe, to take care of your honour and your right.36 Emeric was either convinced by the guarantees promised by Innocent or scared by the veiled threats in the letter. Leo and Vlasi were set free and arrived in Tărnovo on October 15 to carry out their duty. On November 7, Vassily was consecrated and on the following day Kalojan was solemnly crowned. Both the archbishop and the tsar wrote to Innocent to express their gratitude.37 A few paragraphs in Kalojan’s letter detailed the relations between Bulgaria, Hungary, and the new masters of Constantinople. In each case, the situation appeared tense and Kalojan asked for Innocent’s intervention: 33  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:204. 34  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:204. The pagan allies of Kalojan are the Cumans. 35  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:205. 36  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:208. 37  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:409–​12.

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I also write you about the Hungarian [king], because my Kingdom has no land nor anything else in common with him, neither harms him, while he invades and harms the regions of my Kingdom … And your holiness should write to him that he should stay away from my Kingdom, because my kingdom has no wish to assault him or march against his lands … I also write to your holiness about the Latins who entered Constantinople, so that you write them to stay away from my Kingdom and likewise my Kingdom will not harm them in any way and they will not invade us. Should they try anything against my Kingdom and assault it and kill some of its inhabitants, let your holiness do not suspect my Kingdom.38

In fact, many things had changed in Constantinople since Cardinal Leo had begun his long journey to Tărnovo. On January 27, 1205, Alexios IV had been imprisoned by Alexios Doukas, called Mourtzouphlos, who proclaimed himself emperor. His politics against the Latins were uncompromisingly hostile; after a short siege, on April 13, Constantinople had fallen into the hands of the crusaders who, on May 16, chose Baldwin as their emperor and began the difficult endeavor of taking control of the lands that were part of their dominion, including the regions bordering Bulgaria. Kalojan followed the events in Constantinople with great interest and probably some trepidation, and at first tried to come to good terms with them. He sent an embassy to the crusaders after the coronation of Mourtzouphlos when their position was indeed difficult; they still owed a significant sum to the Venetians and had no hope of obtaining the money that had been promised by Alexios III and his father Isaac II, who had already been imprisoned by the new emperor. Kalojan was evidently informed of their hardships and tried to reach an agreement, sending a friendly proposal for cooperation. The episode is related by De Clari, who is critical of the crusaders’ reaction: Then it happened, in the time in which the traitor Morchofles was emperor … that Jehans the Vlach sent an embassy to the high barons of the host, saying that if they would crown him as king so that it would be master of his lands in Vlachia, he would receive his land and his Kingdom from them, and he would come in their aid and help them take Constantinople with a hundred thousand soldiers … When the barons of the host knew the message of Jehans the Vlach, they said that they would take counsel; and they took a bad counsel, because they answered him that they did not care either for him or for his help, but that he had to know that they would strike at him and that, if they could, they would harm him; and he made them pay dearly for this, and there was great pain and great damage. And after he got nothing by them, he sent an embassy to Rome for his crown; and the apostle [the pope] sent him a cardinal to crown him: and so he was crowned king.39

38  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 7:410–​11. 39  De Clari, § 64–​65. According to Longnon, L’empire latin de Constantinople, 65–​66, the embassy took place after the conquest of Constantinople; however, De Clari explicitly states that Kalojan offered military help to conquer the town and this should be proof that the offer actually came

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After the conquest of the town and Baldwin’s imperial coronation, Kalojan made another attempt and again his friendly opening was rebuked. According to Choniates: When he sent ambassadors to establish friendly relations, he was ordered to address them in his letters not as a king addresses his friends, but as a servant addresses his masters, otherwise he should expect that they bring weapons against him and easily devastate Moesia, from which he profited in an unseemly way, since he had rebelled against his Roman [Byzantine] lords, and that they would reduce him in his former condition [of servant].40

This time, Kalojan answered with equivalent hostility in a letter addressed to Baldwin; the missive is lost but it is summarized in the compilation known as Gesta Innocentii III: When he heard about the capture of the royal city, he sent messengers and letters to the Latins, in order to have peace with them; but they answered very haughtily, saying that they would not have peace with him until he returned the land belonging to the Constantinopolitan empire that he invaded by force. And he answered them that this land was more rightly owned by him than Constantinople was owned by them because he took back the land that his ancestors had lost, but they occupied Constantinople that didn’t belong them at all; moreover, he had legitimately received the royal crown from the holy pontiff, but he [Baldwin], who called himself basileus of Constantinople, had thoughtlessly usurped the crown of the empire: therefore, the empire belonged more to him than to that one.41

Judging from the sources quoted above, one must conclude that the relations between Bulgaria and the Latin Empire of Constantinople had been sour since the beginning, with each sovereign refusing to recognize the status of his opponent and his legitimacy to rule; and it seems that the Latins were the most responsible for this hostility. It was, after all, Kalojan who had tried to establish friendly relations with his new neighbours, and it was the Latins who had refused. The reasons for the peaceful attitude of the Bulgarian sovereign are many. A treaty with the new emperor would have meant acknowledging during the reign of Alexios V Mourtzouphlos. It is possible, however, that De Clari relates the answer of the crusaders to Kalojan’s second embassy, after the establishment of the Latin empire. Regarding the apparent willingness of Kalojan to put his kingdom under the authority of the crusaders, see van Tricht, The Latin renovatio, 388, who rightly states that “In the light of the independence gained prior to 1204, the idea that the Bulgarian king would have displayed a preparedness to be politically dependent on a Latin Constantinople does not sound very convincing.” 40  Choniates, 613. With the antiquarian term Μυσίαν Choniates designates the Bulgarian territories between the Danube and the Stara Planina.

41  Gesta Innocentii PP. III, in Jacques Paul Migne, Patrologiae cursus completus. Series latina, 221 vols. (Paris: Garnier, 1844–​1866), 214:147–​48. English translation: The Deeds of Pope Innocent III by an Anonymous Author, trans. James M. Powell (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2004), 201–​2. The letter of Kalojan summarized in the Gesta was written to Innocent III after the battle of Adrianopolis (April 14, 1205).

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Bulgaria’s independence, Kalojan’s royal status, and a stable frontier between the two polities; in short, a confirmation of the treaty signed in 1202 with Baldwin’s predecessor. It would also have been considered further proof of good will by the pope, especially because Kalojan had sent his embassies to the crusaders before his coronation, when the cardinal that Innocent had sent him was still imprisoned in the Hungarian fortress of Keve. And regarding Hungary, peaceful relations with the Latins of Constantinople would have allowed the Bulgarian tsar to concentrate his military efforts against Emeric for control of the territories disputed between the two states. In fact, Hungary would no longer constitute a problem for Bulgaria, at least in the immediate future, although Kalojan could not have known this. Emeric died on November 30, 1204, when his firstborn Ladislaus was only a child. The Hungarian throne was seized by Andrew, Emeric’s brother, while Ladislaus was carried away to Austria by his mother, to die shortly thereafter for unknown reasons. During Andrew’s reign, the confrontation between Bulgaria and Hungary came to an end, since the new king was far more interested in the control of the principality of Galictia. Thus, in the summer of 1204 the three major powers of Southeastern Europe were engaged in a confrontation for regional supremacy that, at least for the moment, was only fought by diplomatic means. All the contenders used the same strategy: to deny the legitimacy of their opponents, usually appealing to a higher power. In this regard, Kalojan’s position was the most difficult; both Emeric, who expressed his idea in the correspondence with Innocent III, and Baldwin, considered him a usurper, not a sovereign of equal standing. According to Emeric, Kalojan and his brothers before him had violently captured a land which did not belong to them; but while the Hungarian king wanted to recover the region of Belgrade and Braničevo, and maybe expand into the area of Vidin, yet had no pretensions to the rest of the Bulgarian lands, Baldwin apparently considered the whole Bulgarian tsardom as a province belonging to the empire and declared that he wanted to recover it.42 This would have significantly enlarged his personal possessions since, as we have already noted, the imperial territories had been divided amongst the crusaders and Baldwin only controlled a fourth of them. This negative attitude towards Kalojan was shared by Boniface of Montferrat, another important player in the struggle for regional domination that had ensued after the capture of Constantinople. Before the date of the imperial coronation he had married Margaret, widow if Isaac II.43 Marrying the widow of an emperor probably served the purpose of elevating his status in the eyes of the Byzantine aristocracy, favouring a smooth succession, since Boniface was considered the best candidate to the throne and, while always a Latin, was at least a Latin whose family the Byzantine court knew. Moreover, since Margaret was the sister 42  While describing the arrangements among the crusaders, Choniates writes that they also divided among themselves some lands over which the empire no longer had control, including regions situated “in the north” (“τὰ πρὸς βορρᾶν:” Choniates, 595). This could be a reference to Bulgaria, although the general tone of the whole passage is grotesque, emphasizing the excessive greed of the crusaders. 43  Villehardouin, § 262, writes that the marriage was celebrated before the date of the coronation.

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of Emeric of Hungary and of Andrew, the future Hungarian king, Boniface established diplomatic ties with this kingdom as well. Once Baldwin was preferred over him and Boniface was forced to renounce the idea of becoming emperor, he asked to exchange the possessions that had been granted to him in Turkey and Crete for the region of Thessalonica: “so he asked, in exchange for those possessions, that [Baldwin] give him the Kingdom of Thessalonica, because it was near the [lands of the] king of Hungary, whose sister was his wife.”44 Macedonia was now a province of particular importance to Boniface in view of his matrimonial and political ties to the Hungarian crown and he was interested in acquiring as much territory as possible in the lands bordering Serbia, Bosnia, and Bulgaria. This clearly put him in contention with Kalojan not only over possession of the region around Skopje and Priština, but also Braničevo, which was part of the dowry that his new wife had previously brought to the empire. Boniface, as Emeric before him, felt that the Bulgarian tsar had unjustly occupied land that belonged to his wife.45 Thus, when a disagreement arose between Baldwin and Boniface in the summer of 1204, with the emperor apparently willing to take Thessalonica back from him, Boniface proposed to march together with him against Kalojan: “do not destroy my land; and let’s go, if this is your pleasure, against Johannis, who is king of the Vlachs, who unjustly owns great part of the land.”46 Kalojan also tried to undermine the legitimacy of his opponents or at least of their claims to his lands. Regarding Hungary, since he clearly could not contest Emeric’s right to rule, he asserted that the region he occupied belonged to the old Bulgarian Kingdom, of whose tsars he was a rightful descendent. His treatment of Baldwin, in contrast, was much more disparaging; in his opinion the real usurper was the new emperor of Constantinople, who had invaded a land where he had no rights at all. In the end, the reciprocal strategies of de-​legitimization brought no results, especially for Kalojan’s opponents. His coronation denied Emeric and Baldwin their strongest argument, since now the Bulgarian ruler had been formally invested with the royal authority by the pontiff, who willingly conceded him a crown, a scepter, and banner. Innocent III, to whom all sovereigns had appealed against their opponents (except Baldwin, at least not directly against Kalojan), tried as much as he could to ease the tensions among them, in his unrelenting quest to form a united front in preparation for his crusade. In this regard, Bulgaria was of fundamental importance, even at the cost of displeasing the Hungarian king, whose treatment of the pontifical legate further alienated the sympathies of the pope; but, of course, the Latin empire of Constantinople was also critically important

44  Villehardouin, § 264. 45  It has been suggested that Emeric and Boniface formed an alliance against Kalojan, see van Tricht, The Latin renovatio, 389; Madgearu, The Asanids, 142 and bibliography provided in note. Dančeva-​Vasileva, Balgariya i Latinskata Imperiya, 50–​51, 53, does not mention any alliance between Boniface and Emeric, but believes that Boniface was interested in recovering the region of Belgrade and Braničevo. 46  Villehardouin, § 276.

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for his strategy. Bulgaria and the Latins, therefore, maintained a wary non-​belligerency, although it is possible that some border skirmishes took place. Villehardouin writes that in the summer of 1204 the population of Adrianopolis welcomed the Latins, asking them to remain in the town and protect them from Kalojan: “The Greeks of Adrianopolis asked him [Baldwin] as their lord to leave a garrison in the town because of Johannis the king of Vlachia and Bulgaria, who often waged war against them.”47 And while the citizens of Adrianopolis may have just been frightened by the possibility of a Bulgarian invasion without any real military threat, a subsequent passage from Villehardouin’s chronicle seems to imply that, at some point during the summer or autumn of 1204, the Bulgarian army took control of the region near Philippopolis. On November 11, Baldwin’s brother Henry left Constantinople and began a campaign in Turkey; in the same period Rénier de Trith took possession of Philippopolis, which had been assigned to him. Once again, the Latins were welcomed by the local population: “They were in great need of help: because Johans, the king of Vlachia, had tormented them very much with war. And he helped them very well, and took a large part of the land, and most of those who had sided with Johan turned to him.”48 During the winter of 1205, however, things changed significantly and what had begun as border friction escalated to full-​scale war. After the fall of Constantinople, both Alexios III and Alexios V Mourtzouphlos took refuge in Thrace, trying to organize resistance against the Latins. For a short time they even fought together, until Alexios III betrayed Mourtzouphlos and had him blinded. In the end, however, he realized that his resistance was pointless and surrendered to Boniface. The Byzantine aristocrats of Thrace, who had mostly sided with Alexios III, found themselves without a leader and tried to profit from the struggle between Baldwin and Boniface for control of the region. But when both rulers refused to take them into their service, they proposed an alliance to Kalojan. The main source for this event is Choniates, who at the time was himself a refugee in Thrace: The Romans who had run away with the emperor [Alexios III] (they were mostly of high lineage and not ignorant in military matters, and claimed Thrace as their homeland) wanted as well to join the marquis [Boniface] and serve him as best as they could; but he said that he had no need for Roman soldiers, and sent them off. Then they asked to be received by the emperor Baldwin. Since they found themselves again, as the saying goes, to sing in vain, they went to Ioannes … He received them gladly: he looked warily at the arrogant countenance of the Latins … Therefore Ioannes sent back the Romans who had come to him, to return to their home cities and harm the Latins in every possible way with well-​planned operations, until he would come in person to resolve their matters for the best.49

47  Villehardouin, § 273. 48  Villehardouin, § 311. According to Dančeva-​Vasileva, Balgariya i Latinskata Imperiya, 57, before the arrival of Rénier de Trith Philippopolis was controlled by Kalojan; the same opinion is expressed by Madgearu, The Asanids, 144. 49  Choniates, 612–​13.

