History Of Bosnia And Herzegovina (958–1463)

The history of Bosnia and Herzegovina in the Middle Ages refers to the time period between the Roman era and the 15th-century Ottoman conquest. The Early Middle Ages in the Western Balkans saw the region reconquered from barbarians (Ostrogoths) by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (), followed by raids and migrations carried out by Slavic peoples in the 6th and 7th centuries. The first mention of a distinct Bosnian region comes from the 10th-century Byzantine text ''De Administrando Imperio''. By the late 9th and early 10th century, Latin priests had Christianized much of Bosnia, with some areas remaining unconverted. In the High Middle Ages, Bosnia experienced economic stability and peace under the Ban Kulin who ruled over Banate of Bosnia from 1180 to 1204 and strengthened its ties with the Republic of Ragusa and with Venice. The Kingdom of Bosnia emerged in the Late Middle Ages (1377). The kingdom faced internal and external conflicts, eventually falling under Ottoman rule in the late 15th and early 16th centuries.

Early Middle Ages

The western Balkans had been reconquered from "barbarians" by Byzantine Emperor Justinian (r. 527–565). Sclaveni (Slavs) raided the Western Balkans, including Bosnia, in the 6th and 7th century. According to ''De Administrando Imperio'' written in the 10th century, these were followed by Croats and Serbs who arrived in the late 620s and early 630s, the Croats invited by Emperor Heraclius to fend off an invasion by the Pannonian Avars, and both had by this time settled West and East of Bosnia. Croats "settled in area roughly corresponding to modern Croatia, and probably also including most of Bosnia proper, apart from the eastern strip of the Drina valley" while Serbs "corresponding to modern south-western Serbia (later known as Raška), and gradually extended their rule into the territories of Duklja and Hum".

Early medieval polity

The ''De Administrando Imperio'' (DAI; ca. 960) mentions Bosnia (/Bosona) as a "small/little land" (or "small country"), inhabited by Slavs along with Zahumlje and Travunija (both with territory in modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina). This is the first mention of a distinct Bosnian region. Historians have established that the medieval Bosnian polity was situated, broadly, around the Bosna river, between its upper and the middle course: in the south to north direction between the line formed by its source and the Prača river in the south, and the line formed by the Drinjača river and the Krivaja river (from Olovo, downstream to town of Maglaj), and Vlašić mountain in the north, and in the west to east direction between the Rama- Vrbas line stretching from the Neretva to Pliva in the west, and the Drina in the east, which is a wider area of central and eastern modern-day Bosnia and Herzegovina.

By the late 9th and early 10th century, Bosnia was mostly Christianized by Latin priests from the Dalmatian coastal towns, though remote pockets remained unreached. If ''DAIs ''kastra oikoumena'' does not designate inhabited towns, but ecclesiastical centers instead, the existence of such centers could be evidence it was an independent state before 822, as theorized by late Tibor Živković. After the East–West Schism (1054) the bishopric of Bosnia was Roman Catholic under jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Split (since the 12th century under Roman Catholic Diocese of Dubrovnik

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