Banate of Bosnia

Who rules

Name

Kulin

Title

Ban of Bosnia (banus Bosnae; in his own Slavonic charter 'ban bosanski')

Since

About 1180. A papal legate's letter of 1180 already greets 'Culin magno bano Bosnae', the first record of him (FMG, citing the letter of the subdeacon Theobald sent by Alexander III).

Born

not pinned

Family

Origins not recorded. His sister married Miroslav, prince of Hum and brother of the Serbian grand prince Stefan Nemanja; Miroslav died about 1198 and his widow lives at her brother's court (FMG). His wife's name is not in the contemporary record (later works call her Vojislava). One son is known, who went to the Hungarian court in April 1203; later tradition names him Stjepan (Stephen Kulinić), ban after his father. Age not known.

Confidence

high

FMG Medieval Lands, Bosnia (the 1180 letter, the charter of 29 August 1189, Vukan's letter of September 1199, the council of April 1203); English Wikipedia (Ban Kulin; Charter of Ban Kulin; Banate of Bosnia; Bosnian Church); Fine, The Early Medieval Balkans and The Bosnian Church, as cited there.

Overlord

The king of Hungary (Emeric), whose kings have styled themselves kings of Rama since the 1130s. The overlordship is nominal: no Hungarian officer or garrison is known in central Bosnia. Before 1180 Bosnia had been under the Byzantine emperor Manuel I (from 1167).

What the realm holds

• Bosnia proper: the upper and middle Bosna valley with Vrhbosna (the Sarajevo field), the Visoko basin, the Lašva, the Fojnica and Lepenica country and Rama (Prozor) at the head of the Neretva: the ban's own land (Ban Kulin).
• Not yet his: Usora on the lower Bosna and the Usora rivers, and Soli round the salt springs of Tuzla. The Hrvatska enciklopedija dates Usora's entry into Bosnia to about 1204 (it is first named in a document in 1225); in 1200 the two counties stand under their own counts in the Hungarian crown's sphere (Usora and Soli, not pinned).
• The eastern hills toward the Drina, which the Byzantine historian Kinnamos gives as Bosnia's border with Serbia (extent in 1200 not pinned).
• Not his on 1 January 1200 as far as the sources show: Hum (Zahumlje) on the Neretva (outside: his late brother-in-law Miroslav's land, now under Miroslav's son Prince Peter), the Croatian counties of Hlivno, Duvno and the Pliva (Croatian crown, cro), and the Drina valley at Foča and Višegrad (Serbia).

How it was acquired

Kulin succeeded to a banate held before him by Borić (ban in the 1150s and early 1160s, a Hungarian vassal who disappears from the record after the Hungarian succession war of 1163). Bosnia passed under Byzantine overlordship in 1167 and Kulin threw it off about 1180 with Hungarian help.

Allies and rivals

Ragusa is his trading partner (1189 charter). Hum was allied by marriage (Miroslav, who fought beside Kulin and Nemanja in 1183); after Miroslav's death about 1198 the Hum nobles chose his son Peter (Petar) as prince over his brother Andrew (Andrija), who went into exile in Raška with the Serbian grand prince's backing, and Duke Andrew of Hungary held Hum, at least its land between the Cetina and the Neretva, in 1198-1199. Vukan of Dioclea, Nemanja's eldest son and rival of his brother the grand prince Stefan, is his accuser.

King Emeric is his overlord and potential judge; Archbishop Bernard of Split is hostile.

The realm that morning

Kulin rules Bosnia in peace on 1 January 1200. No war, raid or truce is recorded on his borders that winter. His suzerain Emeric has just won back Croatia and Dalmatia from his brother and has his ban, Benedict, in the kingdom next door; Rome has Vukan's charges of September 1199 in hand but has not yet acted. Kulin's sister, Miroslav's widow, lives at his court.

Wealth

Cattle, horses, hides, wax, honey, timber and furs, carried to Ragusa and the coast; salt bought from the coast and from the springs of Soli (Tuzla), just beyond his northern border; the tolls of the routes down the Neretva to the sea, which pass through Hum. The great silver and lead mines of Bosnia (Srebrenica, Olovo, Fojnica, Kreševo) are worked from the late 13th and 14th centuries with Saxon miners: not yet. No Bosnian coin is struck.

Military

The ban's retinue and the levies of the counties; fortified hills rather than stone castles of the later kind. In 1183 Kulin led his men with the Hungarian and Serbian armies against the Byzantines to Belgrade, Braničevo, Niš and Sofia. No numbers are recorded.

Threats

• The heresy charge: Vukan's letter of September 1199 invites the pope to send the Hungarian king against him; Vukan, rival of his brother the grand prince Stefan, would seize Serbia with Hungarian help in 1202 (later).
• Hungarian intervention through Split and the ban of Croatia, with Rome's blessing.
• The fight over Hum on his southern border after Miroslav's death.
• The struggle between Vukan and Stefan in Serbia spilling over the Drina.

Court and officers

The ban rules through counts (župani) of the counties and his household; the 1189 charter was written by Radoje, 'the ban's scribe'. No other officer is named for 1199-1200. The country has no towns in the Dalmatian sense: its centres are the ban's residences, fortified hills and market places, none of them named in a document of 1200.

Church

Bosnia has a Catholic bishop of its own, a local man chosen in Bosnia and sent to the archbishop of Ragusa only for consecration; his name in 1200 is not pinned. Split (Archbishop Bernard, with Emeric behind him) wants the see under Split and Hungary; Vukan obtained the raising of Bar (Antivari) to an archbishopric in 1199, and Bar too claims Bosnia (FMG). Beside the bishop stands the native religious life later called the Bosnian Church: monks and lay brothers who called themselves Christians (krstjani), with priors, whose orthodoxy Rome doubts. campaign notes: 'In 1199 Vukan of Serbia accused Ban Kulin of sheltering heretics' (Part 6 H; Part 8, 5).