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Villehardouin’s account, while similar to that of Choniates, is biased against the Byzantines, whom he accuses of treachery: But the Greeks did not drive away the perfidiousness from their hearts, because they were much disloyal. In that time they saw that the Frenchmen were scattered across the lands and that every one of them was concerned with his own affairs: and so they thought that they could betray them. And secretly they took messengers from all the towns of the land and sent them to Johan, who was the king of Vlachia and Bulgaria, who had waged and still waged war against them; and they told him that they would make him emperor, and that they will all obey him, and that they will kill all the Frenchmen; and they swore that they would obey him as their lord, and he swore that he would treat them as his men. And so the covenant was made.50

Given the past enmity between the Bulgarian ruler and the empire, even in such difficult circumstances it is difficult to imagine that the Byzantine aristocracy was willing to recognize Kalojan as emperor or to enter his service and pay him homage, as Villehardouin states. But this detail, associated with the last phrase of Kalojan’s answer to Baldwin, where he claimed that “the empire belonged more to him than to that one,”51 has led some scholars to postulate that Kalojan, far from simply downplaying Baldwin’s authority, had actually advanced his own candidature to the throne of Constantinople.52 This theory is also apparently strengthened by the fact that, in his correspondence with Innocent III, Kalojan styled himself imperator, not just rex. But when the hostility between Bulgaria and the Latins of Constantinople broke out, Kalojan’s political and military initiatives were not be directed towards the conquest of Constantinople even when, at least theoretically, he would have had the chance to conquer it. Finally, regarding the 50  Villehardouin, § 333. 51  See above, note 41. 52  This idea was first proposed by Fedor Uspenskij, Obrazovanie vtorogo bolgarskogo carstva (Odessa, 1879), 255. Vasil Gjuzelev, “Četvartiyat krastonosen pohod, prevzemaneto na Carigrad i Balgaro-​Latinskite otnošeniya 1204–​1207 g.,” Palaeobulgarica 28 (2004):  80–​88, at 85 and 88, believes that this was Kalojan’s political vision after the battle of Adrianopolis, when the balance of forces shifted abruptly in his favour. Todor Todorov, “Balgariya, Latinskata imperiya i načaloto na voynata za vizantiyskoto nasledstvo (bitkata pri Adrianopol-14 april 1205 g.),” Lyuboslovie 7 (2006): 85–​113, at 86–​87, 91, and 98–​104, is convinced that this was Kalojan’s plan, devised even before him by his brothers Petăr and Asen who, according to the author, “were not alien to the Bulgarian imperial idea” (p. 86, translation from Bulgarian is mine). In a similar fashion, Plamen Pavlov, “Šrihi kam ‘ideologičeski portret’ na car Kaloyan (1197–​1207),” Epohi 11, nos. 1 and 2 (2003): 159–​68, at 163–​64, antedates the imperial idea to the time of Asen and Petăr, although he sees it as a diplomatic strategy to achieve friendly relations with Barbarossa. Тhe most extreme position is the one expressed by Ivan Iordanov, Korpus na pečatite na srednovekovna Balgariya (Sofia:  Agato, 2001), 90, 93–​94; according to him, quoting some passages from the Historia Peregrinorum and the Expeditio Friderici I, Petăr claimed the title of emperor of the Roman Empire during his encounter with Frederick I Barbarossa while the latter was crossing the Balkan

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term imperator, it must be understood as a Latin translation of βασιλεύς, and therefore as a claim to autonomous rule, independent from any other external authority. In his correspondence with the pope, the term imperator is always followed by the specification “Vlachie et Bulgariae,” and there is never a single hint (apart from the harsh phrase quoted above) that Kalojan considered himself a potential emperor of Constantinople, or that he felt he had any actual right over its lands. Kalojan, both chroniclers say, welcomed this unforeseen alliance, which gave him the opportunity to secure his rights as an autonomous ruler and take control of key strategic positions in Thrace and Macedonia at the expenses of the empire. Since he was convinced that the Latins had no intention of respecting the territorial integrity of his kingdom and his own royal authority, rather than waiting for their moves he decided to strike first, when his opponents were still disorganized. In the early months of 1205, as planned, the Byzantines took Adrianopolis, Didymoteicho, Arcadiopolis, Tzouroulon, and several other minor towns, “and where they found the Frenchmen who ruled the land, they killed them.”53 Philippopolis remained under the control of Rénier de Trith, but almost all of his troops deserted him, including his son, his brother, and his son-​in-​ law; they tried to reach Constantinople but were captured by the Byzantines and sent to Kalojan, who had them executed.54 Baldwin was forced to call back Henry and his troops from Asia Minor where they were successfully fighting against Theodore Lascaris, who was thus able to recover from the defeat he had just suffered at Poimaneon. Before the arrival of reinforcements the Latins recovered Byzia, Tzourolon, and Arcadiopolis, but Adrianopolis remained in the hands of the Byzantines. When the first contingents from the east began to arrive in Constantinople, Baldwin decided to move against the town without waiting for the rest of the reinforcements to arrive. The siege began on March 29 and proved difficult from the beginning. The town was well defended and the standards of Kalojan hung on its walls, so perhaps some Bulgarian troops were inside the town as well. Kalojan’s army was rapidly approaching, and on April 13 the Bulgarians made camp five leagues from the Latins. A first skirmish was fought on the same day between the Cuman cavalry and the crusaders. On the following day, the Latin army was lured away from the camp by another Cuman incursion, and led into an ambush where the bulk of the Bulgarian army was waiting. The battle quickly turned into a massacre from peninsula during the Third Crusade; instead, Asen received from Frederick the title of King of Bulgaria. Iordanov does not support this last statement with any evidence. Finally, according to van Tricht, The Latin renovatio, 389, Kalojan “clearly nursed the ambition of gaining the Byzantine emperorship in Constantinople;” See, Nicol, The Despotate of Epiros, 20. More correctly, Dančeva-​ Vasileva, Balgariya i Latinskata Imperiya, 61, believes that Kalojan had no intention, and no possibility, of conquering Constantinople. See also Ivan Božilov, “Balgariya pri Asenevci,” Istoričeski Pregled 36, no. 2 (1980): 80–​95, at 92; Božilov, Familiyata na Asenevci, 44, aptly names the theory of Kalojan’s envisioned rule of Constantinople “the great idea,” making a parallel with the megali idea of nineteenth-​and twentieth-​century Greek nationalism. 53  Villehardouin, § 336. The uprising is described briefly in Choniates, 613, and with more details in Villehardouin, § 335–​39. 54  Villehardouin, § 345–​46.

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which few crusaders managed to escape. Baldwin was captured and brought to Tărnovo, while the Count Louis de Blois, one of the leaders of the Latins, was listed among the many casualties.55 Henry took the regency of the empire while the crusaders waited news of their captured emperor. The battle of Adrianopolis was a point of no return in the relations between Bulgaria and the Latins of Constantinople. In the following months the Bulgarian tsar and his Byzantine allies took control of the whole of Thrace, with Selimbria and Rhodoston the only exceptions, and while his allies secured Thrace, Kalojan moved against the Macedonian possessions of Boniface, capturing Serres and Beroia. Henry profited from the temporary absence of the Bulgarian troops and was able to recover some towns until Kalojan returned to Thrace and took Philippopolis, destroying the city and depriving the Latins of an important stronghold.56 Henry, writing on June 5, 1205, immediately informed Innocent of the terrible defeat that the Latins had endured at Adrianopolis.57 In the letter, delivered by Bishop Nivelon de Soissons, the regent repeatedly asked the pope to assemble a military expedition to help the empire; quite cleverly, he presented the survival of the Latin empire as necessary for the continuation of the crusade and the ultimate recovery of the Holy Land. Henry knew that such an argument would get Innocent’s attention and he was not disappointed; the pope, agitated at the prospect of a possible collapse of the Latin domination in Constantinople, agreed to grant indulgence to anyone involved in this relief operation, the organization of which was entrusted to Nivelon.58 Innocent, however, did not abandon his hopes for reconciliation between Kalojan and the Latins and in August wrote to Henry and the Bulgarian tsar exhorting them to end the war and conclude a sincere peace between them. The letter sent to Henry is very short,59 while the one written to Kalojan is more articulate.60 Innocent reminded the king of the extraordinary benevolence that had been bestowed upon him when he received his crown and banner and tried to daunt him with the announcement 55  The battle of Adrianopolis has generated an impressive number of publications, especially in Bulgarian historiography. Among the latest contributions, see especially Odrinskata bitka ot 1205 g., ed. Vasil Gjuzelev (Sofia: Universitetsko Izdatelstvo “Sv. Kliment Ohridski,” 2005). For an assessment of the number of Latin troops involved in the battle, see Kalin Yordanov, “Nov pogled kam bitkata pri Adrianopol (Voenniyat resurs na rannata Latinska imperiya i kampaniyata ot april 1205 g.,),” Mediaevalia 1, no. 2 (2011): 106–​48. See also Madgearu, The Asanids, 146–​50; Dančeva-​ Vasileva, Balgariya i Latinskata Imperiya, 63–​66. The primary sources describing the battle are Choniates, 615–​17; Villehardouin, § 349–​61; De Clari, § 112; see the bibliography above for some minor accounts. 56  Villehardouin, § 386–​402; Choniates, 618–​25, 627. 57  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 8:239–​43.

58  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 8:238–​39, dated August 16, 1205. In the end, only a small number of crusaders arrived in the Latin empire between the end of 1207 and the beginning of 1208. The organization of this crusade is well covered in Nikolaos G. Chrissis, Crusading in Frankish Greece. A Study of Byzantine-​Western Relations and Attitudes, 1204–​1282 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2012), 25–​29. 59  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 8:243–​44. 60  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 8:236–​38.

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of the crusade that Nivelon was organizing and which, at least according to his plan, would soon depart for Constantinople: Know, o dearest son, that a large army is ready to depart from the West in the direction of Greece … Therefore you must take good measures for yourself and for your lands, and make, while you still can, peace with the Latins, because if they from one side and the Hungarians from the other decide to attack you, it would be difficult for you to resist to their efforts.61

Innocent ended his letter with a plea for the liberation of Baldwin, still imprisoned in Tărnovo. Kalojan responded to Innocent’s requests with a letter recorded in the Gesta Innocentii,62 in which, as already noted, he blamed the Latins for beginning the war; they had provoked him and he was forced to defend himself. He also added that it was impossible for him to free Baldwin because he was already dead, not specifying the time or the cause of his death.63 Apparently, Kalojan’s good disposition towards the Latins had completely disappeared; from his point of view this was understandable, given that he now enjoyed almost complete military superiority in the regions of Thrace and Macedonia and could count on the support of the local Byzantine aristocracy. The alliance with the Byzantines, however, was rapidly coming to an end. In January 1206 Kalojan launched a campaign in Thrace whose aim was not conquest, but destruction. Many towns were sacked and burned down and their populations deported. The Byzantines reached an agreement with Henry, who did not repeat the mistake made by his brother. The defection of the Byzantine troops did not deter Kalojan from continuing his operations (he destroyed the fortress of Didymoteichon), but gave Henry, who was crowned emperor on August 20, 1206, the chance to organize a series of counterattacks. For the first time since the establishment of the Latin empire, its troops were able to enter Bulgarian territory and destroy several border fortresses.64 Although the situation of the empire was still difficult, Henry enjoyed some minor advantages. He had formed an alliance with the Byzantine noblemen of Thrace, which granted him control of many towns in the region; moreover, he knew that by then whatever support Kalojan had enjoyed from Innocent had waned. And while he also tried to 61  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 8:237. 62  See above, note 42. 63  According to Choniates, Baldwin was killed by Kalojan’s order in the summer of 1205, after the Bulgarian conquest of Philippopolis (Choniates, 642–​43); Villehardouin only records that Baldwin died in prison, without providing any details (Villehardouin, § 439). Finally, the account of Albericus (Albrici monachi Trium Fontium chronicon, In Monumenta Germanie Historica, ed. Georg Pertz (Hannover: Hahn, 1874), 23:631–​950, at 885) appears fabricated in imitation to the biblical story of Potiphar’s wife. According to the chronicler, Kalojan’s wife had tried to seduce the imprisoned emperor. Once he refused her, she denounced Baldwin, who was immediately executed by an enraged Kalojan. 64  Villehardouin, § 404–​49; Choniates, 628–​37, 642, 645–​46.

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delegitimize Kalojan, for reasons of internal and external politics, his strategy was quite different from the one employed by his late brother. Since Kalojan had been crowned by a pontifical legate, Henry could not deny him his royal rank; therefore, once he requested the help of the pope for the survival of Latin Constantinople, representing this endeavour not just as a struggle for regional predominance, but for the Christian faith, the logical consequence was that he had to describe the Bulgarian tsar as an enemy of the Church and as a man of low moral standards whose oath could not be trusted. In the letter sent to Innocent in June 1205, Henry had already insinuated that Kalojan’s disposition in the Christian faith was ambiguous, since he was ready to make an alliance “with the Turks and with other enemies of the cross of Christ” against the empire.65 He reiterated this idea in a much more explicit way in a letter he wrote to his brother Gottfried in September 1206, a copy of which was sent to Innocent as well.66 In the letter, Kalojan is called sancte crucis inimico (enemy of the holy cross), crucis inimicus (enemy of the cross), and curiae et sancte romane ecclesie inimicus (enemy of the Curia and of the holy Roman church).67 It is not known if Innocent shared the same view regarding Kalojan. In the last letter he wrote him (or at least the last letter recorded in the Regesta), sent on May 24, 1207, to invite him again to conclude a truce with the empire, the pope continued to express benevolence towards him, but the general tone was considerably colder.68 Kalojan ignored this last appeal for peace and continued his campaigns; he besieged Adrianopolis unsuccessfully and returned to Bulgaria. At the beginning of September Henry and Boniface met to devise a common strategy against the Bulgarian tsar; on his way back to Thessalonica, Boniface was ambushed and killed. Kalojan moved against Thessalonica immediately, but died unexpectedly during the siege of the town. His succession was complicated and in the end the crown went to his cousin Boril, who renewed the alliance with the Cumans and, at least in the first years of his reign, tried to continue the same aggressive politics against the Latins. In May 1208 he invaded Thrace and won a battle against the imperial army near Beroe; he then moved to Philippopolis, but was defeated and forced to withdraw. Henry wrote a jubilant letter to Innocent in the aftermath of the battle of Philippopolis69 in which he announced his victory against Boril, whom he called “the most malicious persecutor of the church of God,”70 continuing the tradition he had set for Kalojan. The relationship between the two polities remained 65  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 8:243. According to Henry, a Bulgarian messenger was caught carrying a letter in which Kalojan was discussing the matter with his allies, who however remain unspecified. 66  The letter to Gottfried is edited in Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden, 2:38–​42. The letter to Innocent is summarized in Gesta Innocentii, § 106.

67  Tafel and Thomas, Urkunden, 2:38, 39, 42. In the last quote, “curiae” is the text suggested by Tafel and Thomas, but it may well be “crucis,” repeating the usual formula used by Henry in his invective against Kalojan. 68  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 10:111–​13. 69  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 11:333–​34. 70  Die Register Innocenz’ III, 11:333.

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tense, until in 1213 Bulgaria and the Latin empire of Constantinople concluded a peace treaty that closely resembled an alliance. In the following year, Boril concluded a peace treaty with Hungary. For the first time in the history of the second Bulgarian Kingdom, both the southern and the north-​western frontiers were at peace. The treaty with the Latin Empire held until the second half of the 1230s, when the balance of power once again shifted in favour of Bulgaria. In the short existence of the Latin Empire of Constantinople, war was by no means the only way in which its relations with Bulgaria developed. On the contrary, the years in which the two states maintained friendly, or at least neutral, relations far outnumber the years when they were at war.71 To answer the question posed in the title of this paper, the hostility between Bulgaria and the Latins was not necessary nor was it the general rule of their relationship, but only one of the many ways in which they were interconnected. So far, historiography has been more concerned with analysing the violent encounters between Bulgaria and the Latins, especially because this is the focus of most of the available sources. It is not easy, given the scarcity and the silence of the contemporary testimonies, to attempt a reconstruction of the relations between Bulgaria and the Latins in times of peace, but it would be advisable, and certainly fruitful, to begin to fill this void.

