Paweł Cholewicki THE ROLE OF THE FRANCISCANS IN THE KINGDOM OF BOSNIA DURING THE REIGN OF KING STJEPAN TOMAŠ (1443-1461) MA Thesis in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. Central European University Budapest CEU eTD Collection November 2017 THE ROLE OF THE FRANCISCANS IN THE KINGDOM OF BOSNIA DURING THE REIGN OF KING STJEPAN TOMAŠ (1443-1461) by Paweł Cholewicki (Poland) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ Chair, Examination Committee ____________________________________________ Thesis Supervisor ____________________________________________ Examiner CEU eTD Collection ____________________________________________ Examiner Budapest Month YYYY THE ROLE OF THE FRANCISCANS IN THE KINGDOM OF BOSNIA DURING THE REIGN OF KING STJEPAN TOMAŠ (1443-1461) by Paweł Cholewicki (Poland) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ External Reader CEU eTD Collection Budapest November 2017 THE ROLE OF THE FRANCISCANS IN THE KINGDOM OF BOSNIA DURING THE REIGN OF KING STJEPAN TOMAŠ (1443-1461) by Paweł Cholewicki (Poland) Thesis submitted to the Department of Medieval Studies, Central European University, Budapest, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Master of Arts degree in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies. Accepted in conformance with the standards of the CEU. ____________________________________________ External Supervisor CEU eTD Collection Budapest November 2017 I, the undersigned, Paweł Cholewicki, candidate for the MA degree in Comparative History, with a specialization in Interdisciplinary Medieval Studies declare herewith that the present thesis is exclusively my own work, based on my research and only such external information as properly credited in notes and bibliography. I declare that no unidentified and illegitimate use was made of the work of others, and no part of the thesis infringes on any person’s or institution’s copyright. I also declare that no part of the thesis has been submitted in this form to any other institution of higher education for an academic degree. Budapest, ___. January __________________________ Signature CEU eTD Collection Abstract My thesis aims to understand the role of the Franciscans during the reign of the penultimate king of Bosnia, Stjepan Tomaš, whose reign was a period of major progress of Catholicism. This work problematizes activities of the Franciscans of the Bosnian vicary across their missionary action, the Observant reform, their role at the royal court, the organization of an anti-Ottoman crusade and the frequent political reconfigurations of the mid-fifteenth century. The reign of the Stjepan Tomaš was essentially the time of the Franciscan triumph over the heretical Bosnian Church, the traditional spiritual pillar of political power in Bosnia. The spheres of life that these two organizations were competing to dominate were fully taken over by the friars and after a phase of gradual decline, the king ultimately expelled the Bosnian Church. The papacy also included Bosnia in an anti-Ottoman front, giving the friars the floor to present their ruler as an exemplary Christian and to preach the crusade. At the same time, the expansion of the Observant movement contributed to partition of the large Bosnian vicary among the local, Apulian, Dalmatian and Hungarian Observant communities. The conflict between them and their Observant superiors went on during the entire reign of Tomaš and brought together the monarchy and the vicary. The thesis discusses the source material issued during the crisis, and this material is a great help in understanding the lifestyle and aspirations of the friars of the Bosnian vicary. CEU eTD Collection i Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor Gábor Klaniczay whose continued support allowed for completion of this thesis. Special thanks to Zsuzsanna Reed for her help with my drafts as well as her assistance during the academic year. I am also grateful to organizers and participants of the summer school in Jajce 2016: Demitologizacija nacija i identiteta – Bosna u evropskom srednjem vijeku. My stay in Jajce was the time that allowed me to structure my knowledge about the Bosnian Middle Ages. Here I would like to thank Dženan Dautović for his irreplaceable help with the literature. I also would like to thank Dubravko Lovrenović for an opportunity to personally and informally inquire the author of books and articles that I read. His death stroke me during the writing process of this thesis and left me in a great grief. Last but not least, I would like to thank all my CEU professors and colleges who on different occasions helped me with sources, literature, language and more during my research in Budapest. You all contributed to the completion of this thesis. CEU eTD Collection ii Table of contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1 - The Franciscan mission to Bosnia before the reign of Tomaš .................................. 9 1.1 The beginnings of the confessional controversy ...………………………………………..9 1.2 The Kotromanići between the Bosnian Church and the vicary …………………………..19 1.3 The Vicary between Observant nonconformism and Missionary pragmatism: James of the Marches in Bosnia (1432-1438) ………………………………………………………………… 29 Chapter 2 - The reign of Stjepan Tomaš in Bosnia. .................................................................... 37 2.1 The first difficult years of rule, the progress of Catholicism, and the Coronation controversy ……………………………………………………………………………………………………37 2.2 An alleged conflict between Tomaš and the Franciscans ………………………………..49 2.3 The Ottoman expansion and Kosača’s war against Dubrovnik …………………………..55 2.4 The fall of Smederevo and the new confessional reconfigurations ………………………58 Chapter 3: The Bosnian vicary during the reign of Stjepan Tomaš. ........................................... 64 3.1 Bosnian vicary between Tomaš, the papacy and the Observant superioirs ………………64 3.2 Franciscans and the royal court of Stjepan Tomaš ………………………………………75 3.3 Bosnia as Antemurale Christianitatis, Tomaš as miles Christi and the Franciscans ……. 86 CEU eTD Collection Conclusion .................................................................................................................................... 95 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................. 99 iii List of Figures, Tables or Illustrations Figure 1 Map of thirty-nine Franciscan convents/churches/houses in pre-Ottoman Bosnia. ....... 24 Figure 2 Bosnia in the mid-fifteenth century. …………………………………..……………….39 Figure 3 Two coins issued by King Stjepan Tomaš. ………………………………………......…48 CEU eTD Collection iv List of Abbreviations AB Acta Bosnae BF Bullarium franciscanum CD Codex diplomaticus Regni Croatiae, Dalmatiae et Slavoniae DAD Drzavni arhiv u Dubrovniku [State archive of Dubrovnik]. Acta Consili Rogatorum JAZU Jugoslavenska akademija znanosti i umjetnosti MH Vetera monumenta historica Hungariam sacram illusstrantia MSM Vetera monumenta Slavorum meridionalium historiam illustrantia CEU eTD Collection v Introduction The Franciscan order has been present in Bosnia for over seven centuries, and if one wants to look for any institution with continuity from the Middle Ages up until present in this country, the friars are the only such example. The order outlived the medieval Bosnian kingdom, the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian rule and two Yugoslav states over the turmoils of Bosnian history. The friars managed to adapt to a number of political reconfigurations. In many ways, Franciscans influenced Bosnian culture and at the same time were themselves suffused with its culture. The reign of Stjepan Tomaš in Bosnia (?-1461, king 1443-1461, also reffered to as Stephen Thomas in the English literature), followed by shorter reign of his son, Stjepan Tomašević (1461-1463) represents at first sight, very favorable (if not the most favorable) times for the Franciscan ministry in the history of this country. There was no moment when Bosnia on its own had a better relationship with the papacy. Indeed, the king and his wife, Queen Catherine of Bosnia (bos. Kraljica Katarina Kosača; 1425-1478), favored the Catholic Church in their realm. My thesis aims to understand the role of the Franciscans during this time by problematizing their activities across their missionary action, their role at the court, the organization of an anti-Ottoman front and the frequent political reconfigurations of the mid- fifteenth century, a time when history indeed “accelerated” and led to fall of the Kotromanić dynasty and the Bosnian kingdom. I will reveal the challenges that the Bosnian Franciscans had to face by outlining the general political difficulties Stjepan Tomaš had to overcome and CEU