Treaties

Charter to Ragusa, 29 August 1189 (free trade and residence for Ragusans, no toll). Alliance with Béla III and Nemanja in 1183 (spent).

Wars and feuds

None in force on 1 January 1200 as far as the sources show.

What the year holds

What happened next, if nothing in play changes it. Each event carries what it depends on and what would stop it.

In 1200

1. Winter and spring 1200 (not pinned)Vukan's charges and Split's complaint are weighed at Rome.Depends on: Innocent III's attention to the Adriatic. Stopped by: Kulin approaching Rome first.
2. 11 October 1200Innocent III writes to King Emeric that the archbishop of Split has driven many Patarenes out of Split and Trogir and that Kulin has received them as Catholics; the king is to find out the truth and, if Kulin will not drive them out, to expel him and seize his goods.Depends on: The charges standing and the brothers' peace leaving Emeric free. Stopped by: Kulin expelling the refugees, or a Hungarian war elsewhere.

Later, on the likely course

1. 1202Kulin answers that he holds the refugees for Catholics, offers to send some to Rome and to receive a papal envoy; Innocent sends his chaplain John of Casamari.Depends on: Kulin choosing to negotiate. Stopped by: A Hungarian invasion first.
2. 8 April 1203 (later)At Bilino Polje (near Zenica) the priors of the Bosnian Christians abjure their errors before the legate in Kulin's presence; on 30 April 1203, on the king's island (Csepel) in the Danube, Kulin's son and two priors present the abjuration to King Emeric.Depends on: The legate's mission.
3. About 1204 (later)Kulin dies; about the same time Usora (and Soli) come into the banate (Hrvatska enciklopedija).Depends on: Nature; the ban's pull on the northern counties.

Places of note

• Visoko basin (Mile, Biskupići): The heart of the banate: the Kulin plate, recording a church Kulin built, was found at Biskupići here; in the 14th century the bans held their assemblies and were buried at Mile. Kulin's own residence in 1200 is not pinned.
• Bilino Polje: The field near Zenica where the abjuration of 8 April 1203 was made.
• Vrhbosna: The county of the upper Bosna (the Sarajevo field).
• Soli: The salt springs and county of Soli, beyond the northern border in 1200 (Usora and Soli).

Where the sources disagree

• The assignment puts Usora and Soli in Kulin's banate. English Wikipedia (Banate of Bosnia) says the banate expanded to them without a date; the Hrvatska enciklopedija (Usora) says Usora entered Bosnia about 1204 and is first documented in 1225. By the date rule they are drawn outside the banate for 1 January 1200 (Usora and Soli).
• The English Wikipedia article on the banate dates Vukan's accusation to 1203; FMG gives Vukan's letter as September 1199, which agrees with the campaign notes (1199).
• Wikipedia gives the Bilino Polje meeting as 6 April 1203 in one article and the abjuration document as 8 April 1203 in another; the brief's 8 April 1203 is the date of the document.
• The English Wikipedia article on Kulin says Vukan's 1199 letter mentioned heretics expelled by Bernard of Split; the expulsion from Split and Trogir is in Innocent's letter of 11 October 1200. It cannot be used to prove that Bernard was already archbishop of Split before 1200 (GM ruling 7).

Evidence: Kulin, his charter and the heresy affair are well documented in papal letters and the Ragusan archive. His lands, officers, residences and the bounds of Usora, Soli and the east are thin: no Bosnian charter of 1199-1200 names them.

On the map: Bosnia's borders in 1200 are not documented. The core follows the medieval county names; the eastern hills and the Vrbas and Pliva country to the west are guesses. Usora and Soli are drawn apart (Usora and Soli), since they joined the banate only about 1204; the Sava bank east of Šamac and the Semberija are left unanchored.

Primary sources for this realm

Chronicles, registers, sagas and inscriptions written in or near 1200 that cover this entry. Each has its own page with editions, translations and where to read it.

• History of the bishops of Salona and Split, by Thomas the Archdeacon, Thomas of Split (about 1266). Written two generations later by a Split churchman born about 1200. Read online
• The Deeds of the Hungarians, by the Anonymous Notary of King Béla, Anonymus (P. magister) (about 1200 to 1210, the date disputed). Not a record of events but a picture of the kingdom's nobility and geography as a courtier of about 1200 wished to see it: the clans and their lands, the castles and counties, the Vlachs, Cumans and other peoples of the Carpathian basin, all projected back onto the conquest. Read online
• Charters of the kingdom of Croatia, Dalmatia and Slavonia, volume 2, 1101 to 1200 (documents of 1101 to 1200, edited 1904). The Croatian and Dalmatian charters to 1200: the acts of Duke Andrew as lord of Croatia and Dalmatia (1197 to 1204), the Hungarian kings' grants, the Templars and the bishops of Zagreb, Split, Zadar and Trogir, the communal statutes of the coastal towns, and the papal letters of 1200 to Emeric about Ban Kulin of Bosnia and heresy. Read online
• Hungarian royal charters: Fejér's Codex diplomaticus and Szentpétery's critical calendar of the Árpád kings (documents of the 11th to 13th centuries; Fejér published 1829 to 1844, Szentpétery vol. 1 in 1923). The documentary base for Hungary in 1200: King Emeric's grants to Pannonhalma, the bishops, the Templars and Hospitallers, Duke Andrew's acts in Croatia and Dalmatia, and the papal letters of 1200 to Emeric about his brother's rebellion and about heresy in Bosnia. Read online