71  For a quantitative analysis of the conflicts between Bulgaria and the Latin empire of Constantinople, see Ivelin Ivanov, “Balgaro-​latinskite vojni ot parvata polovina na XIII v.  Opit za količestven analiz,” in Velikite Asenevci, ed. Plamen Pavlov, Nikolay Kănev, and Nikolay Hrisimov (Veliko Tărnovo: Abagar, 2016), 178–​86.

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Chapter 4

OTTOMAN POWER HOLDERS IN THE BALKANS (1353–1580): A CASE OF UPWARD AND DOWNWARD ELITE MOBILITY

Güneş Işıksel*1 DURING THE FIRST century of their advance towards Southeast Europe (ca. 1353–​ 1453), the Ottomans were not an unrivalled dominant economic and political power. They developed varied strategies (diplomatic alliances, dynastic marriages, commercial cooperation) to coordinate their disparate territorial holdings, acquired mostly by military means, and to forge partnerships.2 From the second half of the fifteenth century on, this configuration was transformed with the gradual consolidation of their rule, implementation of novel administrative measures and reorganization, as well as delimitation, of territory. In this contribution, I examine the social and economic investments of diverse population segments that constituted the new power elites and also those of some indigenous loci of power that had sufficient economic and social capital to renegotiate their place within this new socio-​political environment. Strategies of reproduction and re-​conversion depend, according to Pierre Bourdieu, on the objective profit-​risks offered to investments in a given state of the institutional instruments of reproduction and of the capital they are to reproduce. The structure of the distribution of the wealth among classes and segments of classes assures the maintenance of order, ensured by ceaseless changes in the layout of the society. Those who are not capable of reproducing their social and economic capital and regenerating their *  Güneş Işıksel is a faculty member at the İstanbul Medeniyet Üniversitesi and a member of an ongoing ERC project, GHOST. His PhD was on Ottoman foreign relations in the second half of the sixteenth century, published in 2017 by Peeters: La diplomatie ottomane sous le règne de Selîm II. Paramètres et périmètres de l’Empire ottoman dans le troisième quart du XVIe siècle. His current area of interest is the capitulations of the Ottoman Empire in the Early Modern period. He has written widely on Ottoman diplomacy in English, French, and Turkish. 1  I wish to thank Maximilian Hartmuth (University of Vienna) who commented on the initial draft of this article and Aleksandar Jakovljević (The Institute of History, Belgrade) who contributed substantially to the finalization of the text. 2  The definition of this noun/​adjective, i.e., Ottoman is problematic, especially for the first century (1353–​1453). I  would rather define it somewhat vaguely and refer to the dynasty, their semi-​autonomous partners (frontier raider lords and sometimes local allies) and servants of the sultan (kadıs, Muslim and Christian military men). See further, Machiel Kiel, “The Incorporation of the Balkans into the Ottoman Empire, 1353–​1453,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey. vol. 1:  Byzantium-​Turkey, 1071–​1453, ed. Kate Fleet (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2009), 138–​91.

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86 G�neş Işiksel power bases lose their political positions.3 I will apply this scheme to highlight the reclassement and déclassement, in other words, upward and downward social mobility, of the main Ottoman power holders in Rumelia in the first two centuries of their presence by focusing on their infrastructural and philanthropic investments.

The Socio-​Genesis of Ottoman Rule in the Balkans (1353–​1453)

If the Ottoman chroniclers are keen on giving an idyllic picture of the initial settlement circumstances in the Balkans, contemporaneous local sources state the opposite. The Ottoman conquest removed the ruling Greek-​Byzantine, Serbian, and Bulgarian dynasties except the “Rumanian” princes. Magnates and higher nobility who were incapable of integrating into the new regime lost their power bases immediately or gradually. A substantial number of them, however, opted for quiet after all the turmoil and acted as brokers for the political transformation. In the subdued regions, a conciliatory policy (istimalet) was initially pursued so as to incorporate middle and lower-​level military administrators as well as the clergy into the fabric of the state. Despite resistance, the Ottomans started to administer compact groups of Christian urban and rural populations that retained legal and cultural traditions from Byzantine-​Slavic culture.4 Conquered lands were governed by adopting the former land division. Some parts of Byzantine and Slavic legal stipulations and customs, especially in the penal domain, were incorporated into the Ottoman law codes. In some instances, as in the case of Saxon-​ Serbian mining regulations, the Ottomans adopted the existing legal system completely. Christian inheritance and the process of donating or bequeathing to churches and monasteries were recognized. The Church, in effect, served as a partial replacement of the Christian states. The removal of the latter, conversely, gave new impetus to a cultural revival, seen in the reassertion of customary law. The expansion of the zadruga (an extended family that lived together and held property jointly), the flourishing of local crafts in tandem with commercial expansion, folk epics with their anti-​Ottoman heroes, and music are all evidence of this revival.5 3  Pierre Bourdieu, “Classement, déclassement, reclassement,”Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales 24 (1978): 2–​22; Gilles Chabaud, Classement, Déclassement, reclassement. De l’Antiquité à nos jours (Limoges: Presses Universitaires de Limoges, 2011). 4  Halil İnalcik, “The Ottoman Methods of Conquest,” Studia Islamica 2 (1954): 103–​29. Ottoman military apparatus had to contain important Christian contingents having tax exemptions (martolos, voynuks, and derbendjis) who, after an initial trade-​off, suffered a sizeable déclassement in the long run.

5  Ladislas Hadrovics, Le peuple serbe et son église sous la domination turque (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1947); Nicoara Beldiceanu, Les actes des premiers Sultans conservés dans les Manuscrits Turcs de la Bibliothèque Nationale a Paris, II: Règlements Miniers. 1390–​1512 (Paris: Mouton, 1964); Tatyana Popovic, Prince Marko: The Hero of South Slavic Epics. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1988). See also, Fikret Adanır, “Heiduckentum und osmanische Herrschaft: Sozialgeschichtliche Aspekte der Diskussion um das frühneuzeitliche Räuberwesen in Südosteuropa,” Südost-​Forschungen 41 (1982): 43–​116.

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To restore the fortunes of depopulated cities or to stimulate the demographic growth of newly created towns, Ottoman emirs systematically brought in Turkic colonists (mostly nomads and semi-​nomads as well as “heterodox” dervish groups for proselytizing policies) and established them along nodal points of the roads. As a result, Edirne, Plovdiv, Sofia, Larissa, and Kavala became major centres of control and administration, while the Christian indigenous populations were gradually, but not completely, displaced to marginal areas. This coincided with an ongoing demographic instability in the region and rendered social peace more complex: “The stock-​raisers with Wallachian or yürük status were organized into quasi-​military categories and developed a consciousness of higher social status. These semi-​military pastoral groups felt socially superior to the reaya peasants.”6 We rarely have a clear picture of the modes of reception, adaptation, cooperation, and contention that bounded the different social groups in the first century. The colonizers, deportees, and colonized, however, created, by virtue of necessity, conditions for cohabitation and several patterns of social interaction, which did not exclude a parallel process of mistrust between different layers.7 On the frontiers at the turn of the fifteenth century, marcher lords (clans of the Kösemihal, Evrenos, Malkoç, and the like) were the predominant Muslim holders of power. The Ottoman capital had few means to control their communications and actions. Most of the lands they had conquered were granted to them with significant tax exemptions and eventually with the right to transform them into religious endowments (waqfs). As in the case of Serres, ruled by the Evrenos family, they managed to rebuild medium-​sized towns. The T-​shaped hospices that marked the confines of the newly built settlements also served as key markers of the Ottoman presence and munificence. The Ottoman built environment included other structures such as commercial buildings, caravanserai, and bathhouses. More ambitious projects demanding high levels of investment were rarely undertaken. Still, some bezzâzistâns (vaulted market halls) and aqueducts were constructed in this period.8 Weekly markets and especially fairs (panayır), which were even more effective than hospices for regional reintegration, 6  For the prevailing conditions in the Balkans in the later Middle Ages, especially the effects of Wüstung, the Black Death, and other causes of depopulation, see Fikret Adanır, “Tradition and Rural Change in Southeastern Europe During Ottoman Rule,” in The Origins of Backwardness in Eastern Europe, ed. Daniel Chirot (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989): 131–​76, at 138. On the semi-​nomadic vlah and yürük populations:  Vjeran Kursar, “Being an Ottoman Vlach:  On Vlach Identity (ies), Role and Status in Western Parts of the Ottoman Balkans (15th–​18th Centuries),” Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi (OTAM) 34 (2013): 115–​61. They were to be marginalized in the second half of the sixteenth century. 7  See especially, Nikolay Antov, The Ottoman “Wild West”: The Balkan Frontier in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017). Compare: Nathan Wachtel, La vision des vaincus. Les Indiens de Pérou devant la conquête espagnole (Paris: Gallimard, 1971).

8  Kiel, “The Incorporation of the Balkans”; Heath Lowry, The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans: The Conquest, Settlement & Infrastructural Development of Northern Greece (Istanbul:  Bahçeşehir University Press, 2008); Grigory Boykov, “Reshaping Urban Space in the Ottoman Balkans: A Study on the Architectural Development of Edirne, Plovdiv, and Skopje (14th–​15th centuries),” in Centres

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88 G�neş Işiksel brought both agricultural and artisanal production to one location. Given the absence of sizeable Muslim settlements in the region, for effective fiscal policies it became expedient to ensure the support of the newly conquered populations with these kinds of investments. The first waqfs of the first stratum of “newcomers” guided the development of Muslim urban communities.9 The marcher lords held their positions throughout their lifetimes, which meant that they married locally, but intermarriages between major frontier clans seem to have been rare. When the heads of clans had sons who were capable of filling their positions, they passed their roles on to their offspring and redistributed their waqf properties accordingly. Their sons had to swear allegiance to the sultan, who often acknowledged their power. The Ottoman administration kept the right to appoint the heirs of marcher lords to other administrative districts. As these lords moved the Ottoman banner westward along the Via Egnatia and Via Militaris, they were also putting in place the foundations of a new road structure designed to provide for the needs of merchants from Ragusa, Ancona, and Venice. But the absence of secure and integrated communications under the control of a powerful administration made these first attempts unsustainable. One of the reasons behind the decline of the marcher lords, as well as some of their commercial partners/​rivals, the Christian magnates, was their inability to readapt themselves to new military technology, which augmented their vulnerability to the hegemonic moves of their more powerful neighbours or suzerains.10 The relation of the marcher lords living west of Skopje with the imperial centre was loose at first. Presumably, distance from the capital still granted them greater autonomy compared to the first-​generation marcher lords, despite now being geographically closer not only to the capital cities (Bursa and/​or Edirne), but especially to the headquarters of the general-​governorate of Rumelia in Sofia. Moreover, with regularized census operations, the dynasty was beginning to limit the powerbases of western Thracian marcher lords.11 The Pasha Yiğit family is a case in point. In the first half of the fifteenth century, the eponymous founder of the clan rebuilt Skopje according to the eastern marcher lords’ urban growth scheme. His son, Ishak Bey, developed the city’s infrastructure. Isa Bey (d. 1476) built a powerbase for himself in recently conquered Sarajevo, where he applied the already established system for urban planning by placing a communal and Peripheries in Ottoman Architecture: Rediscovering a Balkan Heritage, ed. Maximilian Hartmuth (Sarajevo: Cultural Heritage without Borders, 2011): 32–​45.

9  Ömer L.  Barkan, “Osmanlı İmparatorluğunda İmâret Sitelerinin Kuruluş ve İşleyiş Tarzına âit Araştırmalar,” İstanbul Üniversitesi İktisat Fakültesi Mecmuası 23 (1962–​1963):  239–​96; Heath Lowry, “The ‘Soup Muslims’ of the Ottoman Balkans: Was There A ‘Western’ & ‘Eastern’ Ottoman Empire?,” Journal of Ottoman Studies 36 (2010): 97–​133.

10  Traian Stoianovich, “A Route Type:  The Via Egnatia under Ottoman Rule,” in The Via Egnatia under Ottoman Rule (1380–​1699), ed. Elizabeth Zachariadou (Rethymnon: Crete University Press, 1997), 203–​16; Boško I.  Bojović, “Entre Venise et l’Empire ottoman, les métaux précieux des Balkans,” Annales ESC 60, no. 6 (2005): 1277–​98. 11  Halil İnalcık, Hicrî 835 Tarihli Sûret-​i Defter-​i Sancak-​i Arvanid (Ankara: TTK 1987), xiii–​xv.

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mosque and commercial infrastructure at a location that was intended to become a new urban core. He also founded Novi Pazar as a new settlement in the vicinity of the old Serbian capital, Ras. From the 1470s, he relocated to Smederevo to guard the frontier from the incursions of Mathias Corvinus’s marcher lords. His elder son, Mustafa, had no military or administrative responsibilities just as his cadet Hasan, who was merely a mutevelli (administrator) of his grandfather’s religious endowment. Only his youngest son, Mehmed, who conquered Durrës in 1501, was able to maintain the family’s status during the first quarter of the sixteenth century.12 As a socio-​political pattern, the second generation often became sancakbeyis (governor of a military district) and rarely beylerbeyis (governor-​general), but the grandsons and great-​grandsons might occupy minor official posts like subaşılık (sheriff) when they could. In other words, they were gradually deprived of their powerbases, had to accept subaltern military or administrative posts when they could, and, as servants of the sultan, did their best to maintain their waqf holdings.13

The Second Phase: Massive Investments Coordinated From the Centre

With the delineating of frontier zones in Europe and the regularization of diplomacy with neighbouring political entities (particularly the Habsburg Empire and the Republic of Venice) under the supervision of the governor-​general of Rumelia from the 1520s, the clans began to lose any raison d’être, especially during times of peace (mudara).14 When Sofia became the settled seat of the general governorate, among other factors, it gradually brought under the control of the central administration the marcher lords operating on the Moldavian Road as well as on the Via Egnatia and Via Militaris.15 Policies for binding the former Rumelian elite to the imperial centre accompanied the diversification of the kadı’s (judge) functions. The kadıs became the main representatives of the state, along with sancakbeyis, who were assigned from Istanbul. Kazas (judgeships), as in other parts of the empire during the process of integration, became the basic unit for provincial administration, effacing the power base of once 12  Mustafa Özer, Üsküp’te Türk Mimarisi. XIV.–​XIX.yüzyıl (Ankara:  Türk Tarih Kurumu, 2006), 187–​88; Grigor Boykov, Mastering the Conquered Space:  Resurrection of Urban Life in Ottoman Upper Thrace (14th–​17th c.) (PhD diss., Bilkent University, 2013):  247–​50; Hans J.  Kissling, “Zur Eroberung von Durazzo durch die Türken (1501),” in Studia Albanica Monacensia in memoriam Georgii Castriotae Scanderbegi, ed. Alois Schmaus (Munich: Trofenik, 1969), 23–​31. 13  Aleksandar Fotić, “Yahyapaşa-​Oğlu Mehmed Pasha’s Evkaf in Belgrade,” Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum 54, no.  4 (2001):  437–​52; Yasemin Altayli, “Budin Beylerbeyi Aslan Paşa (1565–​1566),” OTAM 19 (2006): 33–​51; Boykov, “Mastering the Conquered Space,” 250–​53; Géza Dávid, “Macaristan’da Yönetici Osmanlı Aileleri,” OTAM 38 (2015): 13–​30. 14  Güneş Işıksel, La diplomatie ottomane sous le règne de Selîm II. Paramètres et périmètres de l’Empire ottoman dans le troisième quart du XVIe siècle (Leuven: Peeters, 2016), 7–​14. 15  Mihnea Berindei, “L’Empire ottoman et la ‘route moldave’ avant la conquête de Chilia et de Cetatea Alba (1484),” Journal of Turkish Studies 10 (1986): 47–​71.

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90 G�neş Işiksel semi-​autonomous governors. In this process, the old governors, with their diminishing means, continued to invest in centrifugal religious movements in their locality against the tide. Indeed, at that time, the centre started to put in place “sunnetization” policies, backed up by rather more orthodox confraternities such as Halvetis.16 As Grigor Boykov points out, by the second half of the fifteenth century, following the gradual marginalization of the periphery, homologously, the t-​type buildings associated with and frequented in “heterodox” milieus were commissioned less often while the multi-​ domed “imperial-​style” mosques became the social and political markers of the urban core.17 In fact, architectural changes with their underlying social and financial motives are good indicators of modifications in power relations. The new elite of the empire, most of whom were the offspring of the local Balkan elites, invested in the capital cities. Their mosques and other philanthropic works reveal another strategy. Newcomers, conversely, rarely invest in their places of origin; they secure their positions first in the capital. The edifices sponsored by Mahmud Pasha Angelović, grand vizier of Mehmed II, between roughly 1458 and 1474, are mainly concentrated in Istanbul and to a lesser extent in Edirne and Bursa. In the new capital, he financed a mosque, a madrasa, a soup kitchen, public baths, fountains, markets, and shops as well as a bezzâzistân. In Edirne, he donated a mosque and a public bath and in Bursa, a mosque, an inn, and fountains. His most considerable monument in the Balkans was the congregational mosque in Sofia.18 This monument is also important in the sense that as an investment by the governor-​ general of Rumelia it must have symbolically highlighted the new elite’s social and political power at the expense of marcher lords.19 The same applies to the high dignitaries of Bayezid II (r. 1481–​1512), such as Davud (d. 1498) and Hersekzade Ahmed (d. 1517), pashas whose charitable and commercial investments concentrated, for the most part, on the new capital and its immediate surroundings. Curiously enough, this stratum of 16  Mariya Kiprovska, “The Mihaloğulları:  Gazi Warriors and Patrons of Dervish Hospices,” The Journal of Ottoman Studies 32 (2008):  193–​222; Nathalie Clayer, Mystiques, État et Société:  Les Halvetis dans l’aire balkanique de la fin du XVe siècle à nos jours (Leiden:  Brill, 1994):  69–​101. Halvetiye had an important role as well in the monetization of the economy, see Tahsin Özcan, “Sofyalı Bâlî Efendi’nin Para Vakıflarıyla İlgili Mektupları,” İslâm Araştırmaları Dergisi 3 (1999):  125–​55. For some examples of radical actions in favour of orthodoxy, see Klaus-​Peter Matschke, “Research Problems Concerning the Transition to Tourkokratia: The Byzantinist Standpoint,” in The Ottomans and the Balkans. A Discussion of Historiography, ed. Fikret Adanır and Suraiya Faroqhi (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 79–​113 at 93–​95. 17  Boykov, “Reshaping Urban Space,” 41–​45; Maximilian Hartmuth, “Architecture, Change, and Discontent in the Empire of Mehmed II:  The Great Mosque of Sofia, Its Date and Importance Reconsidered,” in Osmanlı Mimarlık Kültürü, ed. Hatice Aynur and A. Hilâl Uğurlu (Istanbul: Kubbealtı, 2016), 337–​50.

18  Theoharis Stavrides, The Sultan of Vezirs: The Life and Times of the Ottoman Grand Vezir Mahmud Pasha Angelovic (1453–​1474) (Leiden:  Brill, 2001), 37–​72; Hartmuth, “Architecture, Change, and Discontent,” 337–​50. 19  Hartmuth, “Architecture, Change, and Discontent,” 348.

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viziers proved unable to transfer their properties in one manner or another to their descendants, or in other words, to reproduce their social power.20 A new pattern for the infrastructural works in the Balkans can be observed from the beginnings of Süleyman’s reign (r. 1520–​1566). His first grand vizier, Piri Pasha, revitalized Silivri, a small Byzantine town on the shore of Marmara. His successor, Ibrahim virtually recreated Kavalla by constructing the citadel, the aqueduct, and a large bezzâzistân.21 During Süleyman the Magnificient’s increasingly centralized administration, tribute children started to take a prominent place as a means of bolstering dynastic power and curtailing the formation of local aristocracies. Ibrahim Pasha’s successor in office, Lutfi, made investments in Dimetoka.22 He also proposed to the sultan the restructuring of the road-​system, especially in the Balkans, as well as the communication networks by actively investing in couriers (ulak) and post-​stations (menzil); to this end, he cooperated with the well-​known architect Sinan. From then on, the latter not only built various buildings for the sultans, but he also cooperated with most of the members of the dynasty and great dignitaries of the sultans in restructuring the Balkans.23 Sinan first came under the patronage of Sofu Mehmed Pasha in the late 1540s. He not only built a mosque, and other charitable buildings in Sofia, but he revitalized Banja Luka, a town taken after the battle of Mohács and also initiated constructions in Bulgaria.24 After working with Sofu Mehmed, Sinan cooperated with Rüstem Pasha. Rüstem’s “public” works pursued a systematic strategy on both the Via Militaris and Via Egnatia, along which he financed many endowments under well-​ordained separate administrations (cibayet).25 Following an investment strategy put in place by Ibrahim Pasha, he organized sizeable fairs, like Dolyan in Strumica, as a part of his waqf in Rodoscuk.26 20  Hedda Reindl, Männer um Bāyezīd:  Eine prosopographische Studie über die Epoche Sultan Bāyezīds II. (1481–​1512) (Berlin: Klaus Schwarz, 1983). On their investments along the eastern part of the Via Egnatia, see Vassilis Demetriades: “Vakıfs Along the Via Egnatia,” in The Via Egnatia Under Ottoman Rule, 1380–​1699, ed. Elizabeh Zachariadou (Rethymnon:  Crete University Press, 1996), 85–​95 at 90–​91. 21  Lowry, “The Shaping of the Ottoman Balkans,” 227–​42. 22  Ümit Kılıç, “Sadrazam Lütfi Paşa’nın Dimetoka Vakfı,” OTAM 22 (2007): 109–​23. 23  Ünal Öziş, Yalçin Özdemir, and Ayhan Atalay, “Sinan Dönemi Türk Taşköprüleri,” in Türkiye İnşaat Mühendisliği 14. Teknik Kongresi (İzmir: TMMOB, 1997), 1145–​60; Gülru Necipoğlu, The Age of Sinan: Architectural Culture in the Ottoman Empire (London: Reaktion, 2011), 27–​46; 314–​68. 24  Meral Bayrak Ferlibaş, “Sofya’da XVI. Yüzyıla Ait Bir Vakıf Örneği: Sofu Mehmed Paşa Külliyesi ve Camiden Kiliseye Çevrilmiş Bir Mabedin Hikayesi,” Türk Kültürü İncelemeleri Dergisi 19 (2008): 1–​42. 25  Gülçin Küçükkaya, “Mimar Sinan dönemi İstanbul-​Belgrad Arası Menzil Yapıları Hakkında Bir Deneme,” Vakiflar Dergisi 21 (1990):  183–​254 at 195 and following pages; Necipoglu, The Age of Sinan, 418–​19; 440–​42; H.  Ahmed Arslantürk, Bir Bürokrat ve Yatırımcı Olarak Kanuni Sultan Süleyman’ın Veziriazamı Rüstem Paşa (PhD diss., Marmara University, 2011).

26  Suraiya Faroqhi, “The Early History of Balkan Fairs,” Südost Forschungen 37 (1978): 50–​68 at 57.

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92 G�neş Işiksel Sofu Mehmed’s successor in the same office, Ali Pasha, again a déraciné, almost founded Babaeski by endowing a mosque, a madrasa, public baths, shops, and a caravanserai.27 Ali’s successor, Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, even surpassed his predecessors in this domain. From Büyük Çekmece on the outskirts of Istanbul to Belgrade, Bečkerek/​Nagybecskerek (present-​day Zrenjanin), and Buda, he made considerable investments across Rumelian provinces.28 The edifices were mostly endowed with their own land under representatives of the new establishment—​pashas and beys as well as their often-​indigenous subalterns—​ which created a solid basis for their social and political reproduction.29 The last representative of this trend seem to have been Sinan Pasha who, however, concentrated his investments in the trade centres of the Levant, especially Aleppo and Alexandria.30 In some cases, cities had more than one patron. The case of Banja Luka is revealing as an example of a city revitalized by the efforts of benefactors of devşirme origin. The first structure out of which the town developed was the medieval fortress on Londja Hill in Vrbas County, which was taken in 1527. Sofu Mehmed made the first serious investments; he oversaw the construction of a mosque, a public bath, a caravanserai, several shops, and most impressively, a pedestrian bridge over the Vrbas River. A half century later, a Sokolović, Ferhad Bey, the first governor-​general of Bosnia and several cultural-​religious institutions, erected another caravanserai, a bezzazistan, a clock tower, and the water-​supply system.31 These waqfs functioned as a means of incorporation and social control, but also offered socio-​religious and economic functions that enforced Sunni political and theological norms and values. The accumulation of both political and economic capital in the hands of devşirmes, however, features in a major critique by an anonymous author writing in the 1580s who worked as a judge in a town in the Balkans: The permanence of the sultanate depends on justice and capable soldiers. Subordination of the soldiers is assured by giving them their livelihood in 27  Küçükkaya, Mimar Sinan dönemi, 198–​99; Necipoglu, The Age of Sinan, 384–​89. 28  Gilles Veinstein, “Sokollu Mehmed Pacha,” Encyclopédie de I’Islam IX, 735–​42; Necipoglu, The Age of Sinan, 331–​368; Andrej Andrejević, “Sokollu Mehmed Paşa’s Contribution to the Building of the City of Belgrade,” in VIII. Türk Tarih Kongresi. Bildiriler, 3 vols. (Ankara: TTK, 1983), 3:1627–​36.

29  For the case of Sokollu Mustafa Pasha, see Gyula Kaldy-Nagy, “Budin Beylerbeyi Mustafa Paşa (1566–1578),” Belleten 210 (1990): 649–63; Mehmet Emin Yılnaz and Gökçe Günel, “Sâhib’ülHayrât Makbûl (Sokollu) Mustafa Paşa,” OTAM 38 (2015): 219–52. For the investments of another Sokolović, Ferhad, governor of the Klis region and then the province of Bosnia, see Elma Korić, Životni put prvog beglerbega Bosne:  Ferhad-paša Sokolović (1530–1590) (Sarajevo: Orijentalni institut u Sarajevu, 2015).

30  Maximilian Hartmuth “Le patronage architectural de Koca Sinân Pacha dans les Balkans:  Un ensemble de bâtiments inconnus de la fin du XVIe siècle à Štip (Macédonie),” Turcica 43 (2012): 345–​62. 31  Slobodan Ilić, “Banja Luka,” Encyclopaedia of Islam 3 (Leiden: Brill 2013): 2, 48–​51. On Sokollu as well as other devşirme-​origined dignitaries’ waqf investments in Bosnia, see Adem Handžić, Studije o Bosni, istorijski prilozi iz osmansko-​turskog perioda (Istanbul:  IRCICA, 1994), 91–​161, 207–​13.

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accordance with their merits. Ruling in this manner requires holding of numerous countries and rich treasuries by which the daily stipends of the soldiers can be supplied as well as that of the retainers of middle or large-​sized prebends. Accordingly, greater parts of the towns and the villages of the “Well-​ Protected Dominions” should be either in the statute of crown land or prebendal landholdings. But, the majority of these lands are actually allotted as waqf or private property, which makes the number of available prebendal land-​holdings decrease. We do not intend to criticize the waqf foundations of the honourable sultans who founded mosques and charity houses in the countries subdued by their overwhelming power. … But is it fair, apart from the many bestowals and grants already given, to donate to a single vizier as many as fifty villages? Are they not supposed to be satisfied with the tremendous rank of the vizier? What is the use in giving a village as property to a grand vizier? Could he have not bought already, in one way or in another, villages, cultivable lands, mills, farms, baths, and other things as such? The solid proof of my words is the case of the Grand Vizier Mehemmed Pasha, to whom the late … Sultan Suleyman Han (may the mercy of God be upon him) as well as the late padishah (may his residence be in Paradise), had given in the form of property as many as a hundred villages, cultivable lands, independent towns, [customs duties of] harbors and many other incomes. When asked, “What is the reason for transferring so many villages and lands? Would not one or two be enough?” The answer will be “to leave behind a good reputation in the world by just government is not enough. I have to, as there is the opportunity, register as many private domains as possible so as to do a good deed and to leave some of them to my children.”32

The anonymous author goes on to explain in detail the various embezzlements and scams that took place when these kinds of property transfers were made. He criticizes especially the construction of unnecessary mosques or soup kitchens in order to legitimize the misappropriation of the “crown” properties, which were intended to provide stipends for soldiers. The position from which this author conducts his diatribe is a secondary point—​was he from a marcher lord’s entourage?—​but the passage makes clear the re-​positioning strategies of high dignitaries of devşirme origin. From the early seventeenth century, however, both of the antagonists in this debate about landholdings in Rumelia were gradually disappearing in favour of new elites: waqf administrators of sultans and local “national” power elites.33 Some remarks about the second are in order. A Serbian pressure group at the Ottoman court supported by the devşirme elite, who wanted to be detached from the ecclesiastical hierarchy under the Greeks, would perhaps not have been sufficient to bring about imperial support for a new episcopate had 32  Yaşar Yücel, Osmanlı Devlet Teşkilatına dair Kaynaklar:  III. Hırzü’l-​Mülûk (Ankara: TTK, 1988), 177.

33  Fikret Adanır, “Semi-​autonomous Forces in the Balkans and Anatolia,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey. vol. 3:  Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–​1839, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi (Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press, 2006), 157–​84; Juliette Dumas, Les perles de nacre du sultanat. Les princesses ottomanes (mi-​Xve–​mi-​XVIIIe siècle), (PhD diss., EHESS-​Paris, 2013), 125–​94.

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94 G�neş Işiksel this attempt not also presented a favourable geopolitical project and new fiscal opportunities to consolidate Ottoman rule.34 This move may also have helped to compensate and even revalorize the services of semi-​military Christian local power holders. Indeed, the jurisdiction of the new Patriarchate of Peć, covering a vast area from northern Macedonia and Kosovo to southern Hungary and from western Bulgaria to the Adriatic Sea, extended Serbian influence across an area which had never been under Serbian rule, even at the time of King Stephen. The holder of the new see bore the title of “the patriarch of all Serbian lands.”35 These “Serbian lands” were under the jurisdiction of the patriarchate with its new territorial terms. Churches and monasteries were rebuilt and they not only served for regional integration culturally, but also from a commercial point of view.36 It became evident that a large part of the Orthodox Balkan population and also some of the Catholic Slavs (apart from the Franciscans who were operating outside ecclesiastical jurisdiction) were destined to become part of the Peć Patriarchate as long as the Catholic Church had little or no right to permanent residence in the Ottoman Empire.37

Conclusions

A turning point in 1566 for the marcher lords as a group can be seen in the execution of Arslan Pasha (governor-​general of Buda and foremost representative of the marcher lords at the time) by a cabal in which Sokollu Mehmed Pasha, his nephew Mustafa Bey, and seemingly, his Halveti mentor Nureddinzade, were implicated. If the circumstances of arduous preparation and somewhat equivocal attitude of the governor-​general during the siege of the Szigetvár fortress were perhaps the immediate cause, the result was the gradual transfer of sizeable revenues managed by the last scions of the marcher lords to the devşirme elite.38 With the disappearance in the late sixteenth century of the initial raider society and vast use of irregular mercenary troops, their fate seems to have been sealed. 34  For the so-​called pressure group, see Matei Cazacu, “Projets et intrigues serbes à la Cour de Soliman (1530–​1540),” in Soliman le Magnifique et son temps, ed. Gilles Veinstein (Paris: La Documentation française, 1992), 511–​28; Stephane Yerasimos, “L’Église orthodoxe, pépinière des États balkaniques,” Revue du monde musulman et de la Méditerranée 66 (1992): 145–​58 at 148–​51. 35  Hadrovics, Le peuple serbe, 112–​17.

36  One of the main actors of these events, Sokollu Mehmed Paşa, comes up in a different “manner and look” in the frescoes of Piva monastery, see Suna Çağaptay, “Istanbul’da Sokollu, Balkanlarda Sokoloviç: Karadağ’daki Piva Manastır Kilisesinin Düşündürdükleri,” in Osmanlı Mimarlık Kültürü, ed. Hatice Aynur and A. Hilâl Uğurlu (Istanbul: Kubbealtı, 2016), 369–​82. 37  Vjeran Kursar, “Non-​Muslim Communal Divisions and Identities in the Early Modern Ottoman Balkans and the Millet System Theory,” in Power and Influence in South-​Eastern Europe, 16–​19th century, ed. Maria Baramova et al. (Berlin: LIT, 2013), 97–​108 at 99–​102. 38  Nicolas Vatin, Feridun Beg. Les plaisants secrets de la campagne de Szigetvar (Vienna: LIT, 2010), 90–​91; 162–​64; 170–​72.

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Formation of capital (both economic and social) was constricted and regulated in the Ottoman system.39 In the initial phases of the Ottoman presence in the Balkans the surplus was mainly concentrated in the hands of marcher lords who, in the absence of full powers, had to share it with the ancient strata of the local elite as well as with the burgeoning central administration. With the extension of the state apparatus from the second half of the fifteenth century, a new group of high dignitaries originating from the region monopolized the decisions on the redistribution of the surplus in the Balkans. In order to have a more powerful base and to justify their hold they invested heavily in infrastructure works that demanded large sums of capital. The sums invested returned partly to the political family of the high dignitaries either as revenues or symbolic profits, but it is not easy to propose a general outline for the modes of elite formation in the Ottoman Empire in its first three centuries. At the turn of the seventeenth century, changes in patterns of patronage, court politics, and military spending all slowed down the pace of investments in the Balkans.40 The first rivals of the Rumelian devşirmes, pashas from Caucasia, and eunuchs from Sub-​Saharan lands or Caucasia, started to adopt new strategies to reproduce their group(s). The main instruments continued to be long-​term infrastructural investments, but this time in the Middle East, especially along the Hajj route.41

39  Halil İnalcık, “Capital Formation in the Ottoman Empire,” The Journal of Economic History 29 (1969): 97–​140.

40  Günhan Börekçi, “İnkırâzın Eşiğinde Bir Hanedan: III. Mehmed, I. Ahmed, I. Mustafa ve 17. Yüzyıl Osmanlı Siyasî Krizi,” Dîvân 26 (2009): 45–​96. 41  Metin Kunt, “Ethnic-​Regional (Cins) Solidarity in the Seventeenth-​Century Ottoman Establishment,” International Journal of Middle East Studies 5 (1974): 233–​9; Jane Hathaway, “Eunuch Households in Istanbul, Medina, and Cairo during the Ottoman Era,” Turcica 41 (2009): 291–​303.

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EXPLOITING THE FRONTIER—​A CASE STUDY: THE COMMON ENDEAVOUR OF MATTHIAS CORVINUS AND NICHOLAS OF ILOK IN LATE MEDIEVAL BOSNIA

Davor Salihović* SOMETIME IN LATE 1471, probably during the diet of the estates of the Kingdom of Hungary held that September, Matthias Corvinus, the bearer of the Holy Crown and “liberator” of a significant territory pertaining to the Kingdom of Bosnia which had been captured by the Ottomans in the spring of 1463, bestowed the title of king of Bosnia upon Nicholas Újlaki (Miklós Újlaki), a Hungarian baron and a powerful opponent of Matthias during his early rule. Differences in national historiographies and general historiographical disinterest in this question have produced an image of Nicholas’s Bosnian rule as rather ephemeral and marginal, while simultaneously diverting scholarly interest towards problems designated as more (nationally) important. Thus, apart from some passing references elsewhere, only two scholars have addressed this issue in papers that differ in length, methodology, and results, owing to different dates of writing.1 Here I focus on the preconditions which allowed for the bestowal of kingship upon Nicholas and the distinct steps which led towards its acquisition. Specifically, using a conceptual framework inspired by frontier studies I contextualize the bestowal in the socio-​political characteristics of the period between 1458 and 1471, that is a context *  Davor Salihović is a doctoral candidate at the Faculty of History, University of Cambridge, and Leslie Wilson and Cambridge Trust Scholar at Magdalene College. He holds an MA degree in history from the Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, and an MA degree in Medieval Studies from the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University in Budapest, earned in 2015 and 2016, respectively. His scholarly interest focuses on the medieval political and social history of Central and Southeastern Europe in general, and on the issues of borders, bordering, and frontier societies of Southeastern Europe in the high and late Middle Ages in particular. His current research examines borders and frontier societies between the Ottoman Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary. 1  Lajos Thallóczy, Studien zur Geschichte Bosniens und Serbiens im Mittelalter (Munich:  Duncker & Humblot, 1914), 188, 296–​98, and Lajos Thallóczy, Jajcza (Bánság, vár és város) története 1450.–​1527 (Budapest: Viktor Hornyánszky, 1915), 131–​34, and other short contributions aside, the first paper focused solely on Nicholas’s kingship was written by András Kubinyi, “Die Frage des bosnischen Königtums von Nikolaus Újlaky,” Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 4 (1958): 373–​84, while the most recent research was conducted by Davor Salihović, An Interesting Episode: Nicholas of Ilok’s Kingship in Bosnia 1471–​1477, unpublished MA thesis (Budapest: CEU, 2016). See also Petar Rokai, “Guverneri, banovi, kraljevi i herceg Bosne posle njenog pada 1463. godine,” in Pad Bosanskog Kraljevstva 1463. godine, ed. Neven Isailović (Beograd: Istorijski institut and Filozofski fakultet u Sarajevu and Filozofski fakultet u Banjoj Luci, 2015), 259–​71.

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which ascribed a certain political and social role to the regnum Bosnae, the territory and its appertaining socio-​political assets controlled by Matthias after 1463/​64.

Setting the Possibilities After the bulk of the victorious Ottoman troops left Bosnia in the summer of 1463, Matthias Corvinus, for debatable and not yet sufficiently investigated reasons,2 initiated a counterattack to recapture several important Bosnian fortresses that controlled the territory neighbouring Hungary proper, especially Jajce, then considered to be the capital of the Kingdom of Bosnia.3 Despite various other anti-​Ottoman actions conducted by the local nobility, most notably the members of the Kosača family,4 Matthias succeeded in acquiring the leading position in such activities by embracing the papal crusading policy and by constructing around him an alliance which included the Republic of Venice as well as the Bosnian nobility already involved.5 The crucial precondition for assuming 2  The general opinion in historiography points primarily to the strategic and defensive importance of the (re)taken territory in the subsequent confrontations between the Kingdom of Hungary and the Ottoman Empire. A  detailed analysis, however, might indicate other, more complex, motives which coexisted with the pragmatics of Matthias’s strategic policies. See József Bánlaky, A magyar nemzet hadtörténelme, vol. 11, www.arcanum.hu/​hu/​online-​kiadvanyok/​Banlaky-​ banlaky- ​ j ozsef- ​ a - ​ m agyar-​ n emzet-​ h adtortenelme-​ 2 /​ 1 1-​ a -​ h unyadiak-​ kora-​ h unyadi-​ m atyas-​ 14581490-​1D23/​hunyadi-​maskep-​hollos-​matyas-​kiraly-​hadjaratai-​1458-​tol-​1488-​ig-​1D24/​ 11-​az-​1463-​evi-​delvideki-​es-​boszniai-​hadjarat-​az-​ugyanezen-​evi-​tolnai-​orszaggyules-​hatarozatai-​ 1DD3/​; Vjekoslav Klaić, Povijest Hrvata od najranijih vremena do svršetka XIX.  stoljeća, 5 vols. (Zagreb: Matica hrvatska, 1899–​1911), 4:45; Dubravko Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti (Sveta kruna ugarska i sveta kruna bosanska) 1387–​1463 (Zagreb: Synopsis, 2006), 363; Tamás Pálosfalvi, From Nicopolis to Mohács: A History of Ottoman-​Hungarian Warfare (Leiden: Brill, 2018), 208–​21; Gyula Rázsó, “Die Türkenpolitik Matthias Corvinus,” Acta Historica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae 32 (1986): 3–​50, especially 39–​43; Gyula Rázsó, “Mátyás hadászati tervei és a realitás,” Hadtörténelmi közlemények 103 (1990): 1–​30. On the possibility of different interpretations, see Salihović, “For a Different Catastrophe: A Fruitful Frontier on the Southern Edges of the Kingdom of Hungary after 1463—An Initial Inquiry,” Initial. A Review of Medieval Studies 5 (2017): 73–​105. 3  For more detailed discussions on the counterattack see the note above, as well as Sima Ćirković, Istorija srednjovekovne bosanske države (Beograd: Srpska književna zadruga, 1964): 331–​35; Emir O. Filipović, “Minor est Turchorum potentia, quam fama feratur … Contributions to the History of Bosnia in the Second Half of 1463,” in Pad Bosanskog kraljevstva 1463. godine, ed. Neven Isailović (Beograd: Istorijski institut Beograd, Filozofski fakultet u Sarajevu and Filozofski fakultet u Banjoj Luci, 2015), 204–​17; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 363–​71; Thallóczy, Jajcza, 93–​108. 4  Sima Ćirković, Herceg Stefan Vukčić Kosača i njegovo doba (Beograd:  SANU, 1964), 245–​67; Filipović, “Minor est Turchorum potentia,” 201–​4; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 372–​74. See also Péter Kovács, “Jajca 1464. évi ostroma,” in Az értelem bátorsága: Tanulmányok Perjés Géza emlékére, ed. Gábor Hausner (Budapest: Argumentum, 2005), 403–​18. 5  Kenneth M.  Setton, The Papacy and the Levant (1204–​1571), 4  vols. (Philadelphia:  American Philosophical Society, 1976–​84), 2:240–​50; Velimir Stefanović, Ratovanje kralja Matije u Bosni i njegovi odnosi s papskom kurijom i češkim kraljem u stvari akcije protiv Turaka (Novi Sad: Slavija, 1932), 3–​9;

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such a role, however, was Matthias’s obligation to invest a certain effort in the defence of Bosnia as one of the lands of the Holy Crown of Hungary and thus subject to him as its overlord, a responsibility which was not only implied by Bosnia’s long-​standing formal “vassal” relationship to the Hungarian realm,6 but also explicitly outlined in recent treaties between himself and Stephen Tomašević, the last of the Kotromanić kings of Bosnia, concluded in 1461. As a result of Stephen’s coronation with a crown sent by the pope and other “separatist” activities, Matthias proceeded to emphasize his suzerain rights over Bosnia and to outline his future involvement in the formally subjugated realm, an activity he continued to practise during and after his military involvement in Bosnia in 1463 and 1464, as well.7 By the end of 1464, after retaking additional territory to the northeast and after unsuccessfully besieging Zvornik in the autumn of that year, Matthias’s military activities related to the previous year’s Ottoman invasion were completed and the Bosnian territory which would remain under his control was ultimately defined.8 What Đuro Tošić, “Bosanska vlastela u oslobađanju Jajca od Turaka 1463. godine,” in Stjepan Tomašević (1461.–​1463.): Slom srednjovjekovnoga Bosanskog kraljevstva, ed. Ante Birin (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest and Katolički bogoslovni fakultet Sarajevo, 2013), 99–​108. The discussion on various issues of late medieval crusading, including the discussion on King Matthias’s role, goals, and policies, has recently been revived by several authors including: Attila Bárány, “King Matthias of Hungary,” in Christian-​Muslim Relations. A Bibliographical History, ed. David Thomas et al., 12 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 5:572–​88; Emir Filipović, “The Key to the Gate of Christendom? The Strategic Importance of Bosnia in the Struggle against the Ottomans,” in The Crusade in the Fifteenth Century: Converging and Competing Cultures, ed. Norman Housley (London: Routledge, 2017), 151–​68; Norman Housley, “Matthias Corvinus and Crusading,” in Church Union and Crusading in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Christian Gastgeber et  al. (Cluj-​Napoca:  Academia Romana, 2009), 239–​50; Liviu Piat and Ovidiu Cristea, The Ottoman Threat and Crusading on the Eastern Border of Christendom during the 15th Century (Leiden: Brill, 2018); Janusz Smołucha, “East-​Central Europe and the Idea of Crusade in the Second Half of the Fifteenth Century,” in Holy War in Late Medieval and Early Modern East-​Central Europe, ed. J. Smołucha et al. (Cracow: Ignatianum Jesuit University, 2017), 109–​22; Paul Srodecki, “Antemurale-​based Frontier Identities in East Central Europe and their Ideological Roots in Medieval/​Early Modern Alterity and Alienity Discourses,” in Collective Identity in the Context of Medieval Studies, ed. Michaela Antonín Malaníková, Robert Antonín (Ostrava: Ostravská univerzita, 2016), 97–​120; Benjamin Weber, “La croisade impossible Etude sur les relations entre Sixte IV et Mathias Corvin (1471–​1484),” in Byzance et ses périphéries. Hommage à Alain Ducellier, ed. Bernard Doumerc and Christophe Picard (Toulouse: CNRS, Université de Toulouse-​le Mirail, 2004), 309–​21. 6  On the relations between the two polities and Bosnia’s status within the Hungarian dominated political structure, see Mladen Ančić, “Od zemlje do kraljevstva: mjesto Bosne u strukturi Archiregnuma,” Hercegovina 1 (2015): 9–​88; Pal Engel, “Neki problemi bosansko-​ugarskih odnosa,” Zbornik Odsjeka za povijesne znanosti Zavoda za povijesne i društvene znanosti HAZU 16 (1998): 57–​72; Srećko Džaja, Konfesionalnost i nacionalnost Bosne i Hercegovine. Predemancipacijsko razdoblje 1463.–​1804. (Mostar: Ziral, 1999), 227–​49; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti. 7  Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 341–​50. 8  On Matthias’s further actions in 1464, see:  Aleksandar Jakovljević, “Između osmanskog i ugarskog krajišta—osmansko zaposedanje Podrinja i ugarska opsada Zvornika 1464. godine,” in

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remained to be executed in the midst of the counterattack, however, was to integrate the territory recently put under his firmer control into the administrative system of the Kingdom of Hungary. Most scholarship uncritically follows the older historiography9 and generally clings to a factual error by claiming that Matthias established two separate and defensive banates, the so-​called Banate of Jajce and the Banate of Srebrenik. The sources, however, explicitly show that Bosnia retained its previous political identification and, at least officially, continued to exist as a complete and unique regnum Bosnae under the firm control of the king. Moreover, the governors of the land held the offices of gubernator/​bani/​rex regni Bosnae continuously until the 1480s as the kingdom was equalized with other polities governed by the Hungarian Kingdom at the highest administrative level, i.e., the Kingdom of Croatia or Slavonia, with the office intermittently occurring alongside the “banate of Jajce” (and later Srebrenik) only during the last decade of King Matthias’s reign.10 Nevertheless, subsequent administrative alterations which occurred shortly after Matthias’s last military involvement in Bosnia, to be discussed in detail below, indeed indicate a certain east-​west division of the retaken territory. Bosnia continued to exist as a regnum throughout the period, however, and was perceived as such at the moment when Nicholas of Ilok assumed the royal title. Initially, the regnum Bosnae was governed by Emeric Szapolyai, Matthias’s trustworthy treasurer, who, before January 20, 1464, had been given the office of governor of the Kingdom of Bosnia, i.e., Regnum Bosnae gubernator and who simultaneously enjoyed the offices of the ban of Croatia, Dalmatia, and Slavonia, as well as the governorship of the estates of the Priory of Vrana originally belonging to the Order of St John.11 After Szapolyai’s governorship ended in 1465, regnum Bosnae was, similarly to earlier, put under the control of the holders of the offices of the banates of Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia and thus incorporated into the triune administrative complex Pad Bosanskog Kraljevstva 1463. godine, ed. Neven Isailović (Beograd: Istorijski institut Beograd, Filozofski fakultet u Sarajevu and Filozofski fakultet u Banjoj Luci, 2015), 227–​57; P. Kovács, “Jajca 1464. évi ostroma,” 403–​18. 9  Most notably Vjekoslav Klaić, Poviest Bosne do propasti kraljevstva (Zagreb:  Dionička tiskara, 1882), 341–​42. 10  Cf. Salihović, An Interesting Episode, 24–​27; Magyar Nemzeti Leváltár, Országos Levéltára [Hungarian National Archives, State Archives] (Henceforth: MNL OL) Diplomatikai fényképgyűjtemény (Henceforth:  DF) 281483; MNL OL, DF 281725; MNL OL, DF 285509; Diplomatikai levéltár [The Diplomatic Collection] (Henceforth: DL) 16022; MNL OL, DL 45127; MNL OL, DL 16043; MNL OL, DF 236612, etc. Cf., Magyarország világi archontológiája 1458–​1490, ed. C.  Tóth Norbert et  al., 2 vols. (Budapest: MTA, 2016), 1:139–​43, 154. 11  MNL OL, DL 103674; Vilmos Fraknói, Mátyás király levelei, vol. 1 (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1893), doc. 99, 133–​34. See also Richard Horváth, “The Castle of Jajce in the Organization of Hungarian Border Defence System under Matthias Corvinus,” in Stjepan Tomašević (1461.–​1463.), Stjepan Tomašević (1461.–​1463.):  Slom srednjovjekovnoga Bosanskog kraljevstva, ed. Ante Birin (Sarajevo:  Hrvatski institut za povijest and Katolički bogoslovni fakultet Sarajevo, 2013), 93–​94; Magyarország világi archontológiája 1458–​1526, 1:139; Thallóczy, Jajcza, 106–​7.

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governed, from the southwestern to eastern territorial extremes of the kingdom, by the Croatian-​Dalmatian-​Slavonian-​Bosnian bans, the count of Temes, and the voivode of Transylvania.12 Thus, the office responsible for governing yet another kingdom (besides Croatia and Slavonia) within the Kingdom of Hungary was fully incorporated into the traditional administrative system of the realm based on the system of baronial offices. The baronial offices, primarily the banates and the voivodeship of Transylvania, were ideally and formally distributed freely by the king along with honores, but in practice the distribution of such offices was influenced by tendencies to support the balance of political power between the nobility and the king. Thus, the royal policy was influenced, supported, and constrained by the baronial clique gathered around and related to the king by the bonds of fidelitas. In other words, the system of offices and honores, more than two centuries old by Matthias’s time, functioned as the king’s mechanism for both rewarding his loyal supporters and installing them in key positions. This strengthened his own position and made the offices and honores his negotiating and tactical tools in possible conflicts with the nobility, especially since offices were only held durante beneplacito regio (while it was pleasing to the lord). Equally, for the nobility, the honores and offices represented a set of both politically and economically attractive positions bringing increased social status and political influence.13 By seizing the lordship of Bosnia, as well as assuming his defensive duties as suzerain after the death of Stephen Tomašević, Matthias both firmly linked the newly taken territory to the crown and, importantly, acquired new space, both physical and abstract, which would offer a fresh set of offices for him to distribute through administrative integration and reorganization. Effectively, the acquisition of a new polity or, rather, the establishment of stricter control over a previously formally subjugated realm, resulted in the disappearance of the previously existing administrative structure. Its integration in the quintessentially Hungarian administrative system only widened the king’s capital for negotiating the dispersion of political power among the baronial elite.14 Thus, by applying the system familiar to both himself and the nobility, the king’s military activities not only established a border oriented towards the Ottoman-​occupied territory (which should not, as it often is, be misunderstood as the frontier—​the concepts of border and 12  Cf. R.  Horváth, “The Castle of Jajce,” 92–​94; Géza Pálffy, “A török elleni védelmi rendszer szervezetének története a kezdetektől a 18. század elejéig,” Történelmi Szemle 38 (1996): 163–​71; Ferenc Szakály, “The Hungarian-​Croatian Border Defense System and its Collapse,” in From Hunyadi to Rákóczy: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary, ed. János M. Bak and Béla K. Király (Brooklyn: Brooklyn College Press, 1982), 143–​46. 13  Cf. Pál Engel, “Honor, vár, ispánság. Tanulmányok az Anjou-​királyság kormányzati rendszeréről,” Századok 116 (1982), 880–​922; Pál Engel, Honor, vár, ispánság. Válogatott tanulmányok, ed. Enikő Csukovits (Budapest:  Osiris Kiadó, 2003), 73–​197; Martyn Rady, Nobility, Land and Service in Medieval Hungary (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2000), 132–​43. 14  On the importance of the territorial-​administrative (re)organization of frontiers, see: Enrique Rodriguez-​Picavea, “The Frontier and Royal Power in Medieval Spain: A Developmental Hypothesis,” The Medieval History Journal 8 (2005): 273–​301.

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frontier not being interchangeable!15), but also introduced a frontier defined by all of the potential and, importantly, vacant and lucrative offices and lordships. Even though the frontier was not literally a wilderness that attracted settlers, it did contain all the existing and potential means of political and social promotion attractive to the nobility.16 Simultaneously, by creating such a “frontier” of latent possibilities, the king initiated the growth of new social space—​both physically ascribed and abstractly available—​to the baronial elite, a social group interested in appropriating such possibilities.17 As a result of this process, tools were available to both sides for negotiating political power, primarily as a mechanism for maintaining a stable balance of power, strengthening one’s political position, keeping peace, and resolving and preventing disputes. Nicholas of Ilok’s case is an exemplary model.

The Path to Kingship The motives that facilitated Nicholas’s assumption of the Bosnian kingship have been interpreted in two rather distinct groups of works. Relatively recent research claims that 15  Apart from several early and rare subsequent contributions which facilitated the introduction of the concept to medieval and historical studies in general, much historiography still perceives a frontier as a border, a meeting point or a bordering zone between two distinct polities or communities, a definition which was introduced by a switch from the original expansive idea to concepts of more interactive frontiers. This not only contradicts Turner’s original concept, however, but also misapplies to historical societies concepts of advanced border studies drawn from other disciplines, primarily social studies. See the general introductory passages in David Abulafia, “Introduction: Seven Types of Ambiguity, c. 1100 –​c. 1500,” in Medieval Frontiers: Concepts and Practice, ed. David Abulafia and Nora Berend (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2002), 1–​34; Robert I. Burns, “The Significance of the Frontier in the Middle Ages,” in Medieval Frontier Societies, ed. Robert Bartlett and Angus MacKay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989), 307–​30; Nikolas Jaspert, “Grenzen und Grenzräume im Mittelalter:  Forschungen, Konzepte und Begriffe,” in Grenzräume und Grenzüberschreitungen im Vergleich. Der Osten und der Westen des mittelalterlichen Lateineuropa, ed. Klaus Herbers and Nikolas Jaspert (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009), 43–​70; Daniel Power, “Introduction. Frontiers: Terms, Concepts, and the Historians of Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” in Frontiers in Question: Eurasian Borderlands, 700–​1700, ed. Daniel Power and Naomi Standen (Basingstoke:  Palgrave Macmillan, 1999), 1–​12; Pierre Toubert, “Frontière et frontiers:  un objet historique,” in Castrum 4:  Frontière et peuplement dans le monde méditerranéen au Moyen Âge, ed. Jean-​Marie Poisson (Rome: École française de Rome and Casa de Velázquez, 1992), 9–​17; Pierre Toubert, “Le concept de frontière. Quelques refléxions introductives,” in Identidad y representación de la frontera en la España medieval (siglos xi-​xiv), ed. Carlos de Ayala Martínez et al. (Madrid: Casa de Velázquez and Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, 2001), 1–​4. 16  On Turner’s concept of the frontier see his seminal work:  Frederick Jackson Turner, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” in The Frontier in American History (New York: Henry Holt, 1953), 1–​38.

17  On various, especially physical and abstract, interpretations of the concept of social space, see Paul Claval, “The Concept of Social Space and the Nature of Social Geography,” New Zealand Geographer 40, no. 2 (1984): 105–​9. The seminal work on social spaces, albeit focused on more recent social practice, remains Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991).

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Nicholas’s kingship was solely the result of the baronial rebellion of 1471, led by John (János/​Ivan) Vitéz,18 which, allegedly, Nicholas joined and was subsequently pacified by Matthias’s offer of the Bosnian kingship.19 Older works point to quite a different and longer path that Nicholas undertook in agreement with Matthias. Specifically, starting with Antonio Bonfini, a late fifteenth-​century humanist historian at Matthias’s court,20 authors from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, such as Maximilian Schimek or Juraj (George) Rattkay, directly or indirectly referring to Bonfini’s original contributions, claimed that the bestowal was based on a promise that Matthias made maybe as early as 1464 to try and tame Nicholas’s ambitious nature.21 In other words, the bestowal was, allegedly, a result of the settlement between the king and the baron of a dispute that started in 1458 with Matthias’s accession to the Hungarian kingship, which Nicholas strongly opposed. Bonfini’s entries regarding events that occurred during his lifetime are based either on his personal experience or the “official” discourse circulating at Matthias’s court. Let us return then to primary sources related to Nicholas’s activities in the period between 1458 and 1471 to clarify the chronology and analyze the two figures’ relationship. The crisis that emerged as a consequence of the disappearance of the politically most influential figures of the realm, most notably John (Janos) Hunyadi and King Ladislaus V, in a remarkably short period between the summer of 1456 and the winter of the next year, marked the starting point of an unstable relationship between Nicholas and Matthias.22 Nicholas, usually paired with John Hunyadi, Matthias’s father, rose to prominence during Ladislaus’s kingship and acquired most of his offices as well as social capital and political influence by adhering to the royal policy, which at one point, besides Hunyadi, made him both formally and practically a governor of a sizeable portion of the 18  On the rebellion, see:  Engel, The Realm of St Stephen, 304–​5; Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, vol. 4 83–​88; Andras Kubinyi, “Vitéz János és Janus Pannonius politikája Mátyás uralkodása idején,” in Humanista műveltség Pannóniában, ed. István Bartók, László Jankovits, and Gábot Kecskeméti (Pécs: Mũvészetek Háza and Pécsi Tudományegyetem, 2000), 7–​26; Andras Kubinyi, Matthias rex (Budapest: Balassi Kiadó, 2008), 73–​93. 19  Such or similar interpretations are present in a myriad of works. See Ćirković, “Vlastela i kraljevi,” 130; Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, 4:85–​86; Kubinyi, “Die Frage,” 376–​77; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 381; Thallóczy, Jajcza, 131–​34. 20  On Bonfini, see Lóránt Czigány, A History of Hungarian Literature: From the Earliest Times to the mid-​1970’s, 1986, http://​mek.oszk.hu/​02000/​02042/​html/​5.html. 21  Antonio Bonfini, Rerum Ungaricarum Decades, 4  vols., 5 pts. (Bratislava:  Typis Rogerianis, 1746), 4:407–​9; Juraj Rattkay, Memoria Regum et Banorum Regnorum Dalmatiae, Croatiae, et Sclavoniae (Vienna: Matthias Cosmerov, 1652), 97; Maximilian Schimek, Politische Geschichte des Königreichs Bosnien und Rama vom Jahre 867 bis 1741 (Vienna: Wappler, 1787), 158. 22  For a short overview of the period immediately preceding and following the death of the king in 1457, see Engel, The Realm of St Stephen, 296–​98; Borislav Grgin, Počeci rasapa: Kralj Matijaš Korvin i srednjovjekovna Hrvatska (Zagreb:  Ibis grafika and Zavod za hrvatsku povijest, 2002), 24–​26; Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, vol. 3, 288–​93.

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realm.23 As a consequence, by Ladislaus’s death in 1457 Nicholas was designated the voivode of Transylvania and the ban of Slavonia and Macsó, the offices he had enjoyed immediately before Matthias was made king.24 Despite the initial accord established between Matthias’s party led by his maternal uncle Michael Szilágyi and the group gathered around the powerful Ladislaus Garai, the incumbent palatine (a covenant which recognized Nicholas as a potential threat even though he was Garai’s ally25), Matthias’s early royal policy exercised during the second half of 1458, now believed to be directed by John Vitéz, resulted in not only Garai’s but also Szilágy’s alienation.26 This early policy was targeted at diminishing the barons’ political influence, especially of the elite whose prominence was based on their role in the previous kingship. It led, however, to a breach of the agreement with Garai and also facilitated the creation of a primarily defensive alliance between the two most powerful magnates, Nicholas and Garai, and Szilágyi in July, 1458.27 The anti-​baronial politics continued, in spite of the alliance of their opponents, following an agenda that even aimed to deprive the barons, primarily Nicholas and Garai, of their offices and honores. This further fuelled the political crisis, which eventually, in February 1459, resulted in Nicholas’s open support for Frederick III’s claim to the Hungarian throne.28 Nicholas did not merely support it in principle, but took a leading position in the baronial league, which elected Frederick III the king of Hungary in the castle of Güssing (Németújvár), then controlled by Nicholas himself. He became the godfather

23  On Nicholas’s career before Matthias’s election, see Ede Reiszig, “Az Ujlaki–​család,” Turul 47 (1943):  9–​13; Salihović, An Interesting Episode, 27–​36; Moriz Wertner, “Beiträge zur bosnischen Genealogie,” Vjesnik Kr. hvatsko-​slavonsko-​dalmatinskog zemaljskoga arkiva 8 (1906): 257–​59; Tamás Fedeles, “Miklós király és Lőrinc herceg. Az utolsó két Újlaki vázlatos pályaképe,” in Személyiség és történelem a történelmi személyiség: A történeti életrajz módszertani kérdései, ed. József Vonyó (Pécs-Budapest: Magyar Történelmi Társulat-Kronosz Kiadó-Állambiztonsági Szolgálatok Történeti Levéltára, 2017), 135–68. 24  MNL OL, DL 13452; MNL OL, DL 66592; MNL OL, DL 81284. Cf. Pal Engel, Magyarország világi archontológiája 1301–​1457, 2  vols. (Budapest:  História and MTA Történettudományi Intézete, 1996), 1:15, 21, 30. 25  MNL OL, DL 15206. 26  For an extensive analysis of Matthias’s early kingship, see Tamás Pálosfalvi, “Szegedtől Újvárig: Az 1458.-​1459. esztendők krónikájához,” Századok 147 (2013): 347–​80; Tamás Pálosfalvi, “The Political Background in Hungary of the Campaign of Jajce in 1463,” in Stjepan Tomašević (1461.–​1463.):  Slom srednjovjekovnoga Bosanskog kraljevstva, ed. Ante Birin (Zagreb: Hrvatski institut za povijest-​Katolički bogoslovni fakultet Sarajevo, 2013), 79–​84. Cf. A. Kubinyi, “Vitéz János és Janus Pannonius,” 7–​26. 27  József Teleki, Hunyadiak kora Magyarországon, 12  vols. (Pest:  Gusztáv Emich, 1852–​63), 10: doc. 290, 593–​95. 28  Pálosfalvi, “The Political Background,” 83.

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of Frederick’s son, Maximilian29 and also entered into open conflict with his peers in Matthias’s camp.30 Nevertheless, further conflicts and Garai’s death in February seem to have persuaded Nicholas to negotiate with Matthias31 and the two sides arrived at an agreement in July 1459,32 but Matthias had to make further concessions to win over the opposing baron and finally settle the disputes in September.33 Despite his subjugation to the king, Nicholas seems to have been a tough negotiator and, as the sources explicitly state, he was primarily concerned with retaining estates and castles he had previously controlled as well as acquiring royal confirmation of his property acquisitions and restitution of the offices he held. Both the ceremonial and practical confirmations of the settlement focus on the assurance of mutual fidelity and, most importantly, the invulnerability of property.34 In addition, the king confirmed Nicholas’s possession of the castles of Németújvár (a part of which Nicholas later granted to his familiares in 1475),35 Szenterzsébet in Verőcze County (Virovitica), Racha (Racsa/​Rača) in Körös County (Križevci), and Szávaszentdemeter (Sremska Mitrovica) in Syrmia with their appertaining estates in perpetuity.36 Nicholas’s subjugation was further cemented with the payment of at least three thousand florins worth of gold and silver.37 Thus, Nicholas managed to retain the same political status he had enjoyed prior to the conflict with Matthias by preserving his position as the voivode of Transylvania and the ban of Slavonia and Macsó (Mačva),38 albeit his relationship with the king might not have remained the same and demanded further improvements.

29  In 1463, Frederick himself styles Nicholas as waywodam Transsilvanum, ac Regni Sclavoniae et Machoviensem banum, compatrem nostrum; MNL OL, DL 15856; Teleki, Hunyadiak, vol. 11, doc. 349, 71. Also Reiszig, “Az Ujlaki-​család,” 57. 30  Zoltán Czövek, “Három középkor végi számadás a Nádasdy-​levéltárból,” Fons 14 (2007): 119–​33; Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, 4:24; Pálosfalvi, “Szegedtől Újvárig,” 370–​74; László Veszprémy, “’Reddidit amissum fugiens Germanus honorem’. Az 1459-es körmendi ütközetek historiográfiájához,” in Tanulmányok Borsa Iván tiszteletére, ed. Enikő Csukovits (Budapest: Magyar Országos Levéltár, 1998), 319–25. 31  MNL OL, DF 213775; Z. Czövek, “Három középkor számadás,” 126. 32  Kálmán Géresi, Codex diplomaticus comitum Károlyi de Nagy-​Károlyi, 5 vols. (Budapest: Sándor Kocsi, 1882–​97), 2: doc 195, 326–​27; MNL OL, DL 100688. 33  MNL OL, DL 44925.

34  See the following note. 35  MNL OL, DL 100848; MNL OL, DL 101132. See also MNL OL, DL 65919. 36  MNL OL, DL 100688. 37  MNL OL, DL 100688; MNL OL, DL 44925. 38  Nicholas is designated as such in several charters from the period immediately following the treaty, see MNL OL, DL 15390; MNL OL, DL 15417; MNL OL, DL 102143.

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None of the sources—​neither the treaties themselves nor reports on the progress of the negotiations and their outcomes39—​mention any concessions or promises related to the Kingdom of Bosnia or its territory. The possibility of some kind of oral agreement omitted from the official documentation seems unlikely since the kingdom was still held by Stephen Tomaš, even though he had fallen out of Matthias’s favour by July 1459 for surrendering Smederevo to the Ottomans.40 Further sources suggest that Nicholas, faced with the strengthening royal party, focused primarily on trading his fidelity for confirmation of the estates and offices previously under his control; he sought to amass further possessions and thereby preserve his endangered position within the kingdom.41 By the time Nicholas’s and Matthias’s initial settlement was achieved, however, the king was still only operating with bargaining capital confined within the Hungarian regnum (including Slavonia and Croatia) and its traditional offices. He did not achieve a stronger negotiating position until the winter of 1463 and autumn of 1464. In the meantime, Nicholas was not only pacified but was brought closer to the king and actively integrated into royal court politics. He was a crucial member of the deputation which ultimately arranged Frederick’s surrender of the Holy Crown of Hungary, a role which may have included some negotiation on behalf of Matthias since Nicholas was so tightly connected to the German emperor, both as his previous supporter and his spiritual relative.42 By relinquishing his anti-​royal policy, Nicholas certainly contributed to Matthias’s acquisition of the Holy Crown and the ultimate legitimization of his kingship in Hungary. Matthias’s military actions from the autumn 1464 and the retaking of towns and several fortresses adjacent to the Sava and the Drina’s confluence with the Sava, including, probably, Brčko, Novi, Dobor, Teočak, Tešanj, Gradačac, and Srebrenik,43 presaged a new period in the relationship between the magnate and his king. Not long afterwards, Matthias bestowed upon Nicholas the title of perpetual count of Teočak (comes perpetuus),44 a title reserved exclusively for the most powerful barons as a reward and, more importantly, for the sake of political stability. In this light, it is not surprising that, besides Nicholas, similar titles were distributed to John Hunyadi, John (Jan) Vitovec, another “troublemaking” nobleman, and, later, to Szapolyai, who received it as 39  MNL OL, DL 88341; MNL OL, DL 88342; MNL OL, DL 100688; MNL OL, DL 44925; Géresi, Codex diplomaticus 2:doc. 195, 326–​27. 40  On the surrender of Smederevo and Matthias’s reaction, see: Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 333–​34; Đuro Tošić, “Bosanska ‘nazovi’ krivica za pad Srpske despotovine,” in Pad Srpske Despotovine 1459. godine, ed. Momčilo Spremić (Beograd: SANU, 2011), 185–​93. 41  Pálosfalvi, “The Political Background,” 82; Reiszig, “Az Ujlaki-​család,” 57. 42  MNL OL, DF 292952; E. “Az Ujlaki-​család Reiszig,” 57; Teleki, Hunyadiak, vol. 11, doc. 349, 70–​74. 43  Jelena Mrgić, Severna Bosna 13.–​16. vek (Beograd: Istorijski institut, 2008), 136–​37. 44  The first extant charter which designates him as such was issued on May 5, 1465: MNL OL, DL 100746.

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compensation for losing the office of the governor of Bosnia.45 The importance of such a title for the bearer’s social status, apart from its exclusivity and lifelong validity, is based in its irrevocability and autonomy from royal whim, unlike offices and honores that were dependent on the king.46 The magnitude of Nicholas’s perpetual countship is elaborated in more detail in his will from February 1471, in which he is called comes perpetuus de Telchak necnon terre Uzure dominus47 or lord of the region of Usora. This somewhat vague title possibly indicates his possession of political, economic, and judicial rights over the region, the location of most, if not all, of the fortresses captured by Matthias in 1464.48 By controlling the eastern portion of the retaken territory, which at least nominally belonged to the Kingdom of Bosnia, Nicholas joined Szapolyai in governing the entirety of the lands ultra Savam for a short period in 1465 and later controlled the territory along with the bans of Bosnia, Slavonia, Croatia, and Dalmatia.49 This administrative change introduced a system of parallel units dividing the territory into western and eastern portions, which is possibly what earlier historians recognized as two distinct banates (Jajce and Srebrenik). It seems probable, however, that the administrative organization established after 1477 was built upon this 1465 division, with Nicholas’s somewhat autonomous countship and lordship in Usora. Bonfini is the original source of the idea that Nicholas’s Bosnian kingship was the result of a settlement arrived at between himself and Matthias or, more precisely, of a promise the king made during their quarrel. This issue can now be clarified. Since the perpetual countship was bestowed upon Nicholas immediately after he aided Matthias in acquiring the Holy Crown from Frederick and after the crown was utilized in the legitimation of Matthias’s kingship, it seems that Bonifi became confused about the chronology. His attribution of Nicholas’s later royal title in claiming that Matthias…Nicolai ambitum, promissa Bossoniensis Regni corona explevit (Matthias…appeased Nicholas’s vanity with promises of the crown of the Bosnian Kindom), probably thus refers to the bestowal of the perpetual countship. Following this reading, the countship would either be a reward for Nicholas’s role in returning the crown and settling disputes with Frederick, or, but less likely, in Bonfini’s words, a bribe Matthias had to pay to finally pacify his strong opponent. Either way, broadening the space of opportunities linked to the nobility, as noted above, increased the king’s capacity to control and distribute both offices and titles. This 45  Pal Engel, “János Hunyadi: The Decisive Years of His Career, 1440–​1444,” in From Hunyadi to Rákóczy: War and Society in Late Medieval and Early Modern Hungary, ed. János M. Bak and Béla K. Király (Brooklyn: Brooklyn College Press, 1982), 103; Joseph Held, Hunyadi: Legend and Reality (New  York:  Columbia University Press, 1985), 2; Horváth, “The Castle of Jajce,” 94; Pálosfalvi, “Vitovec János: Egy zsoldoskarrier a 15. századi Magyarországon,” Századok 135 (2001): 429–​72. 46  Rady, Nobility, Land and Service, 31–​32.

47  MNL OL, DL 17162; Stanko Andrić, “Oporuka Nikole Iločkog iz 1471. godine,” Godišnjak Ogranka Matice hrvatske Vinkovci 14 (1996): 45–​54. 48  See further on medieval Usora in:  Pavao Anđelić, Studije o teritorijalnopolitičkoj organizaciji srednjovjekovne Bosne (Sarajevo: Svjetlost, 1982), 142–​73. 49  Cf. Salihović, An Interesting Episode, 40–​41.

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established the integration of Bosnia into the bargaining system practised between the king and the baronial elite and allowed for a truce between the two figures. Even though he relinquished political power over a certain territory attractive to Nicholas, by offering him privileges in Usora the king also excluded Nicholas from other baronial offices, the Transylvanian voivodeship, and the banate of Slavonia in 1464 and 1466, respectively.50 It must have seemed only timely that, after the two had finally reached a settlement of all their disputes in 1466, that on December 21 the king officially pardoned Nicholas by forgiving him for all the actions he had committed against him and his kingship.51 The bestowal of the perpetual countship and the absolution of 1466 seem to have marked the end of Matthias’s and Nicholas’s disagreements; if an arrangement related to the Kingdom of Bosnia and its territories had ever existed, as Bonfini and other sources suggest, it was certainly fulfilled by May 1465. Such a path, from open conflict in 1458/​ 59 to complete reconciliation in 1466, with political power rebalanced between the pair and Nicholas gaining territory ultra Savam, strongly suggests that no other arrangements or “promises” related to Bosnia existed, especially none that would grant Nicholas the royal title. Less than a year after Matthias pardoned Nicholas, on October 16, 1467, he issued a charter that allowed the latter to establish a marketplace at Apayoch (Opojevci, a ford across the Sava), to be used by “both peoples” (utriumque homines), i.e., both the “Turks” and the subjects of the Hungarian king.52 Matthias endorsed Nicholas shifting the focus on his new acquisitions outwards to the Ottoman territory rather than inwards to Hungary proper; as Bonfini notes, the perpetual count often served his king as an emissary to the Ottoman leaders during peace talks.53 Nicholas was familiar with an ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse environment and skillful in governing lands and political entities located at the edge of the Hungarian realm, which he continued with the arrival of the Ottomans. For most of his life, specifically from the late 1430s onwards, he governed Ilok (Újlak), lands such as Macsó (despite its “a-​territoriality” after the 1450s),54 and later Usora and other administrative units (Transylvania, Slavonia, Belgrade), which were located far from the political centre and along the borders of the realm. Saint John of Capistrano, allegedly, aptly described the surroundings of Nicholas’s Ilok, which John 50  While he still held the office of voivode in December, 1464, in January, 1465 he is designated only as the ban of Slavonia; MNL OL, DL 14630; MNL OL, DL 107576. He is mentioned as the ban of Slavonia for the final time (in his first term) in July 1466; MNL OL, DL 103696. Nicholas, however, retained the banate of Macsó. Cf. Norbert Tóth et al., eds., Magyarország világi archontológiája 1458–1526, vol. 1. Főpapok és bárók (Budapest: MTA, 2016), 84, note 49. 51  MNL OL, DL 107946; Ferdo Šišić, “Iz arkiva hercega Batthyányja u Körmendu,” Vjesnik Kr. hrvatsko-​slavonsko-​dalmatinskog zemaljskoga arkiva 13 (1911): doc. 3, 225–​26.

52  MNL OL, DL 100772; Lajos Thallóczy and Antal Áldásy, Codex diplomaticum partium Regno Hungariae adnexarum, 4 vols. (Budapest: Magyár Tudományos Akadémia, 1907), 2: doc 356, 257–​58. 53  Bonfini, Rerum Ungaricarum Decades, 4:432–​33. 54  On the loss of the territory of the land of Macsó to the Ottomans, see Stanko Andrić, “Rijeka Sava kao protuturski bedem (do pada Bosne),” in Rijeka Sava u povijesti, ed. Branko Ostajmer (Slavonski Brod: Hrvatski institut za povijest, Podružnica za povijest Slavonije, Srijema i Baranje, 2015), passim.

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self-​designated as his final resting place, as a town “among schismatics and near the Turks.” The town’s inhabitants themselves situated their settlement “in vicinity of the savagery of the Turks,” and described it as a city “surrounded by schismatics and Patarenes on every side.”55 King Matthias recognized Nicholas’s adroitness in such an environment even after he was made the king of Bosnia, as Bonfini records and Italian diplomats explicitly state when writing about Nicholas as the king’s principal advisor on the occasion of electing the emissaries tasked with initiating peace talks with the Turks.56 The good relations established between the two former opponents through the second half of the decade were abruptly put to test with the onset of yet another insurgency in 1471, aimed at depriving Matthias of the kingship. This time, however, the revolt was led by none other than John Vitéz, the archbishop who so significantly influenced royal politics and had conceived the anti-​baronial policy of reducing the political power of the old baronial elite, Nicholas among them.57 The revolt was supported by some of the leading men of the realm, hitherto Matthias’s loyal barons, including the formerly faithful Emeric Szapolyai, and was directed at bringing the members of the Polish Jagiellonian dynasty to the Hungarian throne.58 The alienation of key members of the king’s administration as well as the Jagiellonians’ preparations for military action significantly jeopardized Matthias’s rule as well as his engagement in Bohemia. Such an unfavourable situation demanded organizational changes within the ruling elite. While previous historiography claimed that Nicholas was not only a member but even the leader of the conspiracy against Matthias and was only, once again, subdued by the king’s promise to promote him to the royal title,59 the sources suggest that the count played a rather different role in Matthias’s efforts to preserve his rule. None of the sources related to the revolt mention Nicholas’s participation, let alone his leadership of the rebellious group. What had happened was that the tide had turned, and so too Nicholas’s latent political power, to favour the cause of the king. While the king was rushing back to Buda from Bohemia to convene a diet to settle the disputes with the nobility, regain their loyalty, and prevent the outbreak of rebellion,60 his emissaries visited Nicholas, probably in Ilok. They did not go to bribe the leader of a conspiratorial group, as some scholars suggest, but rather, as Bonfini explicitly states, to seek advice on whether the king should openly confront the opposition or wait for the situation to unravel. The count suggested that he should wait (cessandum, vir prudens ille respondit) 55  Stanko Andrić, Čudesa Svetog Ivana Kapistrana:  Povijesna i tekstualna analiza (Slavonski Brod: Hrvatski institut za povijest, Podružnica za povijest Slavonije, Srijema i Baranje and Matica hrvatska, 1999), 57. 56  Fontes rerum Austriacarum. Diplomataria et Acta, ed. Adolf Bachmann et al., 68 vols. (Vienna:  F. Tempsky-​Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften, 1849–​1918), 46: doc 167, 179. 57  On Vitéz’s influence on Matthias’s politics, see: Kubinyi, “Vitéz János és Janus Pannonius,” 7–​26. 58  Engel, The Realm of St Stephen, 304–​5; Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, 4:83–​88.

59  Ćirković, “Vlastela i kraljevi,” 130; Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, 4:83–​86; Kubinyi, “Die Frage,” 373–​84; Lovrenović, Na klizištu povijesti, 380–​81; Thallóczy, Jajcza, 132. 60  Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, 4:84–​85.

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and the king listened to Nicholas, his father’s old ally.61 The destabilization of Matthias’s kingship by none other than his closest associates created a void in the administrative structure of the realm which demanded its reorganization and resulted in a completely new (re)distribution of political power among the homines novi, gathered around the king and the veteran, Nicholas.62 Despite his successful confrontation with the conspirators, the king had to concede significant rights to the nobility at the Buda Diet in September 1471. The most interesting point here is the king’s obligation to allot the border fortresses—​castra finitima—​(not fortresses in general, as is usually thought) to local Hungarian lords and not foreigners.63 The diet held seven years earlier listed Bosnia among the lands where such fortresses were located,64 but the sixth article of the conclusions of the 1471 diet does not. This difference was potentially important; either Bosnia was implicitly included in the partes inferiores of the realm and thus in the lands containing castra finitima65, which seems highly unlikely, or the king preserved his exclusive right to distribute the fortresses of Bosnia at his own will without restraint by obligations to the nobility. Either way, the conclusions of the diet not only could not have obstructed Nicholas’s further acquisition of border fortresses, the lands connected to them, and the associated offices and titles, but could even have been oriented towards creating a favourable legal context for him to assume such honours. One of the major reasons for the revolt, if not the most important (especially for the lower nobility), was Matthias’s rather lukewarm policy of defence against the Ottomans.66 Therefore, one of the issues that demanded attention at the Diet must have been the organization of an effective defence, demanded by the nobility despite the reduction of obligatory military activities granted to the very same group. Therefore, a compromise was needed that would reconcile the king’s quest for new baronial supporters, reinforce the king’s position by eliminating the very reason for the nobility’s dissatisfaction, and meet the demands related to defence. Two letters were sent, in 1471 and 1472, one by the Ragusans to the Neapolitan king, and the other by Nicholas to the Ragusans; both aptly reflect the context within which the relationship between the king and the nobility managed the bestowal of the kingship upon him. In the first letter, the Ragusans inform Ferrante of Naples that the king had made “the lord voivode” (Illustrissimo Signor Voyvoda) the king of Bosnia with, significantly, the consent of all the prelates and barons of the realm (con consenso de tuti e Prelati e Baroni).67 61  Bonfini, Rerum Ungaricarum Decades, 4:443. 62  Cf. János M. Bak, “Hungary: Crown and Estates,” in The New Cambridge Medieval History, vol. 7, ed. Cristopher Allmand (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 721–​22. 63  Ferencz Döry et  al., Decreta Regni Hungariae:  Gesetze und Verordnungen Ungarns 1458–​1490 (Budapest: Akadémiai kiadó, 1989), 194. 64  Ferencz Döry et al., Decreta Regni Hungariae, 144. 65  Ferencz Döry et al., Decreta Regni Hungariae, 194. 66  Bak, “Hungary: Crown and Estates,” 1998, 721; Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, 4:83–​84. 67  Vićentije Makušev, Monumenta historica slavorum Meridionalium vicinorumque populorum, 2 vols. (Warsaw: Štamparija Kraljevine Srbije, 1874–​82), 2:doc. 10, 95.

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The second letter contains Nicholas’s rather personal viewpoint on the whole issue. Here, he, through his emissary, informs the republic in a somewhat poetic manner that he was obliged to take on the task of governing and defending Bosnia by the perseverance of none other than the dominorum Baronum prelatorumque (lords barons and prelates, i.e., the royal council).68 With all this in mind, a matrix can be reconstructed that shows the introduction of a favourable socio-​spatial complex to manage the frontier, to be utilized by the king, the politically potent elite, and Nicholas, the steadfast baron.

The Solution to the Matrix While the detrition of a former political constellation, the anti-​baronial royal policy, and the attractiveness of the space available at the frontier resulted in its exploitation by both the king and Nicholas in the rearrangement of political power of 1465, the exploitation of 1471 is necessarily similar, but simultaneously noticeably distinct. Now, the king was compelled to focus again on the frontier and its veteran by the sudden loss of a group of close and crucial internal supporters, by the necessity to strengthen the kingship just when it is threatened from outside and from the north, and just when the nobility was demanding the strengthening of defence on the south. Bestowing the Bosnian kingship on Nicholas was neither a bribe nor a suitable reward, and it certainly was not an attempt to counterbalance the Ottoman-​dependent kings of Bosnia.69 It was a solution to a problem, a trump card for the king drawing on the frontier’s political significance and played by the king himself who, as discussed above, won the exclusive right to manage this territory by engaging in the counterattacks of 1463 and 1464. In other words, the king (a) exploited the frontier to present the nobility with a functioning defensive system which would not rely on their resources, but on Nicholas’s; (b)  he simultaneously relieved himself of the obligations to (parts of the) south and set himself free to tackle the northern issues; while (c) the attractiveness of the socio-​political link guaranteed Nicholas’s cooperation. Further, (d) the concession of not only the kingship, but also the banates of Slavonia and Croatia and the governorship of the estates of the Priory of Vrana, made the count almost the sole commander of that entire defensive sector and brought him close to the king and his administration; made him a member of the group of the king’s (new) baronial supporters.

A Link to the Crossroads

The multifarious contexts in which these events took place include the ever-​advancing Ottoman conquests, paradigms of political influence informed through the system 68  Thallóczy, Studien. Urkunden, 1914, doc. 91, 433–​34. 69  On such an interpretation, see Klaić, Povijest Hrvata, 4:85–​86. Several years after Nicholas’s promotion a similar view emerged about the Ottoman-​appointed Bosnian kings who were, allegedly, there only to defy Nicholas’s Hungarian-​appointed kingship, see Iván Nagy and Albert Nyáry, Monumenta Hungariae historica: Mátyás király korából (Budapest: Magyar Tudományos Akadémia, 1877), doc. 219, 316–​18.

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of so-​called Archiregnum Hungaricum,70 conflicts among major agents (Hungary, the Empire, the Ottomans, Venice, Naples, the papacy), the remains of the crusading ideology, religious syncretism(s), heterodoxies, and Catholic-​Orthodox tensions, the cultural, economic, and political currents which continuously sustained a star-​shaped structure of vectors of social and political relations, the variety of state-​ building concepts and theories of political authority, the differences in constructing and adjusting medieval models of economic production, political subjugation, and personal dependence apprehended through the prism of “betweenness.” All these only maintained a previously well-​established border (and frontier) character of medieval Balkans (or Southeast Europe, if you will) and particulary Bosnia–​a place truly in-​between and at the crossroads of Western and Eastern traditions and just as much between north and south. Such a characterstic, in this and in many other cases, was displayed in the form of conflicts over power and was reduced to the level of individuality in quite a specific event–​conflicts which were enabled once the frontier was created due to this land’s “liminality.” Historical heritage of the region certainly possessed a capacity to produce a frontier which would transfer its valuable assets to interested centres under certain circumstances. Once the space discussed here awoke its dormant “capabilities” through the downfall of the previous political structure, which in turn collapsed due to its liminality between the contesting extremes, a new structure of socio-​political relations based on the distribution of power could be introduced and manipulated.

70  On the concept of Archiregnum Hungaricum, see Sabolcs De Vajay, “Das ‘Archiregnum Hungaricum’ und seine Wappensymbolik in der Ideenwelt des Mittelalters,” in Überlieferung und Auftrag: Festschrift für Michael de Ferdinandy zum 60. Geburtstag, ed. Josef Gerhard Farkas (Wiesbaden: Pressler, 1969), 647–​67.

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Chapter 6

THE PAPACY AND MARRIAGE PRACTICES IN MEDIEVAL BOSNIA

Dženan Dautović* RELATIONS BETWEEN THE Bosnian state and the Roman Curia during the medieval period had several layers. There was a predominance of anti-​heretic discourse in which Bosnia was a pawn in a political game between the Hungarian Kingdom, its nearest neighbour, the main aspirant to its territories, and the papacy, which was seeking to protect its interests and needed a strong ally such as Hungary on the border with Orthodox Christianity. Therefore, Bosnia, its rulers, and its population were subjected to various threats of spiritual and military punishment, crusades were raised, and economic sanctions were enforced, which resulted in the eventual cessation of all official relations. This situation lasted until the 1440s, when the papacy became aware of the threat that the spread of the Ottoman Empire deep into Eastern and Central Europe was becoming a reality. From this point, anti-​Turkish discourse came to overshadow that against heretics and Bosnia became an important player in the plans to stop the expansion of the greatest enemy of Christian Europe, thus becoming a close ally of the Roman Curia. Despite this, the quality of relations between Bosnia and the curia did not change substantially. Political themes remained prevalent, with an increase of concern regarding the state of faith in the region. No detailed accounts exist telling whether the papacy had any influence on the areas of everyday life, urban and economic development or on the cultural and civilizational development of the Bosnian state. The only exception to this before and after 1440 was the issue of marriage. The peculiar treatment of marriage in medieval Bosnia intrigued the curia for a long time, primarily because the theological stance on marriage in the Christian world was still in the process of development and dogma was not fixed until the Tridentine council in the sixteenth century, when marriage became listed as one of the holy sacraments of the Roman church. During the early medieval period in regions dominated by Latin Christianity, marriage was mostly a secular matter and the church merely meddled in these customs from afar. Marriage existed on the brink of sacral life and was considered rather a process than *  Dženan Dautović recieved his PhD from the University of Sarajevo (2017) with a dissertation on the relations between the medieval Bosnian state and the Papacy during the Middle Ages. He is a non-​staff lecturer at the University of Bihać and history curator at the Regional Museum in Travnik. His research focuses on the relations between the papacy and the Balkan states, religious life in medieval Bosnia, the influence of ruling ideologies on the development of historiography about the medieval period, and the historical development of the game of chess. He was one of editors of Codex Diplomaticus Regni Bosnae (2018).

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an event.1 Only when the kingdoms turned sacred, because of the need of the ruling class to have divine recognition of their position, did a slow but progressive sacralization of marriage begin. Taking advantage of the fact that this made them more relevant for the marital ceremony and the assessment of the validity of a marriage, Catholic church introduced two requirements for the legal validity of a marriage: “the evangelical law concerning one sole wife” and a strict prohibition of wedding a cousin within the seventh degree of consanguinity.2 Thus, marriage began to be regulated through canon laws rooted in a mixture of Roman law, Judaism, early Christianity, and non-​Roman traditions in the West; the governing principles for centuries to come were those of Pope Alexander III (r. 1159–​1181).3 Some of the marriage cases when the curia intervened in medieval Bosnia were familiar situations when potential spouses were in close consanguinty and broke Alexander III’s principle. These cases were settled rapidly and through the well-​established process of granting papal dispensations. Some other marital customs, however, which were firmly embodied in Bosnian medieval society, caused the papacy far greater problems with no real solutions. The Bosnian style of marriage, an ancient custom widespread among all three Christian confessions in medieval Bosnia, was in direct conflict with the most important of the aformentioned principles: Any Christian man was allowed to marry any Christian woman, … if neither had been previously married to someone else who was still living. The curia tried to eradicate this practice through the work of the Bosnian Franciscan vicariate, which was the only Catholic organization operating in the Bosnian medieval state, but their influence was not that effective, so this custom survived even after the Bosnian Kingdom ceased to exist in 1463.

Papal Dispensation for Bosnian Marriages The development of canon law and the attitude of the Roman church towards marriage in general was a long and gradual process. Three pivotal documents or resolutions can be singled out as the most influential for this development: the rules of Pope Alexander III, the document Summa de Matrimonio by Tancredo of Bologna (